As a flower, as a fire

>>>>++<<<<

A p r i l   L o v e

Old Sheldon Church Ruins

Yemassee, South Carolina

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Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten,
Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold,
Let it be forgotten for ever and ever,
Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.

If anyone asks, say it was forgotten
Long and long ago,
As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed footfall
In a long forgotten snow.

> Sara Teasdale <

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Happy Wednesday

The heart must pause to breathe

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C h a i n e d

Vintage Wedding Dress Detail

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

So, we'll go no more a-roving

So late into the night,

Though the heart be still as loving,

And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,

And the soul wears out the breast,

And the heart must pause to breathe,

And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,

And the day returns too soon,

Yet we'll go no more a-roving

By the light of the moon.

> George Gordon, Lord Byron <

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Happy Tuesday

Hold life like a face

>>>>++<<<<

T w o   B y   T w o

Green Mount Cemetery

Baltimore, Maryland

>>>>++<<<<

The Thing Is

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.

> Ellen Bass <

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Happy Monday

One going heavenward

>>>>++<<<<

A   H a n d   I n   T h i s

Laurelgrove Cemetery

Rock Hill, South Carolina

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Slowly the evening puts on the garments
Held for it by a rim of ancient trees;
You watch: and the lands divide from you,
One going heavenward, one that falls;

And leave you, to neither quite belonging,
Not quite so dark as the house sunk in silence,
Not quite so surely pledging the eternal
As that which grows star each night and climbs --

And leave you (inexpressibly to untangle)
Your life afraid and huge and ripening,
So that it, now bound in and now embracing,
Grows alternately stone in you and star.

> Rainer Maria Rilke <

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Happy Tuesday

Lashed to the grid

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A m   I   B l u e

Downtown

North, South Carolina

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Dream Of The Phone Booth

My story’s told in the mis-dial’s
hesitance & anonyms of crank calls,

in the wires’ electric elegy
& glass expanded by the moth

flicker of filament. I call a past
that believes I’m dead. On the concrete

here, you can see where
I stood in rust, lashed to the grid.

On the corner of Pine & Idlewood,
I’ve seen a virgin on her knees

before the angel
of a streetlight & Moses stealing the Times

to build a fire. I’ve seen the city fly
right through a memory & not break

its neck. But the street still needs a shrine,
so return my ringing heart & no one

to answer it, a traveler whose only destination is
waywardness. Forgive us

our apologies, the bees in our bells, the receiver’s
grease, days horizoned

into words. If we stand
monument to anything,

it’s that only some voices belong
to men.

> Emilia Phillips <

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Happy Monday

Just beyond the shining river

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D o n e   D e a l

Green-Wood Cemetery

Brooklyn, New York

>>>>++<<<<

There's a land beyond the river

That we call the sweet forever

And we only reach that shore by faith's decree

One by one we'll gain the portals

There to dwell with the immortals

When they ring those golden bells for you and me.

Don't you hear the bells now ringing?

Don't you hear the angels singing?

It's a glory hallelujah jubilee!

In that far-off sweet forever

Just beyond the shining river

When they ring the golden bells for you and me.

We shall know no sin or sorrow

In that haven of tomorrow

When our barque shall sail beyond the silver sea

We shall only know the blessing

Of our Father's sweet caressing

When they ring those golden bells for you and me.

When our days shall know their number

And in death we sweetly slumber

When the King commands the spirit to be free

Nevermore with anguish laden

We shall reach that lovely Aden

When they ring those golden bells for you and me.

Don't you hear the bells now ringing?

Don't you hear the angels singing?

It's a glory hallelujah jubilee!

In that far-off sweet forever

Just beyond the shining river

When they ring those golden bells for you and me.

> Daniel (Dion) de Marbelle <

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And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal,

proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.

Revelation 22:1

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Sunday

Embers of a thousand years

>>>>++<<<<

B o a r d   M e e t i n g

Crumbling Barn

Lexington County, South Carolina

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Long Years apart -- can make no

Breach a second cannot fill --

The absence of the Witch does not

Invalidate the spell --

The embers of a Thousand Years

Uncovered by the Hand

That fondled them when they were Fire

Will stir and understand --

> Emily Dickinson <

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Happy Saturday

A phrase entirely

>>>>++<<<<

I t ' s   a   S i g n

Elmo's Diner

Durham, North Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

If we could get the hang of it entirely
It would take too long;
All we know is the splash of words in passing
And falling twigs of song,
And when we try to eavesdrop on the great
Presences it is rarely
That by a stroke of luck we can appropriate
Even a phrase entirely.

If we could find our happiness entirely
In somebody else’s arms
We should not fear the spears of the spring nor the city’s
Yammering fire alarms
But, as it is, the spears each year go through
Our flesh and almost hourly
Bell or siren banishes the blue
Eyes of Love entirely.

And if the world were black or white entirely
And all the charts were plain
Instead of a mad weir of tigerish waters,
A prism of delight and pain,
We might be surer where we wished to go 
Or again we might be merely
Bored but in brute reality there is no
Road that is right entirely.

> Louis MacNiece <

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Happy Friday

Hack and rack the growing green

>>>>++<<<<

I n   M e m o r i a m

St. Simon's Church

Peak, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
All felled, felled, are all felled;
Of a fresh and following folded rank
Not spared, not one
That dandled a sandalled
Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank.

O if we but knew what to do
When we delve or hew --
Hack and rack the growing green!
Since country is so tender
To touch, her being só slender,
That, like this sleek and seeing ball
But a prick will make no eye at all,
Where we, even where we mean
To mend her we end her,
When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
Strokes of havoc únselve
The sweet especial scene,
Rural scene, a rural scene,
Sweet especial rural scene.

> Gerard Manley Hopkins <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Thursday

Semper fidelis

>>>>++<<<<

G r e e n   N e w   D e a l

Trinity Church Wall Street

New York, New York

>>>>++<<<<

Not in a silver casket cool with pearls
Or rich with red corundum or with blue,
Locked, and the key withheld, as other girls
Have given their loves, I give my love to you;
Not in a lovers'-knot, not in a ring
Worked in such fashion, and the legend plain --
Semper fidelis, where a secret spring
Kennels a drop of mischief for the brain:
Love in the open hand, no thing but that,
Ungemmed, unhidden, wishing not to hurt,
As one should bring you cowslips in a hat
Swung from the hand, or apples in her skirt,
I bring you, calling out as children do:
"Look what I have! -- And these are all for you."

> Edna St. Vincent Millay <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Wednesday