Diane Ackerman

Apes do it. Scorpions do it. Fireflies do it,

Apes do it. Scorpions do it. Fireflies do it,

Look in the mirror. The face that pins you with its double gaze reveals a chastening secret.

Look in the mirror. The face that pins you with its double gaze reveals a chastening secret.

Smell brings to mind... a family dinner of pot roast and sweet potatoes during a myrtle-mad August in a Midwestern read more

Smell brings to mind... a family dinner of pot roast and sweet potatoes during a myrtle-mad August in a Midwestern town. Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years.

I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived
just the length read more

I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived
just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as
well.

A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language, that can only be patched together and hinted at read more

A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language, that can only be patched together and hinted at metaphorically.