Wallace Stevens’s magnificent poem, “Sunday Morning,” seemed just right for this Easter Sunday. It was first published in Poetry Magazine in 1915, in an abbreviated form at the request of founder and then-editor Harriet Monroe. Stevens later restored the cut stanzas in 1923 when he included it in his first book-length collection, Harmonium. The link above will take you to the entire poem. If you scroll down, you can also find a link to the abbreviated form in which this poem made its 1915 debut. The Poetry Foundation website also has a solid bio of Wallace Stevens and the texts of many others of his distinctive poems. In case you haven’t read his “Sunday Morning” in a while, here are the first five lines, the first sonorous sentence:

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.

Here at 114 Winona Street, in April, we have the complacencies of flannel pajamas and the black-and-white freedom of the Maltipoo to accompany our late coffee and oranges on this Sunday morning. I am pondering the history, psychology, and semiotics of clothing under supremely well-written treatise by novelist Linda Grant called The Thoughtful Dresser: The Art of Adornment, the Pleasure of Shopping, and Why Clothes Matter, which is especially delicious to do in my current state of L.L. Bean-inflected dishabille. Soon, I will be dressed and in the kitchen to dress up in Easter finery the top of a key lime pie I made yesterday, a special dish for Tim and me to share in the garden later with a friend.

Life is good! Today, I can feel the renewal symbolized by Easter traditions.

Context for My Poem, “Flower Power Pop Up Shop”:

Happy Easter! LESLIE