The faith that looks through death

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W i t h   O p e n   A r m s

Cave Hill Cemetery

Louisville, Kentucky

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What though the radiance
which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass,
of glory in the flower,
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

> William Wordsworth <

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Happy Wednesday

Perfect in the dew

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W h y   N o t   T a k e   A l l   O f   M e

Graceland Cemetery

Chicago, Illinois

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When you are already here
you appear to be only
a name that tells of you
whether you are present or not

and for now it seems as though
you are still summer
still the high familiar
endless summer
yet with a glint
of bronze in the chill mornings
and the late yellow petals
of the mullein fluttering
on the stalks that lean
over their broken
shadows across the cracked ground

but they all know
that you have come
the seed heads of the sage
the whispering birds
with nowhere to hide you
to keep you for later

you
who fly with them

you who are neither
before nor after
you who arrive
with blue plums
that have fallen through the night

perfect in the dew

> W.S. Merwin <

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Happy Tuesday

Free space of the sky

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J u l y   S k y

From the Pool

Columbia, South Carolina

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The fervent heat, but so much more endurable in this pure air -- the white and pink pond-blossoms, with great heart-shaped leaves; the glassy waters of the creek, the banks, with dense bushery, and the picturesque beeches and shade and turf; the tremulous, reedy call of some bird from recesses, breaking the warm, indolent, half-voluptuous silence; an occasional wasp, hornet, honey-bee or bumble (they hover near my hands or face, yet annoy me not, nor I them, as they appear to examine, find nothing, and away they go) -- the vast space of the sky overhead so clear, and the buzzard up there sailing his slow whirl in majestic spirals and discs; just over the surface of the pond, two large slate-color'd dragon-flies, with wings of lace, circling and darting and occasionally balancing themselves quite still, their wings quivering all the time, (are they not showing off their amusement?) -- the pond itself, with the sword-shaped calamus; the water snakes -- occasionally a flitting blackbird, with red dabs on his shoulders, as he darts slantingly by -- the sounds that bring out the solitude, warmth, light and shade -- the quawk of some pond duck -- (the crickets and grasshoppers are mute in the noon heat, but I hear the song of the first cicadas;) -- then at some distance the rattle and whirr of a reaping machine as the horses draw it on a rapid walk through a rye field on the opposite side of the creek -- (what was the yellow or light-brown bird, large as a young hen, with short neck and long-stretch'd legs I just saw, in flapping and awkward flight over there through the trees?) -- the prevailing delicate, yet palpable, spicy, grassy, clovery perfume to my nostrils; and over all, encircling all, to my sight and soul, the free space of the sky, transparent and blue -- and hovering there in the west, a mass of white-gray fleecy clouds the sailors call "shoals of mackerel" -- the sky, with silver swirls like locks of toss'd hair, spreading, expanding -- a vast voiceless, formless simulacrum -- yet may-be the most real reality and formulator of everything -- who knows?

> Walt Whitman <

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Happy Monday

Gave me glory complete

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T r a n s f i x e d

Graceland Cemetery

Chicago, Illinois

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Once my soul was astray

From the heavenly way

I was wretched and vile as could be

But my Savior above

Gave me peace, joy, and love

When He reached down His hand for me.

When the Savior reached down for me

When He reached way down for me

I was lost and undone

Without my God and His Son

When He reached down His hand for me.

And how my heart does rejoice

Since I've made Him my choice

In the tempest to Him I'll cling

Now I lean on His arm

I'm secure from all harm

Since He reached down His hand for me.

I was nearing despair

When He came to me there

And He showed me that I could be free

Then He lifted my feet

Gave me glory complete

When He reached down His hand for me.

When the Savior reached down for me

When He reached way down for me

I was lost and undone

Without my God and His Son

When He reached down His hand for me.

> Easterling/Wright <

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He reached down from on high and took hold of me;

he pulled me out of deep water.

Psalm 18:16

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Happy Sunday

Oh for a disc to the distance

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O u t e r   S p a c e s

Urban Dwellings

Knoxville, Tennessee

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Under the Light, yet under,

Under the Grass and the Dirt,

Under the Beetle's Cellar

Under the Clover's Root,

Further than Arm could stretch

Were it Giant long,

Further than Sunshine could

Were the Day Year long,

Over the Light, yet over,

Over the Arc of the Bird --

Over the Comet's chimney --

Over the Cubit's Head,

Further than Guess can gallop

Further than Riddle ride --

Oh for a Disc to the Distance

Between Ourselves and the Dead!

> Emily Dickinson <

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Happy Saturday

Leisurely grinding the silence

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B a c k   A g a i n

Elmwood Cemetery

Columbia, South Carolina

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Lyric night of the lingering Indian Summer,
Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,
Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,
Ceaseless, insistent.

The grasshopper’s horn, and far-off, high in the maples,
The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding the silence
Under a moon waning and worn, broken,
Tired with summer.

Let me remember you, voices of little insects,
Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters,
Let me remember, soon will the winter be on us,
Snow-hushed and heavy.

> Sara Teasdale <

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Happy Friday

The great harvest I myself desired

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D i a l o g

Defunct Funeral Home

Columbia, South Carolina

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My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend. 
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.

> Robert Frost <

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Happy Thursday

Lay that on your heart

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L o v i n g   L a m e n t

State Lunatic Asylum (Defunct)

Columbia, South Carolina

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No one worth possessing
Can be quite possessed;
Lay that on your heart,
My young angry dear;
This truth, this hard and precious stone,
Lay it on your hot cheek,
Let it hide your tear.
Hold it like a crystal
When you are alone
And gaze in the depths of the icy stone.
Long, look long and you will be blessed:
No one worth possessing
Can be quite possessed.

> Sara Teasdale <

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Happy Wednesday

Morning comes with small reprieves

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T a k e   T h e   K n e e

Cave Hill Cemetery

Louisville, Kentucky

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I am learning to abandon the world
before it can abandon me.
Already I have given up the moon
and snow, closing my shades
against the claims of white.
And the world has taken
my father, my friends.
I have given up melodic lines of hills,
moving to a flat, tuneless landscape.
And every night I give my body up
limb by limb, working upwards
across bone, towards the heart.
But morning comes with small
reprieves of coffee and birdsong.
A tree outside the window
which was simply shadow moments ago
takes back its branches twig
by leafy twig.
And as I take my body back
the sun lays its warm muzzle on my lap
as if to make amends.

> Linda Pastan <

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Happy Tuesday :: Happy August

The great sorrow of brightness

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P l a s t i c   G a r d e n

John Hancock Center Plaza

Chicago, Illinois

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Another word I love is evening

for the balance it implies, balance

being something I struggle with.

I suppose I would like to be more

a planet, turning in & out of light.

It comes down again to polarities,

equilibrium. Evening. The moths

take the place of the buterflies,

owls the place of hawks, coyotes

for dogs, stillness for business,

& the great sorrow of brightness

makes way for its own sorrow.

Everything dances with its strict

negation, & I like that. Systems

are evening out all around us --

even now, as we kneel before

a new & ruthless circumstance.

Where would I like to be in five

years, someone asks -- & what

can I tell them? Surrendering

with grace to the evening, with

as much grace as I can muster

to the circumstances of darkness,

which is only something else

that does not stay.

> Jeremy Radin <

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Happy Monday