A voice that calls for mercy

>>>>++<<<<

H a n d e d   D o w n

Green-Wood Cemetery

Brooklyn, New York

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When the harvest has been gathered
And all my work is done
When the last mile is traveled
And I've sung my final song
If I'm called to give an answer
At Heaven's judgment seat
Then let the blood of Calvary speak for me.

There may be some friends who'd witness
And speak a word so kind
But their voices would seem feeble
At such an awesome time
But there's a voice that calls for mercy
Ringing through eternity
Just let the blood of Calvary speak for me.

May it write me down as righteous
Where no righteousness has been
Shielding me from wrath and judgment
As it covers all my sin
There's no work that I've accomplished
Nor my goodness would I plead
Just let the blood of Calvary speak for me.

> Walt Mills <

>>>>++<<<<

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light,

we have fellowship one with another,

and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son

cleanseth us from all sin.

I John 1:7

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Happy Sunday

Deterred by retrospect

>>>>++<<<<

W r o u g h t   U p

Elmwood Cemetery

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

The last of Summer is Delight --

Deterred by Retrospect.

'Tis Ecstasy's revealed Review --

Enchantment's Syndicate.

To meet it -- nameless as it is --

Without celestial Mail --

Audacious as without a Knock

To walk within the Veil.

> Emily Dickinson <

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Happy Saturday

Other bells that we would ring

>>>>++<<<<

L e a v e   M e   T o   R e s t

Decatur Cemetery

Decatur, Georgia

>>>>++<<<<

In the shape of this night, in the still fall
of snow, Father
In all that is cold and tiny, these little birds
and children
In everything that moves tonight, the trolleys
and the lovers, Father
In the great hush of country, in the ugly noise
of our cities
In this deep throw of stars, in those trenches
where the dead are, Father
In all the wide land waiting, and in the liners
out on the black water
In all that has been said bravely, in all that is
mean anywhere in the world, Father
In all that is good and lovely, in every house
where sham and hatred are
In the name of those who wait, in the sound
of angry voices, Father
Before the bells ring, before this little point in time
has rushed us on
Before this clean moment has gone, before this night
turns to face tomorrow, Father
There is this high singing in the air
Forever this sorrowful human face in eternity’s window
And there are other bells that we would ring, Father
Other bells that we would ring.

> Kenneth Patchen <

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Happy Friday :: Happy Weekend

No less a straightness

>>>>++<<<<

H a n g i n g   I n   T h e r e

Capernaum Cemetery

Denmark, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

 He is no fugitive -- escaped, escaping.

No one has seen him stumble looking back.

His fear is not behind him but beside him

On either hand to make his course perhaps

A crooked straightness yet no less a straightness.

He runs face forward. He is a pursuer.

He seeks a seeker who in his turn seeks

Another still, lost far into the distance.

Any who seek him seek in him the seeker.

His life is a pursuit of a pursuit forever.

It is the future that creates his present.

All is an interminable chain of longing.

> Robert Frost <

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Happy Thursday

Black and secret centers

>>>>++<<<<

L e t ' s   F a c e   I t

Green-Wood Cemetery

Brooklyn, New York

>>>>++<<<<

The grasses in the field have toppled,

and in places it seems that a large, now

absent, animal must have passed the night.

The hay will right itself if the day

turns dry. I miss you steadily, painfully.

None of your blustering entrances

or exits, doors swinging wildly

on their hinges, or your huge unconscious

sighs when you read something sad,

like Henry Adams's letters from Japan,

where he traveled after Clover died.

Everything blooming bows down in the rain:

white irises, red peonies; and the poppies

with their black and secret centers

lie shattered on the lawn.

> Jane Kenyon <

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Happy Wednesday

A form of missing

>>>>++<<<<

R i g h t   B e h i n d   Y o u

Green-Wood Cemetery

Brooklyn, New York

>>>>++<<<<

It is not so much that I miss you

as the remembering

which I suppose is a form of missing

except more positive,

like the time of the blackout

when fear was my first response

followed by love of the dark.

> Dorothea Grossman <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Tuesday

Desire the arriving light

>>>>++<<<<

Y o u   G l o w   G i r l

Green-Wood Cemetery

Brooklyn, New York

>>>>++<<<<

One clear night while the others slept, I climbed

the stairs to the roof of the house and under a sky

strewn with stars I gazed at the sea, at the spread of it,

the rolling crests of it raked by the wind, becoming

like bits of lace tossed in the air. I stood in the long,

whispering night, waiting for something, a sign, the approach

of a distant light, and I imagined you coming closer,

the dark waves of your hair mingling with the sea,

and the dark became desire, and desire the arriving light.

The nearness, the momentary warmth of you as I stood

on that lonely height watching the slow swells of the sea

break on the shore and turn briefly into glass and disappear ...

Why did I believe you would come out of nowhere? Why with all

that the world offers would you come only because I was here?

> Mark Strand <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Monday

Never send to know

>>>>++<<<<

A t   L e a s t   I   H a v e   M y   W i n g s

Oakdale Cemetery

Wilmington, North Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

No man is an island,

Entire of itself,

Every man is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less.

As well as if a promontory were,

As well as if a manor of thy friend's

Or of thine own were:

Any man's death diminishes me,

Because I am involved in mankind,

And therefore never send to know

For whom the bell tolls;

It tolls for thee.

> John Donne <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Friday

Lightning in these solitudes

>>>>++<<<<

M o u n t a i n s   o f   t h e   M i n d

Allegheny Cemetery

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

>>>>++<<<<

The everlasting universe of things

Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,

Now dark -- now glittering -- now reflecting gloom --

Now lending splendour, where from secret springs

The source of human thought its tribute brings

Of waters -- with a sound but half its own,

Such as a feeble brook will oft assume,

In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,

Where waterfalls around it leap for ever,

Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river

Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.

Mont Blanc yet gleams on high: -- the power is there,

The still and solemn power of many sights,

And many sounds, and much of life and death.

In the calm darkness of the moonless nights,

In the lone glare of day, the snows descend

Upon that Mountain; none beholds them there,

Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun,

Or the star-beams dart through them. Winds contend

Silently there, and heap the snow with breath

Rapid and strong, but silently! Its home

The voiceless lightning in these solitudes

Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods

Over the snow. The secret Strength of things

Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome

Of Heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!

And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,

If to the human mind's imaginings

Silence and solitude were vacancy?

> Percy Bysshe Shelley <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Thursday

Silent through the brimming day

>>>>++<<<<

A n o t h e r   D a y   I s   D o n e

Magnolia Cemetery

Augusta, Georgia

>>>>++<<<<

It may be misery not to sing at all, 
And to go silent through the brimming day; 
It may be misery never to be loved, 
But deeper griefs than these beset the way.

To sing the perfect song, 
And by a half-tone lost the key, 
There the potent sorrow, there the grief, 
The pale, sad staring of Life's Tragedy.

To have come near to the perfect love, 
Not the hot passion of untempered youth, 
But that which lies aside its vanity, 
And gives, for thy trusting worship, truth.

This, this indeed is to be accursed, 
For if we mortals love, or if we sing, 
We count our joys not by what we have, 
But by what kept us from that perfect thing.

> Paul Laurence Dunbar <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Friday