An unspent vision gone

>>>>++<<<<

B r a n c h   D r e s s i n g

Old Brick Church

Jenkinsville, South Carolina

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Dreams -- and an old, old waking,
An unspent vision gone;
Night, clean with silence, breaking
Into loud dawn.

A wonder that is blurring
The new day’s strange demands,
The indomitable stirring
Of folded hands.

Then only the hours’ pageant
And the drowsing sound of their creep,
Bringing at last the vagrant
Dreams of new sleep.

> Hazel Hall <

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Happy Friday

Surely pledging the eternal

>>>>++<<<<

A   R u s h i n g   C a l m

Late Autumn at Olivette

Asheville, North 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 Thursday

The way one looks at distant things

>>>>++<<<<

I ' m   N o t   L i o n

The Grove

Asheville, North Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Love means to learn to look at yourself

The way one looks at distant things

For you are only one thing among many.

And whoever sees that way heals his heart,

Without knowing it, from various ills

A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.

Then he wants to use himself and things

So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.

It doesn't matter whether he knows what he serves:

Who serves best doesn't always understand.

> Czeslaw Milosz <

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Happy Wednesday

Itself to be imagined

>>>>++<<<<

S t r a i g h t   S h o o t e r

Flatiron Building

Asheville, North Carolina

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After the leaves have fallen, we return
To a plain sense of things. It is as if
We had come to an end of imagination,
Inanimate in an inert savoir.

It is difficult even to choose the adjective
For this blank cold, this sadness without cause.
The great structure has become a minor house.
No turban walks across the lessened floors.

The greenhouse never so badly needed paint.
The chimney is fifty years old and slants to one side.
A fantastic effort has failed, a repetition
In a repetitiousness of men and flies.

Yet the absence of the imagination had
Itself to be imagined. The great pond,
The plain sense of it, without reflections, leaves,
Mud, water like dirty glass, expressing silence

Of a sort, silence of a rat come out to see,
The great pond and its waste of the lilies, all this
Had to be imagined as an inevitable knowledge,
Required, as a necessity requires.

> Wallace Stevens <

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Happy Tuesday

Light's holy presence

>>>>++<<<<

L e t ' s   D a n c e

Elmwood Cemetery

Columbia, South Carolina

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Now over everything the autumn light is thrown

And every line is sharp and every leaf is clear,

Now without density or weight the airy sun

Sits in the flaming boughs, an innocent fire

That shines but does not burn nor wither.

The leaves, light-penetrated, change their essence,

Take on the gold transparence of the weather,

Are touched by death, then by light's holy presence.

So we, first touched by death, were changed in essence,

As if grief grew transparent and turned to airy gold

And we were given days of special radiance,

Light-brimmed, light-shaken, and with love so filled

It seemed the heartbeat of the world was in our blood,

And when we stood together, love was everywhere,

And no exchange was needed, if exchange we could

The blessedness of sunlight poised on air.

> May Sarton <

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Happy Monday

Thou my delight

>>>>++<<<<

C r o s s i n g s

Pleasant Forest Cemetery

Knoxville, Tennessee

>>>>++<<<<

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Be Thou my battle shield, sword for the fight;
Be Thou my dignity, Thou my delight;
Thou my soul’s shelter, Thou my high tower:
Raise Thou me heavenward, O power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my treasure Thou art.

High King of Heaven, my victory won,
May I reach Heaven’s joys, O bright Heaven’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.

> Dallan Forgaill <

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For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. 

2 Chronicles 16:9

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Sunday

Upon a nail of Plush

>>>>++<<<<

R o s e b u d

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 <

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Happy Saturday

At her shoulder sudden wings

>>>>++<<<<

L i g h t s   C a m e r a   A c t i o n

Windy City at Night

Chicago, Illinois

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My soul goes clad in gorgeous things,
Scarlet and gold and blue.
And at her shoulder sudden wings
Like long flames flicker through.

And she is swallow-fleet, and free
From mortal bonds and bars.
She laughs, because eternity
Blossoms for her with stars!

O folk who scorn my stiff gray gown,
My dull and foolish face,
Can ye not see my soul flash down,
A singing flame through space?

And folk, whose earth-stained looks I hate,
Why may I not divine
Your souls, that must be passionate,
Shining and swift, as mine?

> Fannie Stearns Gifford <

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Happy Friday

I have learnt to be proud

>>>>++<<<<

V e r d i g r i e f

Green Mount Cemetery

Baltimore, Maryland

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'Call down the hawk from the air;

Let him be hooded or caged

Till the yellow eye has grown mild,

For larder and spit are bare,

The old cook enraged,

The scullion gone wild.'

'I will not be clapped in a hood,

Nor a cage, nor alight upon wrist,

Now I have learnt to be proud

Hovering over the wood

In the broken mist

Or tumbling cloud.'

'What tumbling cloud did you cleave,

Yellow-eyed hawk of the mind,

Last evening? that I, who had sat

Dumbfounded before a knave,

Should give to my friend

A pretence of wit.'

> W.B. Yeats <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Thursday

Nothing that is not there

>>>>++<<<<

C o l d   C o m f o r t

Green Mount Cemetery

Baltimore, Maryland

>>>>++<<<<

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 <

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Happy Wednesday :: Happy November