Sand from the Gobi Desert blows across Saskatchewan, becomes the irritation in an eye. So say the scientists who separate the smallest pollen from its wings of grit, identify the origin and name. You have to wonder where the dust from these fields ends up: Zimbabwe, Fiji, on the row of shoes outside a mosque in Istanbul, on the green rise of a...Learn More

"All men have stars," the prince said, “but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travellers, the stars are guides. For others, they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others who are scholars, they are problems. For my businessman, they were wealth. But all these stars are silent. You -- you alone -- will...Learn More

On a long flight, you settle into a routine of work, observing the Earth, taking photographs and keeping in touch with your loved ones via email and short phone calls, when the antenna is pointed at the Tracking, Data, Relay Satellite System. Sometime around the three-to-four-month point, you start thinking that you wouldn't mind going home. But,...Learn More

[Verse 1] Lullay, lullay, my little tiny child Bye bye, lully, lullay Lullay, lulllay, my tiny child Bye bye, lully, lullay [Verse 2] O sisters too, what may we do For to preserve this day? This poor youngling for whom we sing "Bye bye, lully, lullay?" [Verse 3] Herod the king, in his raging Chargèd he hath this day His men of might in his own...Learn More

There are stars whose radiance is visible on Earth though they have long been extinct. There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world, even though they are no longer among the living. These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark. They light the way for humankind....Learn More

Now in the west, the slender moon lies low, And now Orion glimmers through the trees, Clearing the Earth with even pace and slow. And now the stately, moving Pleiades In that soft, infinite darkness overhead Hang jewel-wise upon a silver thread. And all the lonelier stars that have their place, Calm lamps within the distant southern sky, And the...Learn More

When the sun comes back and the first quail calls, Follow the Drinking Gourd. For the old man is a-waiting for to carry you to freedom, If you follow the Drinking Gourd. The river bank makes a mighty fine road, The dead trees show you the way. And it's left foot, peg foot, travelling on Follow the Drinking Gourd. The river ends between two...Learn More

September 10th: The whole of the French inhabitants were drawn together in one body, their young men as directed to the left. I then ordered the prisoners to march, but they all answered that they could not go without their fathers. I told them that was a word New England did not understand, for that the King's command was to me absolute and...Learn More

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of why my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things. I go and lie down where the wood drake rests his beauty on the water, and...Learn More