Miles on miles of nought

>>>>++<<<<

Y e l l o w i n g   a n d   G r e e n i n g   a n d   I n - B e t w e e n i n g

On the Fence

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

I tie my Hat -- I crease my Shawl --

Life's little duties do -- precisely --

As the very least

Were infinite -- to me --

I put new Blossoms in the Glass --

And throw the old -- away --

I push a petal from my Gown

That anchored there -- I weigh

The time 'twill be till six o'clock

I have so much to do --

And yet -- Existence -- some way back --

Stopped -- struck -- my ticking -- through --

We cannot put Ourself away

As a completed Man

Or Woman -- When the Errand's done

We came to Flesh -- upon --

There may be -- Miles on Miles of Nought --

Of Action -- sicker far --

To simulate -- is stinging work --

To cover what we are

From Science -- and from Surgery --

Too Telescopic Eyes

To bear on us unshaded --

For their -- sake -- not for Ours --

'Twould start them --

We -- could tremble --

But since we got a Bomb --

And held it in our Bosom --

Nay -- Hold it -- it is calm --

Therefore -- we do life's labor --

Though life's Reward -- be done --

With scrupulous exactness --

To hold our Senses -- on --

> Emily Dickinson <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Saturday

Treat him as a proud man

>>>>++<<<<

H e r o e s   A b o u n d   I n   T h i s   G r o u n d

Zion Chapel of Ease Cemetery

Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Down these mean streets a man must go

who is not himself mean,

who is neither tarnished nor afraid.

He is the hero; he is everything.

He must be a complete man

and a common man

and yet an unusual man.

He must be,

to use a rather weathered phrase,

a man of honor --

by instinct, by inevitability,

without thought of it,

and certainly without saying it.

If he is a man of honor in one thing,

he is that in all things.

He must be the best man in his world

and a good enough man for any world.

He has a sense of character,

or he would not know his job.

He will take no man's money dishonestly

and no man's insolence

without a due and dispassionate revenge.

He is a lonely man

and his pride is that you will treat him

as a proud man

or be very sorry you ever saw him.

The story is this man's adventure

in search of a hidden truth,

and it would be no adventure

if it did not happen to a man

fit for adventure.

If there were enough like him,

the world would be a very safe place

to live in, without becoming too dull

to be worth living in.

> Raymond Chandler <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Friday

Everything is upward striving

>>>>++<<<<

R a n k   a n d   F i l e

Zion Chapel of Ease Graveyard

Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays;
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen
Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean
To be some happy creature's palace;
The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o'errun
With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

Now is the high-tide of the year,
And whatever of life hath ebbed away
Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer,
Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,
We are happy now because God wills it;
No matter how barren the past may have been,
'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green;
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;
We may shut our eyes but we cannot help knowing
That skies are clear and grass is growing;
The breeze comes whispering in our ear,
That dandelions are blossoming near,
That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,
That the river is bluer than the sky,
That the robin is plastering his house hard by;
And if the breeze kept the good news back,
For our couriers we should not lack;
We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,
And hark! How clear bold chanticleer,
Warmed with the new wine of the year,
Tells all in his lusty crowing!

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;
Everything is happy now,
Everything is upward striving;
'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,
'Tis for the natural way of living:
Who knows whither the clouds have fled?
In the unscarred heaven they leave not wake,
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed,
The heart forgets its sorrow and ache;
The soul partakes the season's youth,
And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe
Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth,
Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.

> James Russell Lowell <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Thursday

Our souls like syllables

>>>>++<<<<

B e   S t i l l   A n d   K n o w

Colt the Lemon Beagle

McDonough, Georgia

>>>>++<<<<

We are thine, O Love, being in thee and made of thee,
As thou, Love, were the deep thought
And we the speech of the thought; yea, spoken are we,
Thy fires of thought out-spoken:

But burn’d not through us thy imagining
Like fierce mood in a song caught,
We were as clamour’d words a fool may fling,
Loose words, of meaning broken.

For what more like the brainless speech of a fool, --
The lives travelling dark fears,
And as a boy throws pebbles in a pool
Thrown down abysmal places?

Hazardous are the stars, yet is our birth
And our journeying time theirs;
As words of air, life makes of starry earth
Sweet soul-delighted faces;

As voices are we in the worldly wind;
The great wind of the world’s fate
Is turn’d, as air to a shapen sound, to mind
And marvellous desires.

But not in the world as voices storm-shatter’d,
Not borne down by the wind’s weight;
The rushing time rings with our splendid word
Like darkness fill’d with fires.

For Love doth use us for a sound of song,
And Love’s meaning our life wields,
Making our souls like syllables to throng
His tunes of exultation.

Down the blind speed of a fatal world we fly,
As rain blown along earth’s fields;
Yet are we god-desiring liturgy,
Sung joys of adoration;

Yea, made of chance and all a labouring strife,
We go charged with a strong flame;
For as a language Love hath seized on life
His burning heart to story.

Yea, Love, we are thine, the liturgy of thee,
Thy thought’s golden and glad name,
The mortal conscience of immortal glee,
Love’s zeal in Love’s own glory.

> Lascelles Abercrombie <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Wednesday

A keeper of breath

>>>>++<<<<

A   B l u e   W a y   o f   D o i n g   T h i n g s

Palmer Street

Ridgeway, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

The day my body caught fire

the woodland darkened. The horizon

was a sea of maids, rushing to piece me

back into a girl. Out of the girl came yellow

flowers, came stem & sepal.

You never happened, they said.

The meadow was a narration of lessness.

Inside the corral, horses fell

from the impact of lightning. They broke

down. I heard gunshots in my sleep.

I was a keeper of breath,

of hay. I walked a field, collecting bones.

You can build a house out of bones.

You can stand at the doorway

quarrelling with your legs to enter

or run until you turn to ash.

> Stacie Cassarino <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Tuesday

For love's sake

>>>>++<<<<

D o   t h e   S e v e n   D a n c e ,   D a g n y   C l a r e

March 2019

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

What's greater, Pebble or Pond?

What can be known? The Unknown.

My true self runs toward a Hill

More! O More! visible.

Now I adore my life

With the Bird, the abiding leaf,

With the Fish, the questing Snail,

And the Eye altering it All;

And I dance with William Blake

For love, for Love's sake;

And everything comes to One,

As we dance on, dance on, dance on.

> Theodore Roethke <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Monday :: Happy Flag Day

This wondering joy

>>>>++<<<<

G o i n g   G e n t l y

Greenville Creek :: Greenville City Park

Greenville, Ohio

>>>>++<<<<

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 Friday

One of my many balconies

>>>>++<<<<

H e a r t   O n   M y   S l e e v e

Defunct Funeral Home

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Ok, I no longer want them,
the many selves I had to manage

that once exhausted friends. I believed

in angels then, thought I might be
an angel -- that was me, flying off

on a tangent, just so we could land
on one of my many balconies

so we could look down on everyone.

> Ira Sadoff <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Thursday

Haunted by waters

>>>>++<<<<

M e m o r y   B a n k

Tennessee River at Gay Street Bridge

Knoxville, Tennessee

>>>>++<<<<

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.

The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks

from the basement of time.

On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops.

Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.

I am haunted by waters.

> Norman Maclean <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Wednesday

Rehearsed by the sorrows

>>>>++<<<<

I   B l u e   Y o u   W e r e   T h e   O n e

Main Street

Landrum, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven't they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.
Don't go too early.
You're tired. But everyone's tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

> Galway Kinnell <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Tuesday