Their shining garments fade

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S i g n   M e   U p

Main Street

Ridge Spring, South Carolina

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Sometimes when all the world seems gray and dun
And nothing beautiful, a voice will cry,
“Look out, look out! Angels are drawing nigh!”
Then my slow burdens leave me, one by one,
And swiftly does my heart arise and run
Even like a child, while loveliness goes by --
And common folk seem children of the sky,
And common things seem shapèd of the sun.
Oh, pitiful! that I who love them, must
So soon perceive their shining garments fade!
And slowly, slowly, from my eyes of trust
Their flaming banners sink into a shade!
While this earth’s sunshine seems the golden dust
Slow settling from that radiant cavalcade.

= Anna Hempstead Branch =

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Happy Tuesday

Music of decline

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T h e   L o n g   V i e w

Roadside Attractions

Union County, South Carolina

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Snow would be the easy
way out -- that softening
sky like a sigh of relief
at finally being allowed
to yield. No dice.
We stack twigs for burning
in glistening patches
but the rain won’t give.

So we wait, breeding
mood, making music
of decline. We sit down
in the smell of the past
and rise in a light
that is already leaving.
We ache in secret,
memorizing

a gloomy line
or two of German.
When spring comes
we promise to act
the fool. Pour,
rain! Sail, wind,
with your cargo of zithers!

= Rita Dove =

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Happy Monday

The path of safety

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S t e p   L i g h t l y

Bonaventure Cemetery

Savannah, Georgia

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Come ye sinners, lost and hopeless

Jesus' blood can make you free

For He saved the worst among you

When He saved a wretch like me

And I know, yes I know

Jesus' blood can make the vilest sinner clean

And I know, yes I know

Jesus' blood can make the vilest sinner clean

To the faint He giveth power

Through the mountains makes a way

Findeth water in the desert

Turns the night to golden day

In temptation He is near thee

Holds the pow'rs of hell at bay

Guides you to the path of safety

Gives you grace for every day

He will keep thee while the ages

Roll throughout eternity

Though earth hinders and hell rages

All must work for good to thee

And I know, yes I know

Jesus' blood can make the vilest sinner clean

And I know, yes I know

Jesus' blood can make the vilest sinner clean

= Anna W. Waterman =

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But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come,

by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands,

that is to say, not of this building;

Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood

he entered in once into the holy place,

having obtained eternal redemption for us.

 For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ahses of an heifer

 sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:

How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit

offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience

from dead works to serve the living God?

= Hebrews 9:11-14 =

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Happy Sunday

And all but hear

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T i m e   A r c h e s   O n

Main Street

Ridge Spring, South Carolina

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Some day this quest
Shall cease;
Some day,
For aye,
This heart shall rest
In peace.
Sometimes -- ofttimes -- I almost feel
The calm upon my senses steal,
So soft, and all but hear
The dead leaves rustle near
And sign to be
At rest with me.
Though I behold
The ashen branches tossing to and fro,
Somehow I only vaguely know
The wind is rude and cold.

= Alexander Posey =

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Happy Saturday

Carry it past goodbye

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T h e   S p i c e   O f   L i f e

Main Street

Ridge Spring, South Carolina

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When I see you after so long not
seeing you it is like picking up in
side a fist the flopped red petals of
a drooped red rose, and when you
speak in the voice that could only be
yours it is like staring into my fist
top’s opening and seeing the rose
as the rose once was. This is not just
to say that the swirl and sweetness
soon flops back open to what now is,
though it does, but that when I see
you after so long not seeing you
I make sense of my feeling in terms
of the rose, and carry it past goodbye.

= Matthew Yeager =

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Happy Friday