Within a dream

>>>>++<<<<

O v e r   a n d   A b o v e

Quaker Cemetery

Camden, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,

Love and desire and hate:

I think they have no portion in us after

We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:

Out of a misty dream

Our path emerges for a while, then closes

Within a dream.

> Ernest Dowson <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Monday

We know Thy love rejoices

>>>>++<<<<

L e t ' s   F a c e   I t

Elmwood Cemetery

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Angel voices, ever singing

'Round Thy throne of light

Angel harps, forever ringing

Rest not day or night

Thousands only live to bless Thee

And confess Thee, Lord of might.

Thou Who art beyond the farthest

Mortal eye can scan

Can it be that Thou regardest

Songs of sinful man?

Can we feel that Thou art near us

And wilt hear us?

Yea, we can.

Yea, we know Thy love rejoices

O'er each work of Thine

Thou didst ears and hands and voices

For Thy praise combine

Craftsman's art and music's measure

For Thy pleasure didst design.

Here, great God, today we offer

Of Thine own to Thee;

And for Thine acceptance proffer

All unworthily

Hearts and minds, and hands and voices

In our choicest melody.

Honor, glory, might and merit

Thine shall ever be

Father, Son and Holy Spirit

Blessed Trinity

Of the best that Thou hast given

Earth and Heaven render Thee.

> Francis Pott <

>>>>++<<<<

And all the angels stood round about the throne,

and about the elders and the four beasts,

and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God,

saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom,

and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might,

be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.

Revelation 7:11-12

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Sunday

Why should we linger

>>>>++<<<<

C u r t a i n   C a l l

Late Summer :: From the Passenger Seat

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling

Calling for you and for me

See, on the portals He's waiting and watching

Watching for you and for me.

Come home, come home

Ye who are weary, come home

Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling

Calling, O Sinner, come home.

Why should we tarry when Jesus is pleading

Pleading for you and for me?

Why should we linger and heed not His mercies

Mercies for you and for me?

Time is now fleeting, the moments are passing

Passing for you and for me

Shadows are gathering, deathbeds are coming

Coming for you and for me.

Oh, for the wonderful love He has promised

Promised for you and for me

Though we have sinned, He has mercy and pardon

Pardon for you and for me.

Come home, come home

Ye who are weary, come home

Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling

Calling, O sinner, come home.

> Will L. Thompson <

>>>>++<<<<

I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Luke 5:32

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Sunday

Some morning of chagrin

>>>>++<<<<

L i n e s   C r o s s e d

South Carolina State Lunatic Asylum (Abandoned)

Columbia

>>>>++<<<<

We see -- Comparatively --

The Thing so towering high

We could not grasp its segment

Unaided -- Yesterday --

This Morning's finer Verdict --

Makes scarcely worth the toil --

A furrow -- our Cordillera --

Our Appenine -- a Knoll --

Perhaps 'tis kindly -- done us --

The Anguish -- and the loss --

The wrenching -- for His Firmament

The Thing belonged to us --

To spare these Striding Spirits

Some Morning of Chagrin --

The waking in a Gnat's -- embrace --

Our Giants -- further on --

> Emily Dickinson <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Saturday

How far the world you knew

>>>>++<<<<

D a g n y   C l a r e   : :   W a l k i n g   t h e   W a l k

Holden Beach

Supply, North Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Please raise your hand,
whomever else of you
has been a child,
lost, in a market
or a mall, without
knowing it at first, following
a stranger, accidentally
thinking he is yours,
your family or parent, even
grabbing for his hands,
even calling the word
you said then for “Father,”
only to see the face
look strangely down, utterly
foreign, utterly not the one
who loves you, you
who are a bird suddenly
stunned by the glass partitions
of rooms.
….........................How far
the world you knew, & tall,
& filled, finally, with strangers.

> Aracelis Girmay <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Friday

For green is good

>>>>++<<<<

B l a c k   t o   t h e   W a y

Mt. Auburn Cemetery

Boston, Massachusetts

>>>>++<<<<

This isn’t the end. It simply
cannot be the end. It is a road.
You go ahead coatless, light-
soaked, more rutilant than
the road. The soles of your shoes
sparkle. You walk softly
as you move further inside
your subject. It is a living
season. The trees are anxious
to be included. The car with fins
beams through countless
oncoming points of rage and need.
The sloughed-off cells
under our bed form little hills
of dead matter. If the most sidereal
drink is pain, the most soothing
clock is music. A poetry
of shine could come of this.
It will be predominately
green. You will be allowed
to color in as much as you want
for green is good
for the teeth and eyes.

> C.D. Wright <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Thursday

The left-over energy

>>>>++<<<<

C o n t e m p l a t i o n

Elmwood Cemetery

Charlotte, North Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

I dreamed I called you on the telephone
to say: Be kinder to yourself
but you were sick and would not answer
The waste of my love goes on this way
trying to save you from yourself
I have always wondered about the left-over
energy, the way water goes rushing down a hill
long after the rains have stopped
or the fire you want to go to bed from
but cannot leave, burning-down but not burnt-down
the red coals more extreme, more curious
in their flashing and dying
than you wish they were
sitting long after midnight

> Adrienne Rich <

>>>>++<<<<

Dedicated to the memory of my father

Blanchard Guy McManus

October 16, 1930 - September 13, 1968

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Wednesday

Enforce the green

>>>>++<<<<

P e e k  -  A  -  B o o

Crown Fountain

Chicago, Illinois

>>>>++<<<<

I speak this poem now with grave and level voice

In praise of autumn, of the far-horn-winding fall.

I praise the flower-barren fields, the clouds, the tall

Unanswering branches where the wind makes sullen noise.

I praise the fall: it is the human season.

                                                                 Now

No more the foreign sun does meddle at our earth,

Enforce the green and bring the fallow land to birth,

Nor winter yet weigh all with silence the pine bough,

But now in autumn with the black and outcast crows

Share we the spacious world: the whispering year is gone:

There is more room to live now: the once secret dawn

Comes late by daylight and the dark unguarded goes.

Between the mutinous brave burning of the leaves

And winter’s covering of our hearts with his deep snow

We are alone: there are no evening birds: we know

The naked moon: the tame stars circle at our eaves.

It is the human season. On this sterile air

Do words outcarry breath: the sound goes on and on.

I hear a dead man’s cry from autumn long since gone.

I cry to you beyond upon this bitter air.

> Archibald MacLeish <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Tuesday

For all the history of grief

>>>>++<<<<

H e a v y   P e t a l

Bonaventure Cemetery

Savannah, Georgia

>>>>++<<<<

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown --

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind --

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs

A poem should be equal to:
Not true

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea --

A poem should not mean
But be

> Archibald MacLeish <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Monday :: Never Forget

Angels to beckon me

>>>>++<<<<

T e l l    I t   t o   t h e   W i n g

Grove Street Cemetery

New Haven, Connecticut

>>>>++<<<<

Nearer, my God, to Thee

Nearer to Thee

E'en though it be a cross

That raiseth me

Still all my song shall be

Nearer, my God, to Thee

Nearer, my God, to Thee

Nearer to Thee.

Though like the wanderer

The sun gone down

Darkness be over me

My rest a stone

Yet in my dreams I'd be

Nearer, my God, to Thee

Nearer, my God to Thee

Nearer to Thee.

There let my way appear

Steps unto heaven

All that Thou sendest me

In mercy given

Angels to beckon me

Nearer my God, to Thee

Nearer, my God, to Thee

Nearer to Thee.

Then with my waking thoughts

Bright with Thy praise

Out of my stony griefs

Bethel I'll raise

So by my woes to be

Nearer, My God, to Thee

Nearer, My God, to Thee

Nearer to Thee.

Or if on joyful wing

Cleaving the sky

Sun, moon, and stars forgot

Upward I fly

Still all my song shall be

Nearer, my God, to Thee

Nearer, my God, to Thee

Nearer to Thee.

> Sarah Flower Adams <

>>>>++<<<<

Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord,
and whose hope the Lord is.

 
For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters,
and that spreadeth out her roots by the river,
and shall not see when heat cometh,
but her leaf shall be green;
and shall not be careful in the year of drought,
neither shall cease from yielding fruit.

> Jeremiah 17:7-8 <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Sunday :: Never Forget