Sunday
Oct212018
Sunday, October 21, 2018 at 04:44AM
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L o a d B e a r i n g
Magnolia Cemetery
Augusta, Georgia
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Once I was straying in sin's dark valley
No hope within could I see
They searched thro' Heaven and found a Savior
To save a poor lost soul like me.
O what a Savior! O hallelujah!
His heart was broken on Calvary
His hands were nail-scarred; His side was riven
He gave His life blood for even me.
He left the Father with all His riches
With calmness sweet and serene
Came down from Heaven and gave His life blood
To make the vilest sinner clean.
Death's chilly waters I'll soon cross over
His hand will lead me safe o'er
I'll join the chorus in that bright city
And sing up there forevermore:
O what a Savior! O Hallelujah!
His heart was broken on Calvary
His hands were nail-scarred; His side was riven
He gave His life blood for even me.
= Marvin P. Dalton =
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Looking for that blessed hope,
and the glorious appearing of the great God
and our Saviour Jesus Christ.
Titus 2:13
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Happy Sunday
Saturday
Oct202018
If the grave come slow
Saturday, October 20, 2018 at 04:44AM
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O v e r T h e H i l l
Rose Hill Cemetery
Macon, Georgia
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If I may have it, when it's dead,
I'l be contented -- so --
If just as soon as Breath is out
It shall belong to me --
Until they lock it in the Grave,
'Tis Bliss I cannot weigh --
For tho' they lock Thee in the Grave,
Myself -- can own the key --
Think of it Lover! I and Thee
Permitted -- face to face to be --
After a Life -- a Death -- We'll say --
For Death was That --
And this -- is Thee --
I'll tell Thee All -- how Bald it grew --
How Midnight felt, at first -- to me --
How all the Clocks stopped in the World --
And Sunshine pinched me -- 'Twas so cold --
Then how the Grief got sleepy -- some --
As if my Soul were deaf and dumb --
Just making signs -- across -- to Thee --
That this way -- thou could'st notice me --
I'll tell you how I tried to keep
A smile, to show you, when this Deep
All Waded -- We look back for Play,
At those Old Times -- in Calvary.
Forgive me, if the Grave come slow --
For Coveting to look at Thee --
Forgive me, if to stroke thy frost
Outvisions Paradise!
= Emily Dickinson =
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Happy Saturday
Friday
Oct192018
The ear that has listened enough
Friday, October 19, 2018 at 04:44AM
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W i n g D i n g
Elmwood Cemetery
Charlotte, North Carolina
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"Nothing Is Really Hard but to Be Real -- "
-- Now let me tell you why I said that.
Try to put yourself into an experimental mood.
Stop right here and try to review everything
you felt about that line. Did you accept it
as wisdom? as perception? as a gem, maybe,
for your private anthology of Telling Truths?
My point is that the line is fraudulent.
A blurb. It is also relevant that I know
at least a dozen devoutly intellectual
journals that will gladly buy any fourteen
such lines plus a tinny rhyme scheme and
compound the felony by calling that a sonnet.
-- Very well, then, I am a cynic. Though, for
the record, let me add that I am a cynic with
one wife, three children, and other investments.
Whoever heard of a cynic carrying a
pack for the fun of it?
It won't really do
I'm something else.
Were I to dramatize myself,
I’d say I am a theologian who keeps meeting
the devil as a master of make-up, and that
among his favorite impersonations he appears,
often as not, as the avuncular old ham who winks,
tugs his ear, and utters such gnomic garbage
as: “Nothing is really hard but to be real.”
I guess what the devil gets out of this -- if he is
the fool he seems to be -- is the illusion of
imitating heaven. If, on the other hand, he is no
fool, then his deceptions are carefully practiced
and we are all damned. For all of us, unless
we are carefully warned, will accept such noises
as examples of the sound an actual mind makes.
Why are we damned then? -- I am glad you asked that.
It is, as we say to flatter oafs, a good question.
(Meaning, usually, the one we were fishing for. Good.)
In any case. I may now pretend to think out the answer
I have memorized:
We are damned for accepting as
the sound a man makes, the sound of something else,
thereby losing the truth of our own sound.
How do we
learn our own sound? (Another good question. Thank you.)
-- by listening to what men there have been and are
-- by reading more poets than jurists (without scorning
Law) -- and by reading what we read not for its
oration, but for its resemblance to that sound in which
we best hear most of what a man is. Get that sound into
your heads and you will know what tones to exclude.
-- if there is enough exclusion in you to keep the
pie plates out of the cymbals, the tin horns out of
the brass section, the baling wire out of the strings,
and thereby to let the notes roll full to the ear
that has listened enough to be a listener.
As for the devil -- when he has finished every impersonation,
the best he will have been able to accomplish
is only that sound which is exactly not the music.
= John Ciardi =
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Happy Friday
Thursday
Oct182018
Never looking back
Thursday, October 18, 2018 at 04:44AM
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T o T h e T r a i n e d E y e
Graceland Cemetery
Chicago, Illinois
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WHERE BABIES COME FROM
Many are from the Maldives,
southwest of India, and must begin
collecting shells almost immediately.
The larger ones may prefer coconuts.
Survivors move from island to island
hopping over one another and never
looking back. After the typhoons
have had their pick, and the birds of prey
have finished with theirs, the remaining few
must build boats, and in this, of course,
they can have no experience, they build
their boats of palm leaves and vines.
Once the work is completed, they lie down,
thoroughly exhausted and confused,
and a huge wave washes them out to sea.
And that is the last they see of one another.
In their dreams Mama and Papa
are standing on the shore
for what seems like an eternity,
and it is almost always the wrong shore.
southwest of India, and must begin
collecting shells almost immediately.
The larger ones may prefer coconuts.
Survivors move from island to island
hopping over one another and never
looking back. After the typhoons
have had their pick, and the birds of prey
have finished with theirs, the remaining few
must build boats, and in this, of course,
they can have no experience, they build
their boats of palm leaves and vines.
Once the work is completed, they lie down,
thoroughly exhausted and confused,
and a huge wave washes them out to sea.
And that is the last they see of one another.
In their dreams Mama and Papa
are standing on the shore
for what seems like an eternity,
and it is almost always the wrong shore.
= James Tate =
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Happy Thursday
Wednesday
Oct172018
In careless order
Wednesday, October 17, 2018 at 04:44AM
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H a v i n g D o n e A l l
Eastern Cemetery
Louisville, Kentucky
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Summer, goodbye.
The days grow shorter.
Cranes walk the fairway now
In careless order.
They step so gradually
Toward the distant green
They might be brushstrokes
Animating a screen.
Mist canopies
The water hazard.
Nearby, the little flag lifts,
Brave but frazzled.
Under sad clouds
Two white-capped golfers
Stand looking off, dreamy and strange,
Like young girls in Balthus.
= Donald Justice =
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Happy Wednesday