The spring of all my comfort

>>>>++<<<<

A t t i t u d e   I s   E v e r y t h i n g

Hollywood Cemetery

Richmond, Virginia

>>>>++<<<<

Pass me not, O gentle Savior
Hear my humble cry
While on others Thou art calling
Do not pass me by.

Let me at Thy throne of mercy
Find a sweet relief
Kneeling there in deep contrition
Help my unbelief.

Trusting only in Thy merit
Would I seek Thy face
Heal my wounded, broken spirit
Save me by Thy grace.

Thou the spring of all my comfort
More than life to me
Whom have I on earth beside Thee?
Whom in Heav’n but Thee?

Savior, Savior
Hear my humble cry
While on others Thou art calling
Do not pass me by.

> Fanny Jane Crosby <

>>>>++<<<<

Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer.

From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee,

when my heart is overwhelmed:

lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

Psalm 61:1-2

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Sunday

In this short life

>>>>++<<<<

T h a t   A b o u t   S u m s   I t   U p

Jefferson Davis Family Memorial :: Hollywood Cemetery

Richmond, Virginia

>>>>++<<<<

In this short Life

That only lasts an hour

How much -- how little -- is

Within our power

> Emily Dickinson <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Saturday

Dreams will have their way with you

>>>>++<<<<

W r o u g h t   R e d

Gate and Door :: Knoxville Circles Series

Knoxville, Tennessee

>>>>++<<<<

The white water rush of some warbler's song.

Last night, a few strewings of ransacked moonlight

On the sheets. You don't know what slumped forward

In the nineteen-forties taxi or why they blamed you

Or what the altered landscape, willowy, riparian,

Had to do with the reasons why everyone

Should be giving things away, quickly,

Except for the spendthrift sorrow that can't bear

The need to be forgiven and keeps looking for something

To forgive. The motions of washing machines

Is called agitation. Object constancy is a term

Devised to indicate what a child requires

From days. Clean sheets are an example

Of something that, under many circumstances,

A person can control. The patterns moonlight makes

Are chancier, and dreams, well, dreams

Will have their way with you, their way

With you, will have their way.

> Robert Hass <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Friday

Dots now in the distance

>>>>++<<<<

B u t   N o w   I   S e e

Allegheny Cemetery

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

>>>>++<<<<

When I thought it was right to name my desires,
what I wanted of life, they seemed to turn
like bleating sheep, not to me, who could have been
a caring, if unskilled, shepherd, but to the boxed-in hills
beyond which the blue mountains sloped down
with poppies orange as crayfish all the way to the Pacific seas
in which the hulls of whales steered them
in search of a mate for whom they bellowed
in a new, highly particular song
we might call the most ardent articulation of love,
the pin at the tip of evolution,
modestly shining.

In the middle of my life
it was right to say my desires
but they went away. I couldn’t even make them out,
not even as dots
now in the distance.

Yet I see the small lights
of winter campfires in the hills --
teenagers in love often go there
for their first nights -- and each yellow-white glow
tells me what I can know and admit to knowing,
that all I ever wanted
was to sit by a fire with someone
who wanted me in measure the same to my wanting.
To want to make a fire with someone,
with you,
was all.

> Katie Ford <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Wednesday :: Happy March

Deep delicious color

>>>>++<<<<

A l l   S y s t e m s   G o

Old Sheldon Church Ruins

Yemassee, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Light has killed the winter and all dark dreams.

Now winds live all in light,

Light has come down to earth and blossoms here,

And we have golden minds.

From out the long shade of a road high-bankt,

I came on shelving fields;

And from my feet cascading,

Streaming down the land,

Flickering lavish of daffodils flowed and fell;

Like sunlight on a water thrill'd with haste,

Such clear pale quivering flame,

But a flame even more marvellously yellow.

And all the way to Ryton here I walkt

Ankle-deep in light.

It was as if the world had just begun;

And in a mind new-made

Of shadowless delight

My spirit drank my flashing senses in,

And gloried to be made

Of young mortality.

No darker joy than this

Golden amazement now

Shall dare intrude into our dazzling lives:

Stain were it now to know

Mists of sweet warmth and deep delicious color,

Those lovable accomplices that come

Befriending languid hours.

> Lascelles Abercrombie <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Tuesday

Some possibility left

>>>>++<<<<

C o l d   H a n d s

Allegheny Cemetery

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

>>>>++<<<<

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,

don't hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty

of lives and whole towns destroyed or about

to be. We are not wise, and not very often

kind. And much can never be redeemed.

Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this

is its way of fighting back, that sometimes

something happens better than all the riches

or power in the world. It could be anything,

but very likely you notice it in the instant

when love begins. Anyway, that's often the case.

Anyway, whatever it is, don't be afraid

of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

> Mary Oliver <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Monday

Something secret is going on

>>>>++<<<<

H e r   M a j e s t y

Hancock County Courthouse

Sparta, Georgia

>>>>++<<<<

Sometimes, when the light strikes at odd angles
and pulls you back into childhood

and you are passing a crumbling mansion
completely hidden behind old willows

or an empty convent guarded by hemlocks
and giant firs standing hip to hip,

you know again that behind that wall,
under the uncut hair of the willows

something secret is going on,
so marvelous and dangerous

that if you crawled through and saw,
you would die, or be happy forever.

> Lisel Mueller <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Thursday

This wondering joy

>>>>++<<<<

L i f e s p a n

Magnolia Cemetery

Augusta, Georgia

>>>>++<<<<

The things that one grows tired of -- O, be sure
They are only foolish artificial things!
Can a bird ever tire of having wings?
And I, so long as life and sense endure,
(Or brief be they!) shall nevermore inure
My heart to the recurrence of the springs,
Of gray dawns, the gracious evenings,
The infinite wheeling stars. A wonder pure
Must ever well within me to behold
Venus decline; or great Orion, whose belt
Is studded with three nails of burning gold,
Ascend the winter heaven. Who never felt
This wondering joy may yet be good or great:
But envy him not: he is not fortunate.

> Robinson Jeffers <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Wednesday

My leaves sing

>>>>++<<<<

F e b r u a r y   S u n s e t

From the Front Porch

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Wind and a bobwhite
And the afternoon sun.

By ceasing to question the sun
I have become light,

Bird and wind.

My leaves sing.

I am earth, earth

All these lighted things
Grow from my heart.

A tall, spare pine
Stands like the initial of my first
Name when I had one.

When I had a spirit,
When I was on fire
When this valley was
Made out of fresh air
You spoke my name
In naming Your silence:
O sweet, irrational worship!

I am earth, earth

My heart’s love
Bursts with hay and flowers.
I am a lake of blue air
In which my own appointed place
Field and valley
Stand reflected.

I am earth, earth

Out of my grass heart
Rises the bobwhite.

Out of my nameless weeds
His foolish worship.

> Thomas Merton <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Tuesday

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