Lily

"... more like inflamed flesh than the lucid reds of ordinary sunsets ... the glow is intense; that is what strikes everyone; it has prolonged the daylight, and optically changed the season; it bathes the whole sky, it is mistaken for the reflection of a great fire."

~ Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1884 - 1889

From writing based on the eruption of the volcano Krakatoa in August of 1883.

Homily: Nothing Gold Can Stay

 

Poem: Haiku - Red Geranium

 

Poem: Bliss

 Once in a while I take a stab myself...

BLISS

It's one of those sticky

August days when nothing

is more restorative

than sitting on my deck

under the shade of the umbrella

and trees.

I sweat without moving,

fully realizing my dampness

when a breeze pops up;

the evaporation of moisture

chills my skin

just long enough

to evince a little shiver.

~ RWA, 2408.03

Homily

 

A Moment

COVID-19, 20, 21 HAIKU

Manically per-

suing normalcy, I just

am so over it...

Nothing Gold

NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn go down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

~ Robert Frost, 1874 - 1963

Haiku Thursday

A lifetime is not

Enough time, time enough to

Embrace a garden

- RWA

Summer Haiku #2

Remembering more

Than ever there was before

This morning of tales.

~ RWA

Summer Haiku #1

Woven with desire;

The night's work disintegrates

In the morning light.

~ RWA

Viola Complaint

VIOLA COMPLAINT

A colony of violas
demanded to know
why the snow was pink
and refused to melt!

I referred them to the
Kwanzan Cherry, saying:

"You must ask her,
for I had nothing
to do with this
miracle."

~ RWA

Eulogy: Lisel Mueller

Remember a beloved poet on the occasion of her passing into Ancestry.  Her words are better than mine.

THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND

Take my hand.  There are two of us in this cave.
The sound you hear is water; you will hear it forever.
The ground you walk on is rock.  I have been here before.
People come here to be born, to discover, to kiss,
to dream and to dig and kill.  Watch for the mud.
Summer blows in with scent of horses and roses;
fall with the sound of sound breaking; winter shoves
its empty sleeve down the dark of your throat.
You will learn toads from diamonds, the fist from the palm,
love from the sweat of love, falling from flying.
There are a thousand turnoffs.  I have been here before.
Once I followed the thread unrolled by a voice
and when I returned my nails had grown into claws.
Once I fell off a precipice.  Once I found gold.
Once I stumbled on murder, the thin parts of a girl.
Walk on, keep walking, there are axes above us.
Watch for occasional bits and bubbles of light,
birthdays for you, recognitions; yourself, another.
Watch for the mud.  Listen for the bells, for beggars.
Something with wings went crazy against my chest once.
There are two of us here.  Touch me.

~ Lisel Mueller, 1924-2020

Poetry Heals #1: Loose Strife With Apiary

LOOSE STRIFE WITH APIARY

Watched a man watch a man.  One man made smoke out of noth-

ing by scraping together two stones.  Another kept time using

nothing by stones.  One man made love, another made pain with

a stone in each hand.  Somebody take out these stitches, I'm ready

to open my eyes.  So this is the new world -- just like the old, only

brighter.  Word is the governor's wife scattered loose strife in the

barnyard thinking it chicken feed & the wetlands turned purple

overnight. We make ready vectors for smallpox & language. Books

on magnetic tape, books on bookkeeping, on being, on coping &

Beekeeping -- I could have told you, all it takes is a meadow &

nerve.  Come, let me show you the recycled cosmos inside my api-

ary.  A veil on a peg.  Queen deep in the sweetness.

~ Srikanth Reedy, 1973 -

IN HEAVEN
[XVIII]

In Heaven,
Some little blades of grass
stood before God.
"What did you do?"
Then all save on of the little blades of grass
Began eager to relate
The merits of their lives.
This one stayed a small way behind
Ashamed.
Presently God said:
"And what did you do?"
The little blade answered, "Oh, my Lord,
"Memory is bitter to me
"For it I did good deeds
"I know not of them."
Then God in all His splendor
Arose from his throne.
"Oh, best little blade of grass," He said.

~ Stephen Crane, 1871-1900

Kramer Books

When taking the Metro to the theatre I have learned to pad the time by 30-45 minutes to be safe.  On this gorgeous afternoon I arrived with that time to spare and spent it in my favorite independent book store, one of the best in America, Kramer's Books on Connecticut Avenue.  My exploration ended in three whim purchases.

"The Immeasurable World: Journeys in Desert Places" by William Atkins.  Picked this up on a total whim and popped it open to page 137 and read: "The translation of "Taklamakan" favoured by Western explorers --"You go in and you don't come out"--bemuses the locals."  In one randomly selected sentence I knew two things: 1) Arkins is British, and 2) I wanted to know why they were bemused.  Sometimes falling in love with a book is just that simple.

"How to Walk" by Thich Nhat Hanh.  I've been thinking about my walking a lot lately.  Feeling how my body works in the moment.  The souls of my feet and my weight rockes across them from heal to toe.  The slack and pull of my lateral muscles in rhythm with my hips and arms.  Some call this mindfulness, but I am more interested in simply thinking of it as being alive.  Perhaps this Buddhist master will offer wisdom in this particular moment of thirst.

"Wild is the Wind" poems by Carl Phillips.  I have a couple of his earlier collections and in my opinion his is that uncommon poet that just gets better and better with time.  Reading the opening poem and again I was hooked.  The plain, yet evocative language and the obvious meanings of the words assemble in a way that suggests a labyrinth of meanings while still sounding lyrical to my inner ear.

COURTSHIP

--Both things, I think.  But less the hesitation of many hands
touching the stunned dethronement of the master's body, than
their way of touching it again; again. Each time, more surely.

~ Carl Phillips

Sunday Homily

A snippet from a poem by my friend and poet, Gavin Geoffrey Dillard for your Sunday edification.

In the garden this afternoon the first

Monarchs -- how briefly they
live, how far they travel!

* The photo is mine.  Taken at the Youth Gardens at the National Arboretum in August.

The Art of Sending Postcards

I have spent the past 35 years purchasing art postcards whenever I visit an art museum.  I buy in bulk!  Usually, between 11 and 26 of the same card.  Why?  Because I use them to create random acts of kindness in the lives of friends and acquaintances.  I'm sure you are familiar with that expression: "Do random acts of kindness", right?  It's a lovely sentiment, but how do you make it real?  For me the answer is found in two things I love: Art & Poetry.  The conduit being art postcards.

How does it work?  I read a lot of poetry.  When I find a poem that I like, I write it out on the back of one of the postcards.  In fact, I write it out on the back of a lot of postcards combining the poem with the work of art.  Sometimes the two go together in a way that is obvious.  Sometimes they don't go together at all--and yet, I have heard from those receiving them that even those pairings find some crucial or whimsical meaning in the minds and hearts of the recipient.  Isn't that the magic of Art and Poetry?  To transcend the common, the obvious and lead one to ideas and feelings deeper within?

Some people have been getting these little emissaries of kindness for decades.  They have travelled all around the world.  They arrive without warning (random).  They don't commemorate any event or occasion.  They just show up and hopefully bring a moment of delight...a knowledge that I am thinking about them.  I do not sign them--not ever.  Sometimes I have continued to send them to addresses that either knowingly or unknown to me the person no longer lives at.  This simply means that some stranger is benefitting from the act.  In some ways that thought is more enjoyable to me still.

And there is a blowback benefit.  From time to time I receive postcards from friends.  Like today!  A little wisdom from Bette Davis from my friend who is an actual published poet and librettist of operas--the kind that get staged in opera houses.  You know I don't think I've ever told him that long before we met and became friends, I sent some of his poems out into the world of kindness.  Although I find the massage on the pillow to be words of great importance: "Old Age Ain't No Place For Sissies", I am baffled as to why he would choose such a sentiment or send it on to me.  I guess he must be fantasizing about the day when our trains will arrive at the station.  Yeah, that's gotta be it...

Well, now that you know how easy it is to foment
radical happiness in the world, you have only one choice: Go forth and do likewise!

Saturday Night Solitude

JULY 28, 2018

Perfect summer night --

Streaming soul on WTMD

while crickets court all around,

and the stars above are free.

Not a care in sight,

No expectations from which to flee --
Life's good, graces abound,

Resting in this peace simply.

~ rwa