Underwriter of all motion

>>>>++<<<<

I ' v e   G o t   N o t h i n g   B u t   T i m e

Carriage Horse

Savannah, Georgia

>>>>++<<<<

WHY I AM OBSESSED WITH HORSES

Because when I saw a horse

cross a river

separating two countries

and named it Ghost Rubble

it said No my name is 1935

because it also spoke in tongues

as it crossed the black tongue

of the water

because it still arcs through me

with its zodiac

of shrapnel-bright stars

because the river's teeth

still gnash

against its flank

and its eyes

still have the luster

of black china

glowing black-bright

in the glass hutch of memory

because a horse's skull

is a ditch of wildflowers

because a horse's skull

is a box of numbers

a slop bucket

resting upside down

under barn eaves

wind in an empty stockyard

orange clay that breaks

shovel handles with a shrug

because a horse is the underwriter

of all motion

because a horse is the first

and last item

on every list

of every season

and because that night the air

smelled green as copper

and lath dust

and that night as it scrambled

up the bank and stamped past me

it said Unlike you

I am the source of all echoes.

> Michael McGriff <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Monday

Come to my heart

>>>>++<<<<

W h e r e   I   H a n g   M y   H e a r t   I s   H o m e

Front Yard Crape Myrtle

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Come when the nights are bright with stars

Or come when the moon is mellow;

Come when the sun his golden bars

Drops on the hay-field yellow.

Come in the twilight soft and gray,

Come in the night or come in the day,

Come, O love, whene’er you may,

And you are welcome, welcome.

You are sweet, O Love, dear Love,

You are soft as the nesting dove.

Come to my heart and bring it to rest

As the bird flies home to its welcome nest.

Come when my heart is full of grief

Or when my heart is merry;

Come with the falling of the leaf

Or with the redd’ning cherry.

Come when the year’s first blossom blows,

Come when the summer gleams and glows,

Come with the winter’s drifting snows,

And you are welcome, welcome.

> Paul Laurence Dunbar <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Thursday

Some stories end in the middle

>>>>++<<<<

O p e n   W i d e

Allegheny Cemetery

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

>>>>++<<<<

The way things move sometimes,
light or air,
the distance between
two points, or a map unfolding
on a table, or wind,
never mind sadness.
The difference between sky and room,
between geometry and breath,
the sound we hear
when two opposites finally collide,
smashed bottle, country song,
a bell, any bridge, a connection.
The way some stories end in the middle
of a word,
the words themselves,
galaxies, statuaries, perspectives,
the stone over stone that is life,
never mind hunger.
The way things move, road,
mirror, blind luck.

The way nothing moves sometimes,
a kiss, a glance,
never mind true north.
The difference between history
and desire, between biology
and prayer, any light
to read by, any voice at the bottom
of the stairs, or the sound
of your own name softly, a tiny bone
breaking near the heart.

> Silvia Curbelo <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Wednesday :: Happy February

Say what you mean

>>>>++<<<<

F r o n d l y   R e m e m b e r e d

Palmetto Wall

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Even this
brief thought is endless. A
man speaks as if unaware of the
erotic life of the ampersand. In the
isolate field he comes to count one by
one the rare butterflies as they
die. He says witness is to say what
you mean as if you mean it. So many
of them are the color of the leaves
they feed on, he calls sympathy a fact, a
word by which he means to make a claim
about grace. I have in my

life said many things I did not
exactly mean. Walk
graceless through the field. Graceless so
the insects leap up into the blank
page where the margins fill
with numbers that speak diminishment.
Absence as it nears also offers astonishment.
Absence riddles even this
briefest thought, here
is your introduction to desire, time’s
underneath where the roots root down
into nothing like loose threads
hanging from the weaving’s underside.
No one seeing the roots
can guess

at the field above. Green
equation that ends in yellow
occasions. Theory is
insubstantial. The eye latches on
to the butterflies as they fly
and the quick heart follows, not
a root in nothing but a thread across
abstraction. They fly away.
What in us follows we do not name.
What the butterflies pull out us
as in battle horses pull
chariot, we do not

name. But there is none, no battle,
no surge, no retreat, a field
full not of danger, but the endangered,
where dust-wings pull from us
what we thought we lost, what theory
denies, where in us ideas go to die,
and thought with the quaking grass quakes.
Some call it breath but I’m still breathing.
So empty I know I’m not any emptier.
On slim threads they pull it out me,
disperse -- no
one takes notes -- disappear, &

> Dan Beachy-Quick <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Tuesday

Incomparably light and deft

>>>>++<<<<

G a z e

Late Winter Reflections

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Stand on the highest pavement of the stair --
Lean on a garden urn --
Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair --
Clasp your flowers to you with a pained surprise --
Fling them to the ground and turn
With a fugitive resentment in your eyes:
But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.

So I would have had him leave,
So I would have had her stand and grieve,
So he would have left
As the soul leaves the body torn and bruised,
As the mind deserts the body it has used.
I should find
Some way incomparably light and deft,
Some way we both should understand,
Simple and faithless as a smile and a shake of the hand.

She turned away, but with the autumn weather
Compelled my imagination many days,
Many days and many hours:
Her hair over her arms and her arms full of flowers.
And I wonder how they should have been together!
I should have lost a gesture and a pose.
Sometimes these cogitations still amaze
The troubled midnight, and the noon's repose.

> T.S. Eliot <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Monday

While faith is with me

>>>>++<<<<

S t e p p i n g   i n   t h e   R i g h t

Kensico Cemetery

Valhalla, New York

>>>>++<<<<

The Doubter's Prayer

Eternal Power, of earth and air!
Unseen, yet seen in all around,
Remote, but dwelling everywhere,
Though silent, heard in every sound.
If e'er thine ear in mercy bent,
When wretched mortals cried to Thee,
And if, indeed, Thy Son was sent,
To save lost sinners such as me:

Then hear me now, while, kneeling here,
I lift to thee my heart and eye,
And all my soul ascends in prayer,
Oh, give me --­ give me Faith! I cry.

Without some glimmering in my heart,
I could not raise this fervent prayer;
But, oh! a stronger light impart,
And in Thy mercy fix it there.

While Faith is with me, I am blest;
It turns my darkest night to day;
But while I clasp it to my breast,
I often feel it slide away.

Then, cold and dark, my spirit sinks,
To see my light of life depart;
And every fiend of Hell, methinks,
Enjoys the anguish of my heart.

What shall I do, if all my love,
My hopes, my toil, are cast away,
And if there be no God above,
To hear and bless me when I pray?

If this be vain delusion all,
If death be an eternal sleep,
And none can hear my secret call,
Or see the silent tears I weep!

Oh, help me, God! For thou alone
Canst my distracted soul relieve;
Forsake it not: it is thine own,
Though weak, yet longing to believe.

Oh, drive these cruel doubts away;
And make me know, that Thou art God!
A faith, that shines by night and day,
Will lighten every earthly load.

If I believe that Jesus died,
And, waking, rose to reign above;
Then surely Sorrow, Sin, and Pride,
Must yield to Peace, and Hope, and Love.

And all the blessed words He said
Will strength and holy joy impart:
A shield of safety o'er my head,
A spring of comfort in my heart.

> Anne Brontë <

>>>>++<<<<

So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Romans 10:17

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Sunday

The junction be eternity

>>>>++<<<<

A   L o t   T o   T h i n k   A b o u t

Elmwood Cemetery

Memphis, Tennessee

>>>>++<<<<

To know just how He suffered -- would be dear --

To know if any Human eyes were near

To whom He could entrust His wavering gaze --

Until it settled broad -- on Paradise --

To know if He was patient -- part content --

Was Dying as He thought -- or different --

Was it a pleasant Day to die --

And did the Sunshine face His way --

What was His furthest mind -- Of Home -- or God --

Or what the Distant say --

At news that He ceased Human Nature

Such a Day --

And Wishes -- Had He Any --

Just His Sigh -- Accented --

Had been legible -- to Me --

And was He Confident until

Ill fluttered out -- in Everlasting Well --

And if He spoke -- What name was Best --

What last

What One broke off with

At the Drowsiest --

Was He afraid -- or tranquil --

Might He know

How Conscious Consciousness -- could grow --

Till Love that was -- and Love too best to be --

Meet -- and the Junction be Eternity

> Emily Dickinson <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Saturday

Crown the pale year

>>>>++<<<<

A   S w e l l   T i m e

Pier 14

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Which yet joined not scent to hue,
Crown the pale year weak and new;
When the night is left behind
In the deep east, dun and blind,
And the blue noon is over us,
And the multitudinous
Billows murmur at our feet,
Where the earth and ocean meet,
And all things seem only one
In the universal sun.

> Percy Bysshe Shelley <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Friday

In need of restoration

>>>>++<<<<

A   R u s t i n g   S o u l

Abandoned Shack

Batesburg, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

We say Next time we’ll go away,
But then the winter happens, like a secret
We’ve to keep yet never understand
As daylight turns to cinema once more:
A lustrous darkness deep in ice-age cold,
And the print in need of restoration
Starting to consume itself
With snowfall where no snow is falling now.
Or could it be a cloud of sparrows, dancing
In the bare hedge that this gale of light
Is seeking to uproot? Let it be sparrows, then,
Still dancing in the blazing hedge,
Their tender fury and their fall,
Because it snows, because it burns.

> Shaun O'Brien <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Thursday

The least division of an hour

>>>>++<<<<

M o t h e r   M a y   I

Circular Congregational Church Graveyard

Charleston, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Surprised by joy -- impatient as the Wind
I turned to share the transport -- Oh! with whom
But Thee, deep buried in the silent Tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?
Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind --
But how could I forget thee? Through what power,
Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss? -- That thought’s return
Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,
Knowing my heart’s best treasure was no more;
That neither present time, nor years unborn
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.

> William Wordsworth <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Wednesday