What autumn knew would happen

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I t ' s   G l o w   T i m e

Heritage Park

Henry County, Georgia

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Stripped
you're beginning to float free
up through the smoke of brushfires
and incinerators
the unleafed branches won't hold you
nor the radar aerials

You're what the autumn knew would happen
after the last collapse
of primary color
once the last absolutes were torn to pieces
you could begin

How you broke open, what sheathed you
until this moment
I know nothing about it
my ignorance of you amazes me
now that I watch you
starting to give yourself away
to the wind

> Adrienne Rich <

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Happy Monday

A fresh and solemn splendor

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C l o s e   R o s e s

Bonaventure Cemetery

Savannah, Georgia

>>>>++<<<<

Still, still with Thee, when purple morning breaketh
When the bird waketh, and the shadows flee
Fairer than morning, lovelier than daylight
Dawns the sweet consciousness, I am with Thee.

Alone with Thee, amid the mystic shadows
The solemn hush of nature newly born
Alone with Thee in breathless adoration
In the calm dew and freshness of the morn.

As in the dawning o’er the waveless ocean
The image of the morning star doth rest
So in the stillness Thou beholdest only
Thine image in the waters of my breast.

Still, still with Thee, as to each newborn morning
A fresh and solemn splendor still is given
So does this blessèd consciousness, awaking
Breathe each day nearness unto Thee and Heaven.

When sinks the soul, subdued by toil, to slumber
Its closing eye looks up to Thee in prayer
Sweet the repose beneath the wings o’ershading
But sweeter still to wake and find Thee there.

So shall it be at last, in that bright morning
When the soul waketh and life’s shadows flee
O in that hour, fairer than daylight dawning
Shall rise the glorious thought, I am with Thee.

> Harriet Beecher Stowe <

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Abide in me, and I in you.

As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself,

except it abide in the vine;

no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

John 15:4

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Happy Sunday

A grant of the divine

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W e ' l l   L e a v e   T h e   L i g h t   O n

Old Brick Church Graveyard

Jenkinsville, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Did Our Best Moment last --

'Twould supersede the Heaven --

A few -- and they by Risk -- procure --

So this Sort -- are not given --

Except as stimulants -- in

Cases of Despair --

Or Stupor -- The Reserve --

These Heavenly Moments are --

A Grant of the Divine --

That Certain as it Comes --

Withdraws -- and leaves the dazzled Soul

In her unfurnished Rooms

> Emily Dickinson <

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Happy Saturday

It is something to have been

>>>>++<<<<

H o m e   o f   t h e   B r a v e

National Cemetery

Salisbury, North Carolina

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It is something to have wept as we have wept,
It is something to have done as we have done,
It is something to have watched when all men slept,
And seen the stars which never see the sun.

It is something to have smelt the mystic rose,
Although it break and leave the thorny rods,
It is something to have hungered once as those
Must hunger who have ate the bread of gods.

To have seen you and your unforgotten face,
Brave as a blast of trumpets for the fray,
Pure as white lilies in a watery space,
It were something, though you went from me today.

To have known the things that from the weak are furled,
Perilous ancient passions, strange and high;
It is something to be wiser than the world,
It is something to be older than the sky.

In a time of sceptic moths and cynic rusts,
And fattened lives that of their sweetness tire
In a world of flying loves and fading lusts,
It is something to be sure of a desire.

Lo, blessed are our ears for they have heard;
Yea, blessed are our eyes for they have seen:
Let the thunder break on man and beast and bird
And the lightning. It is something to have been.

> G.K. Chesterton <

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Happy Friday

For a second finding

>>>>++<<<<

H i g h   a n d   M i g h t y

Roberto Clemente Bridge

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

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One wading a fall meadow finds on all sides
The Queen Anne’s Lace lying like lilies
On water; it glides
So from the walker, it turns
Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you
Valleys my mind in fabulous blue Lucernes.

The beautiful changes as a forest is changed
By a chameleon’s tuning his skin to it;
As a mantis, arranged
On a green leaf, grows
Into it, makes the leaf leafier, and proves
Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows.

Your hands hold roses always in a way that says
They are not only yours; the beautiful changes
In such kind ways,
Wishing ever to sunder
Things and things’ selves for a second finding, to lose
For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.

> Richard Wilbur <

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Happy Thursday

Not one tear, one qualm

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A   F a l l i n g   O u t

Fallingwater

Mill Run, Pennsylvania

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Breathe not, hid Heart: cease silently,
And though thy birth-hour beckons thee,
Sleep the long sleep:
The Doomsters heap
Travails and teens around us here,
And Time-Wraiths turn our songsingings to fear.

Hark, how the peoples surge and sigh,
And laughters fail, and greetings die:
Hopes dwindle; yea,
Faiths waste away,
Affections and enthusiasms numb:
Thou canst not mend these things if thou dost come.

Had I the ear of wombèd souls
Ere their terrestrial chart unrolls,
And thou wert free
To cease, or be,
Then would I tell thee all I know,
And put it to thee: Wilt thou take Life so?

Vain vow! No hint of mine may hence
To theeward fly: to thy locked sense
Explain none can
Life’s pending plan:
Thou wilt thy ignorant entry make
Though skies spout fire and blood and nations quake.

Fain would I, dear, find some shut plot
Of earth’s wide wold for thee, where not
One tear, one qualm,
Should break the calm.
But I am weak as thou and bare;
No man can change the common lot to rare.

Must come and bide. And such are we --
Unreasoning, sanguine, visionary --
That I can hope
Health, love, friends, scope
In full for thee; can dream thou wilt find
Joys seldom yet attained by humankind!

> Thomas Hardy <

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Happy Wednesday

When not a soul is there

>>>>++<<<<

O p e n   T o   I d e a s

Cone Mills (Abandoned)

Salisbury, North Carolina

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Against weather, and the random
Harpies -- mood, circumstance, the laws
Of biography, chance, physics --
The unseasonable soul holds forth,
Eager for form as a renowned
Pedant, the emperor's man of worth,
Hereditary arbiter of manners.

Soul, one's life is one's enemy.
As the small children learn, what happens
Takes over, and what you were goes away.
They learn it in sardonic soft
Comments of the weather, when it sharpens
The hard surfaces of daylight: light
Winds, vague in direction, like blades

Lavishing their brilliant strokes
All over a wrecked house,
The nude wallpaper and the brute
Intelligence of the torn pipes.
Therefore when you marry or build
Pray to be untrue to the plain
Dominance of your own weather, how it keeps

Going even in the woods when not
A soul is there, and how it implies
Always that separate, cold
Splendidness, uncouth and unkind --
On chilly, unclouded mornings,
Torrential sunlight and moist air,
Leafage and solid bark breathing the mist. 

> Robert Pinsky <

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Happy Tuesday

The all-a-leaf of the treetop

>>>>++<<<<

S t a n d i n g   F a l l

Random Tree

Lenoir, North Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Today the sky is two and two

With white strokes and strains of the blue

Round a ring, around a ring

And while I sail (must listen) I sing

The skylark is my cousin and he

Is known to men more than me

... when the cry within

Says Go on then I go on

Till the longing is less and the good gone

But down drop, if it says Stop,

To the all-a-leaf of the treetop

And after that off the bough

I am so very, O so very glad

That I do think there is not to be had

The blue wheat-acre is underneath

And the corn is corded and shoulders its sheaf,

The ear in milk, lush the sash,

And crush-silk poppies aflash,

The blood-gush blade-gash

Flame-rash rudred

Bud shelling or broad-shed

Tatter-tassel-tangled and dingle-a-dangled

Dandy-hung daisy head.

And down ... the furrow dry

Sunspurge and oxeye

And lace-leaved lovely

Foam-tuft fumitory

Through the velvety wind V-winged

To the nest's nook I balance and buoy

With a sweet joy of a sweet joy,

Sweet, of a sweet, of a sweet joy

Of a sweet -- a sweet -- sweet -- joy.

> Gerard Manley Hopkins <

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Happy Monday

What depths of peace

>>>>++<<<<

R e s o l u t e

Chestnut Hill Cemetery

Salisbury, North Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This cornerstone, this solid ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.

What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My comforter, my all in all
Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone, Who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save.
'Til on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied
For ev'ry sin on Him was laid
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay,
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth in glorious day,
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory,
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me
For I am His and He is mine
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the pow'r of Christ in me
From life's first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No pow'r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand
'Til He returns or calls me home
Here in the pow'r of Christ I'll stand.

> Keith Getty / Stuart Townend <

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For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life,

nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers,

nor things present, nor things to come,

Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature,

shall be able to separate us from the love of God,

which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:38-39

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Sunday

The afternoon in evening deep

>>>>++<<<<

 C l e a n   L e a n

Elmwood Cemetery

Charlotte, North Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

The Day grew small, surrounded tight
By early, stooping Night --
The Afternoon in Evening deep
Its Yellow shortness dropt --
The Winds went out their martial ways
The Leaves obtained excuse --
November hung his Granite Hat
Upon a nail of Plush --

> Emily Dickinson <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Saturday