All your heavy burdens

>>>>++<<<<

C r o s s i n g s

Laurel Grove Cemetery

Savannah, Georgia

>>>>++<<<<

Someone to go the extra mile

Just like a mother caring for her child

A friend who sticks through thick or thin

No matter what you've done or where you've been

Just like one great big family

A stronger, older brother He will be

So quick and ready to defend

The younger, weaker to the end.

And he's ever interceding

To the Father for His children

Yes, He's ever interceding

To the Father for His own

Through Him we can reach the Father

So bring Him all your heavy burdens

Yes, He's ever interceding

So come boldly to the throne.

Just like sheep we've gone astray

Struggling 'neath the debt we could not pay

Not ever hoping to renew

The love and fellowship that we once knew

But He began to intercede

Crying Father, please forgive, I plead

And as the nails pierced in His hands

God once again reached out to man.

And he's ever interceding

To the Father for His children

Yes, He's ever interceding

To the Father for His own

Through Him we can reach the Father

So bring Him all your heavy burdens

Yes, He's ever interceding

So come boldly to the throne.

> Carolyn Gillman <

>>>>++<<<<

Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God

by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.

Hebrews 7:25

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Sunday

Bird went praising everywhere

>>>>++<<<<

H a n g i n g   O u t

Lourie Lofts

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

When I hoped, I recollect

Just the place I stood --

At a Window facing West --

Roughest Air -- was good --

Not a Sleet could bite me --

Not a frost could cool --

Hope it was that kept me warm --

Not Merino shawl --

When I feared -- I recollect

Just the Day it was --

Worlds were lying out to Sun --

Yet how Nature froze --

Icicles upon my soul

Prickled Blue and Cool --

Bird went praising everywhere --

Only Me -- was still --

And the Day that I despaired --

This -- if I forget

Nature will -- that it be Night

After Sun has set --

Darkness intersect her face --

And put out her eye --

Nature hesitate -- before

Memory and I --

> Emily Dickinson <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Saturday

Too wild an elation

>>>>++<<<<

A   F o r k   I n   T h e   S t r e a m

Greenville City Park

Greenville, Ohio

>>>>++<<<<

i must be careful about such things as these.
the thin-grained oak.    the quiet grizzlies scared
into the hills by the constant tracks squeezing
in behind them closer in the snow.    the snared
rigidity of the winter lake.    deer after deer
crossing on the spines of fish who look up and stare
with their eyes pressed to the ice.   in a sleep.  hearing
the thin taps leading away to collapse like the bear
in the high quiet.   i must be careful not to shake
anything in too wild an elation.    not to jar
the fragile mountains against the paper far-
ness.   nor avalanche the fog or the eagle from the air.
of the gentle wilderness i must set the precarious
words.   like rocks.   without one snowcapped mistake

> Ed Roberson <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Friday

A shadow of leaves on your shoulders

>>>>++<<<<

C r a p e   M y r t l e   C r u m b l e

Trinity Episcopal Church Cemetery

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

The praisers of women in their proud and beautiful poems
Naming the grave mouth and the hair and the eyes
Boasted those they loved should be forever remembered
These were lies
The words sound but the face in the Istrian sun is forgotten
The poet speaks but to her dead ears no more
The sleek throat is gone -- and the breast that was troubled to listen
Shadow from door
Therefore I will not praise your knees nor your fine walking
Telling you men shall remember your name as long
As lips move or breath is spent or the iron of English
Rings from a tongue
I shall say you were young and your arms straight

and your mouth scarlet
I shall say you will die and none will remember you
Your arms change and none remember the swish of your garments
Nor the click of your shoe
Not with my hand's strength not with difficult labor
Springing the obstinate words to the bones of your breast
And the stubborn line to your young stride

and the breath to your breathing
And the beat to your haste
Shall I prevail on the hearts of unborn men to remember
(What is a dead girl but a shadowy ghost
Or a dead man's voice but a distant and vain affirmation
Like dream words most)
Therefore I will not speak of the undying glory of women
I will say you were young and straight and your skin fair
And you stood in the door and the sun was a shadow

of leaves on your shoulders
And a leaf on your hair
I will not speak of the famous beauty of dead women
I will say the shape of a leaf lay once on your hair
Till the world ends and the eyes are out and the mouths broken
Look! It is there!

> Archibald Macleish <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Thursday

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 Wednesday

Pitiless as the sun

>>>>++<<<<

A t   Y o u r   B e a k   a n d   C l a w

Bowling Green State University

Bowling Green, Ohio

>>>>++<<<<

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

> William Butler Yeats <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Tuesday

Small work for two

>>>>++<<<<

S i t   A   S p e l l

Julia Wolfe's Old Kentucky Home

Asheville, North Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

They sit together on the porch, the dark
Almost fallen, the house behind them dark.
Their supper done with, they have washed and dried
The dishes -- only two plates now, two glasses,
Two knives, two forks, two spoons -- small work for two.
She sits with her hands folded in her lap,
At rest. He smokes his pipe. They do not speak,
And when they speak at last it is to say
What each one knows the other knows. They have
One mind between them, now, that finally
For all its knowing will not exactly know
Which one goes first through the dark doorway, bidding
Goodnight, and which sits on a while alone.

> Wendell Berry <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Monday

And these mine eyes shall see

>>>>++<<<<

Age to Age

Riverside Cemetery

Asheville, North Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

O Yeares! And Age! Farewell

Behold I go

Where I do know

Infinitie to dwell.

And these mine eyes shall see

All times, how they

Are lost i' th' Sea

Of vast Eternitie.

Where never Moone shall sway

The Starres; but she

And Night, shall be

Drown'd in one endlesse Day.

> Robert Herrick (1591 - 1674) <

>>>>++<<<<

The LORD reigneth, he is clothed with majesty;

the LORD is clothed with strength,

wherewith he hath girded himself:

the world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved.

Thy throne is established of old: thou art from everlasting.

The floods have lifted up, O LORD,

the floods have lifted up their voice;

the floods lift up their waves.

The LORD on high is mightier than the noise of many waters,

yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.

Thy testimonies are very sure:

holiness becometh thine house, O LORD, forever.

> Psalm 93 <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Sunday

We want the dew

>>>>++<<<<

F e l i n e   F i n e

Sweetness the Tuxedo Cat

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

The World -- feels Dusty

When We stop to Die --

We want the Dew -- then --

Honors -- taste dry --

Flags -- vex a Dying face --

But the least Fan

Stirred by a friend's Hand --

Cools -- like the Rain --

Mine be the Ministry

When thy Thirst comes --

And Hybla Balms --

Dews of Thessaly, to fetch --

> Emily Dickinson <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Caturday

The great balanced day

>>>>++<<<<

L e a v e   M e   A l o n e

Crown Hill Cemetery

Indianapolis, Indiana

>>>>++<<<<

I had come to the house, in a cave of trees,
Facing a sheer sky.
Everything moved, -- a bell hung ready to strike,
Sun and reflection wheeled by.

When the bare eyes were before me
And the hissing hair,
Held up at a window, seen through a door.
The stiff bald eyes, the serpents on the forehead
Formed in the air.

This is a dead scene forever now.
Nothing will ever stir.
The end will never brighten it more than this,
Nor the rain blur.

The water will always fall, and will not fall,
And the tipped bell make no sound.
The grass will always be growing for hay
Deep on the ground.

And I shall stand here like a shadow
Under the great balanced day,
My eyes on the yellow dust, that was lifting in the wind,
And does not drift away.

> Louise Bogan <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Friday