Shall we remember parching

>>>>++<<<<

T i l l   I ' m   B l u e   i n   t h e   F a c e

Metalmorphosis

Charlotte, North Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

I know where Wells grow -- Droughtless Wells --

Deep dug -- for Summer days --

Where Mosses go no more away --

And Pebble -- safely plays --

It's made of Fathoms -- and a Belt --

A Belt of jagged Stone --

Inlaid with Emerald -- half way down --

And Diamonds -- jumbled on --

It has no Bucket -- Were I rich

A Bucket I would buy --

I'm often thirsty -- but my lips

Are so high up -- You see --

I read in an Old Fashioned Book

That People "thirst no more" --

The Wells have Buckets to them there --

It must mean that -- I'm sure --

Shall We remember Parching -- then?

Those Waters sound so grand --

I think a little Well -- like Mine --

Dearer to understand --

> Emily Dickinson <

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Happy Saturday

An ever-fixed mark

>>>>++<<<<

W h i t e   P r i v i l e g e

Back Fence

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O, no! It is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error, and upon me prov'd,

I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

> William Shakespeare <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Friday

Thrown hard on humble ground

>>>>++<<<<

R o b i n ' s   N e s t

Temple Baptist Church Graveyard

Lenoir, North Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Who are we in the valley of their language?

The landscape listens to their

Shapes like sounds

That perfectly express the heliocryptic

Slant of the rays they tread

Homeward to barn.

And so -- grown bright enough to still our speech

And let them embody a thought

We cannot say --

We perch on the fence and study that free tongue

Of color wonderfully winding

The ragged hill.

It used to be when cows came home transfigured

One of us always jumped some

Flank of splendor

In hope of a big ride over a thousand acres --

Only to get thrown hard

On humble ground.

But now their quiet moves us. Our golden faces

Crisped by aubergine shadows from

Our golden hands

Turn after them an abstruse longing to learn --

From the slowly pageanted idiom

Their shapes take on

With jewelled clarity from the hypnogogic

THAT ART THOU still hanging bright

In the West --

Just who we are in the valley of any language

If only the gates of our silence

Let in sky.

> Frederick Stern Bock <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Thursday

We walk upon the unwalked

>>>>++<<<<

T o e i n g   t h e   T r e e l i n e

Cave Hill Cemetery

Louisville, Kentucky

>>>>++<<<<

When we stride or stroll across the frozen lake,
We place our feet where they have never been.
We walk upon the unwalked. But we are uneasy.
Who is down there but our old teachers?

Water that once could take no human weight --
We were students then -- holds up our feet,
And goes on ahead of us for a mile.
Beneath us the teachers, and around us the stillness.

> Robert Bly <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Wednesday

Some unrecorded beam

>>>>++<<<<

H o l d i n g   P a t t e r n

Never Bust :: Main Street

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Within the circuit of this plodding life,
There enter moments of an azure hue,
Untarnished fair as is the violet
Or anemone, when the spring strews them
By some meandering rivulet, which make
The best philosophy untrue that aims
But to console man for his grievances.
I have remembered when the winter came,
High in my chamber in the frosty nights,
When in the still light of the cheerful moon,
On every twig and rail and jutting spout,
The icy spears were adding to their length
Against the arrows of the coming sun,
How in the shimmering noon of summer past
Some unrecorded beam slanted across
The upland pastures where the Johnswort grew;
Or heard, amid the verdure of my mind,
The bee’s long smothered hum, on the blue flag
Loitering amidst the mead; or busy rill,
Which now through all its course stands still and dumb
Its own memorial, -- purling at its play
Along the slopes, and through the meadows next,
Until its youthful sound was hushed at last
In the staid current of the lowland stream;
Or seen the furrows shine but late upturned,
And where the fieldfare followed in the rear,
When all the fields around lay bound and hoar
Beneath a thick integument of snow.
So by God’s cheap economy made rich
To go upon my winter’s task again.

> Henry David Thoreau <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Tuesday

Follow on the paths of day

>>>>++<<<<

F r a m e d   B l u e

Roadside Playground

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

The crimson dawn breaks through the clouded east,
And waking breezes round the casement pipe;
They blow the globes of dew from opening buds,
And steal the odors of the sleeping flowers.
The swallow calls its young ones from the eaves,
To dart above their shadows on the lake,
Till its long rollers redden in the sun,
And bend the lances of the mirrored pines.
Who knows the miracle that brings the morn?
Still in my house I linger, though the night --
The night that hides me from myself is gone.
Light robes the world, but strips me bare again.
I will not follow on the paths of day.
I know the dregs within its crystal hours;
The bearers of my cups have served me well;
I drained them, and the bearers come no more.
Rise, morning, rise, for those believing souls
Who seek completion in day’s garish light.
My casement I will close, keep shut my door,
Till day and night are only dreams to me.

> Elizabeth Drew Stoddard <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Monday

Men who here refuse to pray

>>>>++<<<<

S y m p h o n y   i n   P i n k

Irmo Town Park

Irmo, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell.
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.

When years of time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men, who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race --
The saints’ and angels’ song.

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

O love of God, how rich and pure!

How measureless and strong!

It shall forever more endure

The saints' and angels' song.

> Frederick M. Lehman <

>>>>++<<<<

But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,

even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ,

(by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together,

and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches

of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2:4-7

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Sunday

In this as all prevail

>>>>++<<<<

S o a r l y   N e e d e d

Trump International Hotel and Tower

Chicago, Illinois

>>>>++<<<<

Much Madness is divinest Sense --

To a discerning Eye --

Much Sense -- the starkest Madness --

'Tis the Majority

In this, as All, prevail --

Assent -- and you are sane --

Demur -- you're straightaway dangerous --

And handled with a Chain --

> Emily Dickinson <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Saturday

For peace comes dropping slow

>>>>++<<<<

T h e r e ' s   N o p l a c e   L i k e   F o a m

Wrightsville Beach

Wilmington, North Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

> W. B. Yeats <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Friday

Fret not after knowledge

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P e t a l   D r o p

Oakdale Cemetery

Wilmington, North Carolina

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O Thou whose face hath felt the Winter’s wind,
Whose eye has seen the snow-clouds hung in mist,
And the black elm tops ’mong the freezing stars,
To thee the spring will be a harvest-time.
O thou, whose only book has been the light
Of supreme darkness which thou feddest on
Night after night when Phœbus was away,
To thee the Spring shall be a triple morn.
O fret not after knowledge -- I have none,
And yet my song comes native with the warmth.
O fret not after knowledge -- I have none,
And yet the Evening listens. He who saddens
At the thought of idleness cannot be idle,
And he’s awake who thinks himself asleep.

> John Keats <

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Happy Thursday