And like a treasure

>>>>++<<<<

W i l l y   N i l l y   D a f f o d i l l y

Back Fence

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Could Love for ever
Run like a river,
And Time's endeavour
Be tried in vain ­
No other pleasure
With this could measure;
And like a treasure 
We'd hug the chain.
But since our sighing
Ends not in dying,
And, form 'd for flying,
Love plumes his wing;
Then for this reason
Let's love a season
But let that season be only spring.

> George Gordon, Lord Byron <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Thursday

Think of June

>>>>++<<<<

T h e   S p i t t i n g   I m a g e

Metalmorphosis

Charlotte, North Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

How long the winter has lasted -- like a Mahler
symphony, or an hour in the dentist’s chair.
In the fields the grasses are matted
and gray, making me think of June, when hay
and vetch burgeon in the heat, and warm rain
swells the globed buds of the peony.

Ice on the pond breaks into huge planes. One
sticks like a barge gone awry at the neck
of the bridge . . . The reeds
and shrubby brush along the shore
gleam with ice that shatters when the breeze
moves them. From beyond the bog
the sound of water rushing over trees
felled by the zealous beavers,
who bring them crashing down . . . Sometimes
it seems they do it just for fun.

Those days of anger and remorse
come back to me; you fidgeting with your ring,
sliding it off, then jabbing it on again.

The wind is keen coming over the ice;
it carries the sound of breaking glass.
And the sun, bright but not warm,
has gone behind the hill. Chill, or the fear
of chill, sends me hurrying home.

> Jane Kenyon <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Wednesday

Water them and turn them south

>>>>++<<<<

S t a l k i n g

Furman University

Greenville, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

My heart is what it was before,
A house where people come and go;
But it is winter with your love,
The sashes are beset with snow. 

I light the lamp and lay the cloth,
I blow the coals to blaze again;
But it is winter with your love,
The frost is thick upon the pane.

I know a winter when it comes:
The leaves are listless on the boughs;
I watched your love a little while,
And brought my plants into the house.

I water them and turn them south,
I snap the dead brown from the stem;
But it is winter with your love, --
I only tend and water them.

There was a time I stood and watched
The small, ill-natured sparrows’ fray;
I loved the beggar that I fed,
I cared for what he had to say,

I stood and watched him out of sight;
Today I reach around the door
And set a bowl upon the step;
My heart is what it was before,

But it is winter with your love;
I scatter crumbs upon the sill,
And close the window, -- and the birds
May take or leave them, as they will.

> Edna St. Vincent Millay <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Tuesday

As if there were a plan

>>>>++<<<<

M a k i n g   A   L e a n   B r e a k

Colonial Park Cemetery

Savannah, Georgia

>>>>++<<<<

Events unfold in ways that make us think of God.

They achieve, in their happening, a symmetry and order

that would be frightening if assigned to Chance.

Things that happen here intersect with things

that happen elsewhere, as if there were a plan.

Coincidence makes way for correlation which, in its turn,

bespeaks the intimate consortium of cause and effect --

first in whispers, then in the full blushless voice

of certainty: because it says, because.

Eventually everything is suspect: I wash the car, it rains;

she wears that perfume, he is dizzy with desire;

as long as you whistle that tune no tigers appear.

 Ironies? Happenstance?

Or is it that tune that keeps the tigers at bay?

 The finger of fate or of fate's Maker that taps,

deliberately, those dominoes, the tipping of which,

down the ages, is history.

> Thomas Lynch <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Monday

I've borne it all for thee

>>>>++<<<<

S h a d o w   o f   t h e   C r o s s

Elmwood Cemetery

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

I gave My life for thee

My precious blood I shed

That thou might ransomed be

And raised up from the dead

I gave, I gave My life for thee

What hast thou giv'n for Me?

My Father's house of light

My glory-circled throne

I left for earthly night

For wand'rings sad and lone

I left, I left it all for thee

Hast thou left aught for Me?

I suffered much for thee

More than thy tongue can tell

Of bitt'rest agony

To rescue thee from hell

I've borne, I've borne it all for thee

What hast thou borne for me?

And I have brought to thee

Down from My home above

Salvation full and free

My pardon and My love

I bring, I bring rich gifts to thee

What hast thou brought to Me?

> Frances Ridley Havergal <

>>>>++<<<<

For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto,

but to minister,

and to give his life a ransom for many.

Mark 10:45

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Sunday

Oh poor and far

>>>>++<<<<

P r i d e   o f   P l a c e s

Centerpiece(s)

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

The Sun and Moon must make their haste --

The Stars express around

For in the Zones of Paradise

The Lord alone is burned --

His Eye, it is the East and West --

The North and South when He

Do concentrate His Countenance

Like Glow Worms, flee away --

Oh Poor and Far --

Oh Hindered Eye

That hunted for the Day --

The Lord a Candle entertains

Entirely for Thee --

> Emily Dickinson <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Saturday

Nothing that is not there

>>>>++<<<<

I r o n c l a d

Elmwood Cemetery

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

> Wallace Stevens <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Friday

And the heart but one

>>>>++<<<<

B a r i n g   I t   A l l

Winter

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.

> Francis William Bourdillon <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Thursday

A plea for happiness

>>>>++<<<<

C o n t i n u u m

Elmwood Cemetery

Memphis, Tennessee

>>>>++<<<<

When streams turn pink in the setting sun,
And a slight shudder rushes through the wheat fields,
A plea for happiness seems to rise out of all things
And it climbs up towards the troubled heart.
A plea to relish the charm of life
While there is youth and the evening is fair,
For we pass away, as the wave passes:
The wave to the sea, we to the grave.

> Paul Bourget <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Wednesday :: Happy Valentine's Day

Every wave is charmed

>>>>++<<<<

T o r n   I n   W h o l e

Lake Murray

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

As the bird trims her to the gale,

I trim myself to the storm of time,

I man the rudder, reef the sail,

Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime:

"Lowly faithful, banish fear,

Right onward drive unharmed;

The port, well worth the cruise, is near,

And every wave is charmed."

> Ralph Waldo Emerson <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Tuesday