Almost to dream

>>>>++<<<<

F e m m e s   F a t a l e

Jackson Avenue

Knoxville, Tennessee

>>>>++<<<<

Before the moths have even appeared
to orbit around them, the streetlamps come on,
a long row of them glowing uselessly

along the ring of garden that circles the city center,
where your steps count down the dulling of daylight.
At your feet, a bee crawls in small circles like a toy unwinding.

Summer specializes in time, slows it down almost to dream.
And the noisy day goes so quiet you can hear
the bedraggled man who visits each trash receptacle

mutter in disbelief: Everything in the world is being thrown away!
Summer lingers, but it’s about ending. It’s about how things
redden and ripen and burst and come down. It’s when

city workers cut down trees, demolishing
one limb at a time, spilling the crumbs
of twigs and leaves all over the tablecloth of street.

Sunglasses! the man softly exclaims
while beside him blooms a large gray rose of pigeons
huddled around a dropped piece of bread.

> Jennifer Grotz <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Friday

Some stake their all on luck

>>>>++<<<<

T h i s   T e r r a ' s   E x t r a   F i r m a

Elmwood Cemetery

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

I hardly suppose I know anybody who wouldn't rather

be a success than a failure,

Just as I suppose every piece of crabgrass in the garden

would much rather be an azalea,

And in celestial circles all the run-of-the-mill angels

would rather be archangels

or at least cherubim and seraphim,

And in the legal world all the little process-servers

hope to grow up into great big bailiffim and sheriffim.

Indeed, everybody wants to be a wow,

But not everybody knows exactly how.

Some people think they will eventually wear diamonds

instead of rhinestones

Only by everlastingly keeping their noses

to their ghrinestones.

And other people think they will be able to put in more time

at Palm Beach and the Ritz

By not paying too much attention to attendance at the office

but rather in being brilliant by starts and fits.

Some people after a full day's work sit up all night

getting a college education by correspondence,

While others seem to think they'll get just as far

by devoting their evenings to the study of the difference

in temperament between brunettance and blondance.

Some stake their all on luck,

And others put their faith in their ability to pass the buck.

In short, the world is filled with people trying to achieve success,

And half of them think they'll get it by saying No

and half of them by saying Yes,

And if all the ones who say No said Yes, and vice versa,

such is the fate of humanity that ninety-nine

per cent of them still wouldn't be any better off

than they were before.

Which perhaps is just as well

because if everybody was a success

nobody could be contemptuous of anybody else

and everybody would start in all over again

trying to be a bigger success than everybody else

so they would have somebody to be contemptuous of

and so on forevermore,

Because  when people start hitching their wagons to a star,

That's the way they are.

> Ogden Nash <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Thursday

Life of the summerhours

>>>>++<<<<

M i n d   H o w   Y o u   G o

Elmwood Cemetery

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Voice of the summerwind,
Joy of the summerplain,
Life of the summerhours,
Carol clearly, bound along.
No Tithon thou as poets feign
(Shame fall 'em they are deaf and blind)
But an insect lithe and strong,
Bowing the seeded summerflowers.
Prove their falsehood and thy quarrel,
Vaulting on thine airy feet.
Clap thy shielded sides and carol,
Carol clearly, chirrup sweet
Thou art a mailèd warrior in youth and strength complete;
Armed cap-a-pie,
Full fair to see;
Unknowing fear,
Undreading loss,
A gallant cavalier
Sans peur et sans reproche,
In sunlight and in shadow,
The Bayard of the meadow.

> Alfred, Lord Tennyson <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Wednesday

Growing where we put them

>>>>++<<<<

L e a n   T i m e s

Old Sheldon Church Ruins

 

 Yemassee, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

It seems like you could, but

you can't go back and pull

the roots and runners and replant.

It's all too deep for that.

You've overprized intention,

have mistaken any bent you're given

for control. You thought you chose

the bean and chose the soil.

You even thought you abandoned

one or two gardens. But those things

keep growing where we put them --

if we put them at all.

A certain kind of Eden holds us thrall.

Even the one vine that tendrils out alone

in time turns on its own impulse,

twisting back down on its upward course

a strong and then a stronger rope,

the greenest saddest strongest

kind of hope.

> Kay Ryan <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Tuesday

A flashing and ceasing

>>>>++<<<<

B e a r - l y   T h e r e

Porch Sittin'

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Fireflies flicker in the tops of trees,
Flicker in the lower branches,
Skim along the ground.
Over the moon-white lilies
Is a flashing and ceasing of small, lemon-green stars.
As you lean against me,
Moon-white,
The air all about you
Is slit, and pricked, and pointed with
sparkles of lemon-green flame
Starting out of a background of vague,
blue trees.

> Amy Lowell <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Monday

My song will never be done

>>>>++<<<<

T i l l   A n g e l s   B i d   U s   R i s e

Circular Congregational Church Graveyard

Charleston, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Someday this stamm'ring tongue will falter no more

And a grander, sweeter song I shall sing

Then I'll join the ransomed choir on heaven's bright shore

Forever to praise the King.

And while the ages roll, I'll keep on praising Him

And my voice shall never tire or grow old

And my song shall ever be

Praise the Lamb Who died for me

And I'll sing it while ages shall roll.

When a million years have passed in that wonderful place

My song of praise will just have begun

And my song shall never end while I look on His face

And my song will never be done.

And while the ages roll, I'll keep on praising Him

And my voice shall never tire or grow old

And my song shall ever be

Priase the Lamb Who died for me

And I'll sing it while ages shall roll.

> Mosie Lister <

>>>>++<<<<

Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him

that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb

forever and ever.

Revelation 5:13b

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Sunday

The right to reprehend

>>>>++<<<<

H a n d y   W i t h   A   W r e a t h

Riverside Cemetery

Asheville, North Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Because that you are going

And never coming back

And I, however absolute,

May overlook your Track --

Because that Death is final,

However first it be,

This instant be suspended

Above Mortality --

Significance that each has lived

The other to detect

Discovery not God himself

Could now annihilate

Eternity, Presumption

The instant I perceive

That you, who were Existence

Yourself forgot to live --

The "Life that is" will then have been

A thing I never knew --

As Paradise fictitious

Until the Realm of you --

The "Life that is to be," to me,

A Residence too plain

Unless in my Redeemer's Face

I recognize your own --

Of Immortality who doubts

He may exchange with me

Curtailed by your obscuring Face

Of everything but He --

Of Heaven and Hell I also yield

The Right to reprehend

To whoso would commute this Face

For his less priceless Friend.

If "God is Love" as he admits

We think that he must be

Because he is a "jealous God"

He tells us certainly

If "All is possible with" him

As he besides concedes

He will refund us finally

Our confiscated Gods --

> Emily Dickinson <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Saturday

Sing and the hills will answer

>>>>++<<<<

P o w e r   S u r g e

Above a Tiny Downtown Graveyard

Lexington, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Laugh, and the world laughs with you

Weep, and you weep alone;

For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,

But has trouble enough of its own.

Sing, and the hills will answer;

Sigh, it is lost on the air;

The echoes bound to a joyful sound,

But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;

Grieve, and they turn and go;

They want full measure of all your pleasure,

But they do not need your woe.

Be glad, and your friends are many;

Be sad, and you lose them all, --

There are none to decline your nectared wine,

But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;

Fast, and the world goes by.

Succeed and give, and it helps you live,

But no man can help you die.

There is room in the halls of pleasure

For a large and lordly train,

But one by one we must all file on

Through the narrow aisles of pain.

> Ella Wheeler Wilcox <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Friday

Mouths opened all at once

>>>>++<<<<

B a l a n c i n g   A c t

Irmo Town Park

Irmo, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

The mover of all things struggles

In the green-crowded, green-crowned nightmare

Of a great king packed in an acorn.

A train bends round a curve

Like a fish. An oak tree breaks

Out and shoves for the moonlight,

Bearing leaves which shall murmur for years,

Dumfoundedly, like mouths opened all at once

At just the wrong time to be heard.

Others, others.

> James Dickey <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Thursday

When we are shadows both

>>>>++<<<<

T a k i n g   a   S t e p   B a c k

Water Lilies :: Irmo Town Park

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Here take my picture; though I bid farewell
Thine, in my heart, where my soul dwells, shall dwell.
’Tis like me now, but I dead, ’twill be more
When we are shadows both, than 'twas before.
When weather-beaten I come back, my hand
Perhaps with rude oars torn, or sun beams tann’d,
My face and breast of haircloth, and my head
With care’s rash sudden storms being o’erspread,
My body’a sack of bones, broken within,
And powder’s blue stains scatter’d on my skin;
If rival fools tax thee to’have lov’d a man
So foul and coarse as, oh, I may seem then,
This shall say what I was, and thou shalt say,
“Do his hurts reach me? doth my worth decay?
Or do they reach his judging mind, that he
Should now love less, what he did love to see?
That which in him was fair and delicate,
Was but the milk which in love's childish state
Did nurse it; who now is grown strong enough
To feed on that, which to disus’d tastes seems tough.”

> John Donne <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Monday