Bars cannot conceal

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A g r e e   t o   V e r d i g r i s

Laurel Grove Cemetery

Savannah, Georgia

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Mine -- by the Right of the White Election!

Mine -- by the Royal Seal!

Mine -- by the Sign in the Scarlet prison --

Bars -- cannot conceal!

Mine -- here -- in Vision -- and in Veto!

Mine -- by the Grave's Repeal --

Titled -- Confirmed --

Delirious Charter!

Mine -- long as Ages steal!

= Emily Dickinson =

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Happy Friday

Don't be afraid

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O p e n   t o   t h e   E l e m e n t s

Alley off Main Street

Columbia, South Carolina

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Let the light of late afternoon

shine through chinks in the barn, moving

up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing

as a woman takes up her needles

and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned

in long grass. Let the stars appear

and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.

Let the wind die down. Let the shed

go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop

in the oats, to air in the lung

let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don't

be afraid. God does not leave us

comfortless, so let evening come.

= Jane Kenyon =

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Happy Thursday

So the old dreams stir

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T h e   U p w a r d   L o o k

Dorn Veterans Hospital

Columbia, South Carolina

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I thought of happiness, how it is woven
Out of the silence in the empty house each day
And how it is not sudden and it is not given
But is creation itself like the growth of a tree.
No one has seen it happen, but inside the bark
Another circle is growing in the expanding ring.
No one has heard the root go deeper in the dark,
But the tree is lifted by this inward work
And its plumes shine, and its leaves are glittering.

So happiness is woven out of the peace of hours
And strikes its roots deep in the house alone:
The old chest in the corner, cool waxed floors,
White curtains softly and continually blown
As the free air moves quietly about the room;
A shelf of books, a table, and the white-washed wall --
These are the dear familiar gods of home,
And here the work of faith can best be done,
The growing tree is green and musical.

For what is happiness but growth in peace,
The timeless sense of time when furniture
Has stood a life's span in a single place,
And as the air moves, so the old dreams stir
The shining leaves of present happiness?
No one has heard thought or listened to a mind,
But where people have lived in inwardness
The air is charged with blessing and does bless;
Windows look out on mountains and the walls are kind.

= May Sarton =

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Happy Wednesday

Memory by memory

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H e a v y   P e t a l

Bonaventure Cemetery

Savannah, Georgia

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A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown --

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind --

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs

A poem should be equal to:
Not true

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea --

A poem should not mean
But be

= Archibald MacLeish =

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Happy Tuesday

A give and get

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L e   B e a u   G e s t e

Laurelwood Cemetery

Rock Hill, South Carolina

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I sing the will to love:
the will that carves the will to live,
the will that saps the will to hurt,
the will that kills the will to die;
the will that made and keeps you warm,
the will that points your eyes ahead,
the will that makes you give, not get,
a give and get that tell us what you are:
how much a god, how much a human.
I call on you to live the will to love.

= Alfred Kreymborg =

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Happy Monday