Past the smart of feeling

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N o v e l   A p p r o a c h

Belleview Cemetery

Lenoir, North Carolina

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Two evils, monstrous either one apart,

Possessed me, and were long and loath at going:

A cry of Absence, Absence, in the heart,

And in the wood the furious winter blowing.

Think not, when fire was bright upon my bricks,

And past the tight boards hardly a wind could enter,

I glowed like them, the simple burning sticks,

Far from my cause, my proper heat and center.

Better to walk forth in the frozen air
And wash my wound in the snows; that would be healing;
Because my heart would throb less painful there,
Being caked with cold, and past the smart of feeling.

And where I walked, the murderous winter blast
Would have this body bowed, these eyeballs streaming,
And though I think this heart’s blood froze not fast
It ran too small to spare one drop for dreaming.

Dear love, these fingers that had known your touch,
And tied our separate forces first together,
Were ten poor idiot fingers not worth much,
Ten frozen parsnips hanging in the weather.

= John Crowe Ransom =

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Happy Thursday

Our hopes such as they are

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W a l k   W i t h   M e

Skeleton Towel

Columbia, South Carolina

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TO THE NEW YEAR

With what stillness at last

you appear in the valley

your first sunlight reaching down

to touch the tips of a few

high leaves that do not stir

as though they had not noticed

and did not know you at all

then the voice of a dove calls

from far away in itself

to the hush of the morning

so this is the sound of you

here and now whether or not

anyone hears it this is

where we have come with our age

our knowledge such as it is

and our hopes such as they are

invisible before us

untouched and still possible

W.S. Merwin

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Happy Wednesday

Things that cannot be and that are

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C h r i s t m a s   P a s t

South Carolina State House Grounds
 

Columbia

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This world is wild as an old wives' tale,

And strange the plain things are,

The earth is enough and the air is enough

For our wonder and our war;

But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings

And our peace is put in impossible things

Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings

Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening

Home shall men come,

To an older place than Eden

And a taller town than Rome.

To the end of the way of the wandering star,

To the things that cannot be and that are,

To the place where God was homeless

And all men are at home.

= G.K. Chesterton =

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Happy Thursday :: Happy Christmas Eve

From night to day

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T i m e   W a s

Christmas 2014

Columbia, South Carolina

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I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old familiar carols play

And wild and sweet the words repeat

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

I thought how as the day had come
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head
There is no peace on earth, I said
For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep
God is not dead, nor doth He sleep
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.

Till ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

= Henry Wadsworth Longfellow =

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Happy Wednesday :: Happy Christmas Week

As flames from ashes

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W a t c h   a n d   W a i t

Holiday Table

Columbia, South Carolina

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The holiest of all holidays are those
Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;
The secret anniversaries of the heart,
When the full river of feeling overflows; --
The happy days unclouded to their close;
The sudden joys that out of darkness start
As flames from ashes; swift desires that dart
Like swallows singing down each wind that blows!
White as the gleam of a receding sail,
White as a cloud that floats and fades in air,
White as the whitest lily on a stream,
These tender memories are; -- a Fairy Tale
Of some enchanted land we know not where,
But lovely as a landscape in a dream.

= Henry Wadsworth Longfellow =

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Happy Monday :: Happy Christmas Week