Joyfully add yourself

>>>>++<<<<

R o d i n ' s   F r i e n d

North Carolina Museum of Art

Raleigh

>>>>++<<<<

Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were
behind you, like the winter that has just gone by.
For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter
that only by wintering through it all will your heart survive.

Be forever dead in Eurydice -- more gladly arise
into the seamless life proclaimed in your song.
Here, in the realm of decline, among momentary days,
be the crystal cup that shattered even as it rang.

Be -- and yet know the great void where all things begin,
the infinite source of your own most intense vibration,
so that, this once, you may give it your perfect assent.

To all that is used-up, and to all the muffled and dumb
creatures in the world's full reserve, the unsayable sums,
joyfully add yourself, and cancel the count.

> Rainer Maria Rilke <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Tuesday

To grow cool there

>>>>++<<<<

A l l   T h e   B l u s t e r   I   C a n   M u s t e r

August 18, 2017

Southeastern Michigan

>>>>++<<<<

The dayseye hugging the earth
in August, ha! Spring is
gone down in purple,
weeds stand high in the corn,
the rainbeaten furrow
is clotted with sorrel
and crabgrass, the
branch is black under
the heavy mass of the leaves --
The sun is upon a slender green stem
ribbed lengthwise.
He lies on his back --
it is a woman also --
he regards his former
majesty and
round the yellow center,
split and creviced and done into
minute flowerheads, he sends out
his twenty rays -- a little
and the wind is among them
to grow cool there!

One turns the thing over
in his hand and looks
at it from the rear: brownedged,
green and pointed scales
armor his yellow.
But turn and turn,
the crisp petals remain
brief, translucent, greenfastened,
barely touching at the edges:
blades of limpid seashell.

> William Carlos Williams <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Monday

Green thrives

>>>>++<<<<

R i g h t - L e a n i n g

Elmwood Cemetery

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Sometimes thing don't go, after all,

from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel

faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail.

Sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war,

elect an honest man, decide they care

enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.

Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best intentions do not go

amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.

The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow

that seemed hard frozen; may it happen for you.

> Sheenagh Pugh <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Thursday

Such sweetness every day

>>>>++<<<<

P o n d l y   R e m e m b e r e d

Irmo Town Park

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

One summer

I went every morning

to the edge of a pond where

a huddle of just-hatched geese

would paddle to me

and clamber

up the marshy slope

and over my body,

peeping and staring --

such sweetness every day

which the grown ones watched,

for whatever reason,

serenely.

Not there, however, but here

is where the story begins.

Nature has many mysteries,

some of them severe.

Five of the young geese grew

heavy of chest and

bold of wing

while the sixth waited and waited

in its gauze-feathers, its body

that would not grow.

And then it was fall.

And this is what I think

everything is all about:

the way

I was glad

for those five and two

that flew away,

and the way I hold in my heart the wingless one

that had to stay.

> Mary Oliver <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Wednesday

Time to set aside all vigil

>>>>++<<<<

W h e r e   D i d   T h a t   T o e   G o

Laurelwood Cemetery

Rock Hill, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

Light wakes us -- there’s the sun
climbing the mountains’ rim, spilling across the valley,
finding our faces.
It is July,
           between the hay and harvest,
a time at arm’s length from all other time,
the roads ragged with meadowsweet and mallow,
with splays of seedheads, slubbed and coarse, rough linen.
The fields above the house, clotted with sheep all spring,
are empty now and froth with flowering grasses,
still in the morning light. Birds move around
the leafy fields, the leafy garden.

It is the time
to set aside all vigil, good or ill,
to loosen the fixed gaze of our attention
as dandelions let seedlings to the wind.
Wake with the light.
Get up and go about the day and watch
its surfaces that brighten with the sun.
Remark the weight of your hands,
your foot in its sandal,
the lavender’s blue hum.

And later, when the light is drowsed and heavy
go find the burdened fruit trees where the shade
lies splashed and opened-out across the ground.
Spread over it a quilt worn soft by other bodies,
then curl and fall down into sleep in light.

Awaken to a world of long, loose grass stems,
and leaves above,
and birds, breaking out of the leaves.

> Kerry Hardie <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Monday

Called to give an answer

>>>>++<<<<

M a g n o l i a   C r o s s i n g

Elmwood Cemetery

Columbia, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

When the harvest has been gathered
And all my work is done
When the last mile is traveled
And I've sung my final song
If I'm called to give an answer
At Heaven's judgment seat
Then let the blood of Calvary speak for me.

There may be some friends who'd witness
And speak a word so kind
But their voices would seem feeble
At such an awesome time
But there's a voice that calls for mercy
Ringing through eternity
Just let the blood of Calvary speak for me.

May it write me down as righteous
Where no righteousness has been
Shielding me from wrath and judgment
As it covers all my sin
There's no work that I've accomplished
Nor my goodness would I plead
Just let the blood of Calvary speak for me.

> Walt Mills <

>>>>++<<<<

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light,

we have fellowship one with another,

and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son

cleanseth us from all sin.

I John 1:7

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Sunday

Within the clutch of thought

>>>>++<<<<

S t r e a k   F r e e

Lake Murray Dam

Lexington, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

I tried to think a lonelier Thing

Than any I had seen --

Some Polar Expiation -- an Omen in the Bone

Of Death's tremendous nearness --

I probed Retrieveless things

My Duplicate -- to borrow --

A Haggard Comfort springs

From the belief that Somewhere --

Within the Clutch of Thought --

There dwells one other Creature

Of Heavenly Love -- forgot --

I plucked at our Partition

As One should pry the Walls --

Between Himself -- and Horror's Twin --

Within Opposing Cells --

I almost strove to clasp his Hand,

Such Luxury -- it grew --

That as Myself -- could pity Him --

Perhaps he -- pitied me --

> Emily Dickinson <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Saturday

The beginning in the leaves

>>>>++<<<<

K u d z u   K i n g d o m

Harris Street

Newberry, South Carolina

>>>>++<<<<

How long ago the day is
when at last I look at it
with the time it has taken
to be there still in it
now in the transparent light
with the flight in the voices
the beginning in the leaves
everything I remember
and before it before me
present at the speed of light
in the distance that I am
who keep reaching out to it
seeing all the time faster
where it has never stirred from
before there is anything
the darkness thinking the light

> W.S. Merwin <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Friday

Of movement and an order

>>>>++<<<<

W r o u g h t   R e d

Gate and Door :: Knoxville Circles Series

Knoxville, Tennessee

>>>>++<<<<

And now I cannot remember how I would

have had it. It is not a conduit (confluence?) but a place.

The place, of movement and an order.

The place of old order.

But the tail end of the movement is new.

Driving us to say what we are thinking.

It is so much like a beach after all, where you stand

and think of going no further.

And it is good when you get to no further.

It is like a reason that picks you up and

places you where you always wanted to be.

This far, it is fair to be crossing, to have crossed.

Then there is no promise in the other.

Here it is. Steel and air, a mottled presence,

small panacea

and lucky for us.

> John Ashbery <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Thursday

Vain are the thousand creeds

>>>>++<<<<

I r o n   I n   T h e   S t o n e

Memory Hill Cemetery

Milledgeville, Georgia

>>>>++<<<<

No coward soul is mine
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere
I see Heaven's glories shine
And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear

O God within my breast
Almighty ever-present Deity
Life, that in me hast rest
As I Undying Life, have power in Thee

Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts, unutterably vain
Worthless as withered weeds
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main

To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by thy infinity
So surely anchored on
The steadfast rock of Immortality.

With wide-embracing love
Thy spirit animates eternal years
Pervades and broods above
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears

Though earth and moon were gone
And suns and universes ceased to be
And Thou wert left alone
Every Existence would exist in thee

There is not room for Death
Nor atom that his might could render void
Since Thou art Being and Breath
And what Thou art may never be destroyed.

> Emily Brontë <

>>>>++<<<<

Happy Friday :: Happy July