Heap up emerald masses

>>>>++<<<<

A   W o r d   I n   L o v e ' s   L a n g u a g e

Erica and Dagny :: May 2016

Peak, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

They go, the early flags, the gory maples --
so too the daffodils & Lenten roses.
Other petals swirl & nights warm.
 
Buds thicken and cast shadows:
in a thunderstorm
I almost forget the ice that was.
 
Narcissi suckle watery paths;
meadows heap up emerald masses.
How green & I want to delight
 
except this undertow -- it pulls so fast
passing before I recognize it --
like souls in Dante who can’t see the present,
 
white lilacs curdle in pre-summer heat.
The parade I barely noticed was beginning
is already halfway down the street.

> Tess Taylor <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Friday

I can remember yet

>>>>++<<<<

L o v i n g   I n   V e i n

Bonaventure Cemetery

Savannah, Georgia

>>>>++<<<<

When I died last, and, Dear, I die
As often as from thee I go,
Though it be but an hour ago,
And Lovers' hours be full eternity,
I can remember yet, that I
Something did say, and something did bestow;
Though I be dead, which sent me, I should be
Mine own executor and legacy.

I heard me say, "Tell her anon,
That myself, that is you, not I,
Did kill me," and when I felt me die,
I bid me send my heart, when I was gone,
But alas could there find none,
When I had ripp'd me, and search'd where hearts should lie;
It kill'd me again, that I who still was true,
In life, in my last will should cozen you.

Yet I found something like a heart,
But colors it, and corners had,
It was not good, it was not bad,
It was intire to none, and few had part.
As good as could be made by art
It seem'd, and therefore for our losses sad,
I meant to send this heart in stead of mine,
But oh, no man could hold it, for 'twas thine.

> John Donne <

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Happy Thursday

Be glad for the dreams we dream

>>>>++<<<<

A n g e l   P a s s a g e

Green-Wood Cemetery

Brooklyn, New York

>>>>++<<<<

THE DREAMERS

In the dawn of the day of ages,

In the youth of a wondrous race,

'Twas the dreamer who saw the marvel,

'Twas the dreamer who saw God's face.

On the mountains and in the valleys,

By the banks of the crystal stream,

He wandered whose eyes grew heavy

With the grandeur of his dream.

The seer whose grave none knoweth,

The leader who rent the sea,

The lover of men who, smiling,

Walked safe on Galilee --

All dreamed their dreams and whispered

To the weary and worn and sad

Of a vision that passeth knowledge.

They said to the world: "Be glad!

"Be glad for the words we utter,

Be glad for the dreams we dream;

Be glad, for the shadows fleeing

Shall let God's sunlight beam."

But the dreams and the dreamers vanish,

The world with its cares grows old;

The night, with the stars that gem it,

Is passing fair, but cold.

What light in the heavens shining

Shall the eye of the dreamer see?

Was the glory of old a phantom,

The wraith of a mockery?

Oh, man, with your soul that crieth

In gloom for a guiding gleam,

To you are the voices speaking

Of those who dream their dream.

If their vision be false and fleeting,

If its glory delude their sight --

Ah, well, 'tis a dream shall brighten

The long, dark hours of night.

> Edward Sims Van Zile <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Wednesday

Joyous we too launch out

>>>>++<<<<

S m a l l   S w e e t   B o y

The Home Front :: Little Andrew, 2017

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Lo, soul, seest thou not God's purpose from the first?
The earth to be spann'd, connected by network,
The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage,
The oceans to be cross'd, the distant brought near,
The lands to be welded together.
 
A worship new I sing,
You captains, voyagers, explorers, yours,
You engineers, you architects, machinists, yours,
You, not for trade or transportation only,
But in God's name, and for thy sake O soul.

Passage indeed O soul to primal thought,
Not lands and seas alone, thy own clear freshness,
The young maturity of brood and bloom,
To realms of budding bibles.
 
O soul, repressless, I with thee and thou with me,
Thy circumnavigation of the world begin,
Of man, the voyage of his mind's return,
To reason's early paradise,
Back, back to wisdom's birth, to innocent intuitions,
Again with fair creation.
 
O we can wait no longer,
We too take ship O soul,
Joyous we too launch out on trackless seas,
Fearless for unknown shores on waves of ecstasy to sail

Passage, immediate passage! the blood burns in my veins!
Away O soul! hoist instantly the anchor!
 
Cut the hawsers -- haul out  -- shake out every sail!
Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough?
Have we not grovel'd here long enough, eating and drinking like mere brutes?
Have we not darken'd and dazed ourselves with books long enough?
 
Sail forth -- steer for the deep waters only,
Reckless O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me,
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.
 
O my brave soul
O farther farther sail!
O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God?
O farther, farther, farther sail!

> Walt Whitman <

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Happy Tuesday

Your dream-ladder to divinity

>>>>++<<<<

S h e e p i s h

Beulah United Methodist Church Cemetery

Gilbert, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

> David Whyte <

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Happy Monday

After-comers cannot guess

>>>>++<<<<

M e m o r i e s   G r o w   H e r e

St. Simon's Church

Peak, South Carolina

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My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
All felled, felled, are all felled;
Of a fresh and following folded rank
Not spared, not one
That dandled a sandalled
Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank.

O if we but knew what to do
When we delve or hew --
Hack and rack the growing green!
Since country is so tender
To touch, her being só slender,
That, like this sleek and seeing ball
But a prick will make no eye at all,
Where we, even where we mean
To mend her we end her,
When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
Strokes of havoc únselve
The sweet especial scene,
Rural scene, a rural scene,
Sweet especial rural scene.

> Gerard Manley Hopkins <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Saturday

Nothing is wasted

>>>>++<<<<

R o c k   S t a r

Cotton Yard Market

Ridgeway, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

The things I know:

how the living go on living

and how the dead go on living with them

So that in a forest

even a dead tree casts a shadow

and the leaves fall one by one

and the branches break in the wind

and the bark peels off slowly

and the trunk cracks

and the rain seeps in through the cracks

and the trunk falls to the ground

and the moss covers it

and in the spring the rabbits find it

and build their nest inside

and have their young

and their young will live safely

inside the dead tree

So that nothing is wasted in nature

or in love.

 

> Laura Gilpin <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Friday :: Happy April

Reach out of your own condition

>>>>++<<<<

L i s t e n   U p

Green Mount Cemetery

Baltimore, Maryland

>>>>++<<<<

If you’re John Muir you want trees to
live among. If you’re Emily, a garden 
will do.
Try to find the right place for yourself.
If you can’t find it, at least dream of it.

When one is alone and lonely, the body
gladly lingers in the wind or the rain,
or splashes into the cold river, or
pushes through the ice-crusted snow.

Anything that touches.

God, or the gods, are invisible, quite
understandable. But holiness is visible,
entirely.

Some words will never leave God’s mouth,
no matter how hard you listen.  

In all the works of Beethoven, you will
not find a single lie.

All important ideas must include the trees,
the mountains, and the rivers.

To understand many things you must reach out
of your own condition.

For how many years did I wander slowly
through the forest. What wonder and
glory I would have missed had I ever been
in a hurry!

Beauty can both shout and whisper, and still
it explains nothing.

The point is, you’re you, and that’s for keeps.

> Mary Oliver <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Thursday

Unparted from the darkness

>>>>++<<<<

H o w   W e   R o l l

Country Scene

Union County, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Come then to prayers
And kneel upon the stone,
For we have tried
All courages on these despairs,
And are required lastly to give up pride,
And the last difficult pride in being humble.

Draw down the window-frame
That we may be unparted from the darkness
Inviting to the house
Air from a field, air from a salt grave,
That questions if we have
Concealed no flaw in this confessional,
And, being satisfied,
Lingers, and troubles, and is lightless,
And so grows darker, as if clapped on a flame,
Whose great extinguishing still makes it tremble.

Only our hearts go beating towards the east.
Out of this darkness, let the unmeasured sword
Rising from sleep to execute our crown
Rest on our shoulders, as we then can rest
On the outdistancing, all-capable flood
Whose brim touches the morning. Down
The long shadows where undriven the dawn
Hunts light into nobility, arouse us noble.

> Philip Larkin <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Wednesday

Sing through our sighing

>>>>++<<<<

P e t a l l u r g i s t

Elmwood Cemetery

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

“O Dreary life!” we cry, “O dreary life!”
And still the generations of the birds
Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds
Serenely live while we are keeping strife
With Heaven’s true purpose in us, as a knife
Against which we may struggle. Ocean girds
Unslackened the dry land: savannah-swards
Unweary sweep: hills watch, unworn; and rife
Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest-trees,
To show, above, the unwasted stars that pass
In their old glory. O thou God of old!
Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these; —
But so much patience, as a blade of grass
Grows by contended through the heat and cold.

> Elizabeth Barrett Browning <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Tuesday