On the hills of glory

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I n   G o o d   S t a n d i n g

Pleasant Forest Cemetery

Knoxville, Tennessee

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Oh what glory awaits me in Heaven's bright city

When I get there such sights I'll behold

A million scenes of rare beauty

Will demand that I view them

But Jesus will outshine them all.

Mansions will glisten on the hills of glory

Happy reunions on streets of gold

Angel choirs singing glad praises forever

But Jesus will outshine them all.

The sparkling river is flowing, happy faces all glowing

Land of splendor where night never falls

The golden glass gives reflection

To that city's perfection

Still Jesus will outshine them all.

= Gordon Jensen =

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And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon,

to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it,

and the Lamb is the light thereof.

And the nations of them which are saved

shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth

do bring their glory and honour into it.

Revelation 21:23-24

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Happy Sunday

Help belief to stretch

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W o r k i n g   A n   A n g l e

Elmwood Cemetery

Columbia, South Carolina

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Remorse -- is Memory -- awake --

Her Parties all astir --

A Presence of Departed Acts --

At window -- and at Door --

Its Past -- set down before the Soul

And lighted with a Match --

Perusal -- to facilitate --

And help Belief to stretch --

Remorse is cureless -- the Disease

Not even God -- can heal --

For 'tis His institution -- and 

The Adequate of Hell --

= Emily Dickinson =

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Happy Saturday

Some blessed hope

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P r a y i n g   T h r o u g h

Union County

South Carolina

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I leant upon a coppice gate,
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to me
The Century’s corpse outleant,
Its crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind its death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead,
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited.
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small,
With blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew,
And I was unaware.

= Thomas Hardy =

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Happy Friday

What I owe the fading day

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W a i t i n g   F o r   P l a y l i g h t

Fairfield County

South Carolina

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At almost four in the afternoon, the
wind picks up and sifts through the golden woods.

The tree trunks bronze and redden, branches
on fire in the heavy sky that flickers

with the disappearing sun. I wonder
what I owe the fading day, why I keep

my place at this dark desk by the window
measuring the force of the wind, gauging

how long a certain cloud will hold that pink
edge that even now has slipped into gray?

Quickly the lights are appearing, a lamp
in every window and nests of stars

on the rooftops. Ladders lean against the hills
and people climb, rung by rung, into the night.

= Joyce Sutphen =

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Happy Thursday

Theater of reflections

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C o m m e r c e

Pack Square

Asheville, North Carolina

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Between going and staying
the day wavers,
in love with its own transparency.
The circular afternoon is now a bay
where the world in stillness rocks.

All is visible and all elusive,
all is near and can’t be touched.

Paper, book, pencil, glass,
rest in the shade of their names.

Time throbbing in my temples repeats
the same unchanging syllable of blood.

The light turns the indifferent wall
into a ghostly theater of reflections.

I find myself in the middle of an eye,
watching myself in its blank stare.

The moment scatters. Motionless,
I stay and go: I am a pause.

= Octavio Paz =

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Happy Wednesday