Sitting on the front porch, listening to the wind blow. Since reading Heidi in third grade, I have been conscious of the unique sound the wind makes, blowing through pine trees. There's a rain storm blowing in. Absolute beauty.

My holy place

The Holy of Holies.

Wow. Perfection.

The four best-looking men on the planet, with the best hearts.

Tooling calmly down the road, while Slowhand's guitar mutters offhand remarks under its breath......

One of my favorite pics of my oldest daughter. Life is nothing, if not fun, for her. <3

"The only thing not permanent is our understanding of what anyone can possibly mean by the word "permanent". - from Not Every Mountain, Kirk Lynn

Some days it's harder than others, to keep the noose on straight.

QUANTUM EST QUOD DESIT
                    - Thomas Moore

'Twas a new feeling - something more
Than we had dar'd to own before
  Which then we hid not;
We saw it in each other's eye,
And wish'd in every broken sigh
   To speak, but did not!

She felt my lips' impassioned touch;
'Twas the first time I dar'd so much,
   And yet, she chid not;
But whisper'd o'er my burning brow,
'Oh! do you doubt I love you now?'
   Sweet soul! I did not!

Warmly I felt her bosom thrill,
I prest it closer, closer still,
   Tho gently bid not;
Till - oh! the world hath seldom heard
Of lovers, who so nearly err'd,
   And yet who - did not!

WILD NIGHTS - WILD NIGHTS!
                   - Emily Dickinson

Wild Nights - Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile - the Winds -
To a Heart in port -
Done with the Compass -
Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden -
Ah, the sea!
Might I but moor - Tonight -
In Thee!

The perfect tune to play while cruising Main Street, late in the afternoon, with the sunshine as thick and golden as translucent honey, in red lipstick and shades. Makes me miss our '60 Cadillac.

-----Or driving to my country church, in a marvelous mood, on a light green, flower-strewn day, with the windows down.
The man's not afraid of silence.
So pensive.....

"I'm dying now, I'm about to awake -
 My next breath will be so easy to take."

Cognitive dissonance - listening to opinions I strongly disagree with, set to music I strongly love.

I'll keep taking this sweet poison,
I don't care what you say,
Until I hate the hollow high
And I myself throw it away.
Then you'll know I'm back to stay.

Never fear, my very dear -
It's getting hollower by the day.

Amen and amen

HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD
                                   - Robert Browning

O to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood leaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England - now!

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops - at the bent spray's edge -
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he could never recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
- Far brighter than this gaudy melon flower!

"But if any little casement opened wide,
 The gust of his approach would clash it to"
                     - Francis Thompson

You're nearly a real treat.

My desktop smells delicious.

O SWEET SPONTANEOUS
                  - e.e. cummings

O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting

        fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked

thee
,has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy

beauty     .how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
      (but
true
o sweet spontaneous

  to the incomparable
  couch of death thy
  rhythmic
  lover

         thou answerest


 them only with

                   spring)

from THE PROBLEM OF PAIN - The Hint Of More
                                                      - C.S. Lewis

Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet anther human being who had some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never HAD it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it - tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest - if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself - you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say, 'Here at last is the thing I was made for." We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all.

........ This, I think, describes Plato's struggle to get out of the cave, Neo's fight to be freed of the Matrix. Rafiki's call to look beyond what we see.  And Solomon said where there is no vision the people perish. If we lose this we lose all.

My church is on a ranch. We worship between the hay fields, sprinkled with spring flowers. Happy Easter!

When we moved to our beautiful little spot under the pines 23 years ago, I told my sweetheart not to give me bouquets of roses on days worthy of flowers - give me a rose BUSH, so I'll always have roses. So he did. And today he walked in with a Chrysler Imperial, saying Happy Easter! 💖

HAPPY EASTER!
If you really believe it, it changes everything.
I really believe it, and that changes me. It makes me a person who believes in Magic. That anything can happen, and that the man who died on Good Friday was not a victim. That death was not the end for him, and as his follower, not for me either. If this is possible, nothing bad can be the Worst.
Happy Easter! 

This gent was born 15 miles from me, and now lives about five miles from me. We're catering his wife's Empowering Women event today. And I love watching him play, tho he's seldom in town. 

LEISURE
   - W.H. Davies

What is this life, if full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in the grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life, this, if full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

Your age is who you are, not when.
You never stop being the ages you've been.
You just keep adding ages to be,
Like rings on a huge, well-watered tree.

In a marvelous mood, with a list of "absorbing and agreeable" chores to do, and thought-provoking music playing. Music best enjoyed alone, or with someone who also prefers no talk. 

An April snowfall in Becharrie, Lebanon. My husband's hometown. Home of apple orchards, Cedars of Lebanon, deep mountain gorges, Khalil Gibran, and fiercely protective mountain people. 💖

from THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS
Screw tape advises Wormwood on using time to wear down a soul
                           - C.S. Lewis

If, on the other hand, the middle years prove prosperous, our position is even stronger. Prosperity knits a man to the World. He feels that he is "finding his place in it", while really it is finding its place in him. His increasing reputation, his widening circle of acquaintances, his sense of importance, the growing pressure of absorbing and agreeable work, build up in him a sense of really being at home in earth, which is just what we want.

The sunset looks like a slice of orange dipped in cinnamon honey. With that light behind me and this music surrounding me, I could drive straight into the sunrise.

SO WE'LL GO NO MORE A-ROVING
                  - George Gordon, Lord Byron

So we'll go no more a-roving
    So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
    And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath
    And the soul outwears its breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
    And love itself a rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
    And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a-roving
    By the light of the moon.

I don't know.
Ask me when I'm more rational.
When I'm not talking with you.

"Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering."

Always, inshallah.

from THE NIGHT
       - Henry Vaughan

Through that pure Virgin-shrine,
That sacred veil drawn o'er thy glorious noon
That men might look and live as Glow-worms shine,
          And face the Moon:
 Wise Nicodemus saw such light
 As made him know his God by night.

Were all my loud, evil days
Calm and unhaunted as is thy dark Tent,
Whose peace but by some Angel's wing or voice
            Is seldom rent;
 Then I in Heaven all the long year
 Would keep, and never wander here.

But living where the Sun
Doth all things wake, and where all mix and tyre
Themselves and others, I consent and run
            To every myre,
 And by this world's ill-guiding light,
 Err more than I can do by night.

There is in God (some say)
A deep but dazzling darkness; as men here
Say it is late and dusky, because they
             See not all clear;
 O for that night! where I in Him
 Might live invisible and dim.

I've recently discovered that I have some readers in Ireland. This makes me very happy! Being half Irish, with ancestors from Donegal, I have an ache to see the place. God bless you folks, I hope you enjoy the things I post!

I brought home a few beautiful, antique books. Some in need of repair, which they will get, and they will all be read. Eventually. 

"Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare."

BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare.

Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace,

And lay them prone upon the earth and cease

To ponder on themselves, the while they stare

At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere

In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese

Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release

From dusty bondage into luminous air.

O blinding hour, O holy, terrible day,

When first the shaft into his vision shone

Of light anatomized! Euclid alone

Has looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they

Who, though once only and then but far away,

Have heard her massive sandal set on stone.

When I Was One-and-Twenty

BY A. E. HOUSMAN

When I was one-and-twenty

       I heard a wise man say,

“Give crowns and pounds and guineas

       But not your heart away;

Give pearls away and rubies

       But keep your fancy free.”

But I was one-and-twenty,

       No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty

       I heard him say again,

“The heart out of the bosom

       Was never given in vain;

’Tis paid with sighs a plenty

       And sold for endless rue.”

And I am two-and-twenty,

       And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.

Last day with Papa - watching movies!  :D

My heart is breaking....

She Walks in Beauty

BY LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON)

She walks in beauty, like the night 

Of cloudless climes and starry skies; 

And all that’s best of dark and bright 

Meet in her aspect and her eyes; 

Thus mellowed to that tender light 

Which heaven to gaudy day denies. 

One shade the more, one ray the less, 

Had half impaired the nameless grace 

Which waves in every raven tress, 

Or softly lightens o’er her face; 

Where thoughts serenely sweet express, 

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. 

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow, 

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, 

The smiles that win, the tints that glow, 

But tell of days in goodness spent, 

A mind at peace with all below, 

A heart whose love is innocent!

from the Screwtape Letters NUANCES OF OWNERSHIP

Screwtape encourages confusion and pride:

   The sense of ownership in general is always to be encouraged. The humans are always putting up claims to ownership which sound equally funny in Heaven and Hell and we must keep them doing so.  Much of the modern resistance to chastity comes from men's belief that they "own" their bodies - those vast and perilous estates, pulsating with the energy that made the worlds, in which they find themselves without their consent and from which they are ejected at the pleasure of Another! It is as if a royal child whom his father has placed, for love's sake, in titular command of some great province, under the real rule of wise counsellors, should come to fancy he really owns the cities, the forests, and the corn, in the same way he owns the bricks on the nursery floor.
   We produce this sense of ownership not only by pride but by confusion. We teach them not to notice the different senses of the possessive pronoun - the finely graded differences that run from "my boots" through "my dog", "my servant", "my wife", "my father", "my master" and "my country" to "my God". They can be taught to reduce all of those senses to that of "my boots", the "MY" of ownership. 

Two greats.

"Ain't nobody a nobody."

I live in Heaven.

THE HARP THAT ONCE THROUGH TARA'S HALLS
                                               - Thomas Moore

The harp that once through Tara's halls The soul of music shed, Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls As if that soul were fled. So sleeps the pride of former days, So glory's thrill is o'er, And hearts that once beat high for praise, Now feel that pulse no more! No more to chiefs and ladies bright The harp of Tara swells; The chord alone that breaks at night, Its tale of ruin tells. Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes, The only throb she gives Is when some heart indignant breaks, To show that still she lives.

from A SONG TO DAVID
            - Christopher Smart

Strong is the horse upon his speed;
Strong in pursuit the rapid glede,
   Which makes at once his game;
Strong the tall ostrich on the ground;
Strong through the turbulent profound
   Shoots Xiphias to his aim.

Strong is the lion - like a coal
His eyeball, - like a bastion's mole
   His chest against the foes:
Strong the gier-eagle on his sail;
Strong against tide th' enormous whale
   Emerges as he goes.

But stronger still, in earth and air,
And in the sea, the man of prayer,
   And far beneath the tide:
And in the seat to faith assign'd
Where ask is have, where seek is find,
   Where knock is open wide.

Watching movies with Dad. 

from ENDYMION, book 1
                    - John Keats

A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases, it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made of our searching; yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits.

SHILOH a requiem
     - Herman Melville

Skimming lightly, wheeling still,
  The swallows fly low
Over the field in clouded days,
  The forest-field of Shiloh -
Over the field where April rain
Solaced the parched ones stretched in pain
Through the pause of night
That follows the Sunday fight
  Around the church of Shiloh -
The church so lone, the log-built one,
That echoed to many a parting groan
   And natural prayer
Of dying foemen mingles there -
Foemen morn but friends at eve
  Fame or country least their care:
(What like a bullet can undeceive!)
  But now they lie low,
While over them the swallows skim,
  And all is hushed at Shiloh.

Utterly lovely

from THE JUNGLE BOOKS
   Mowgli's Brothers (chapter heading) - Rudyard Kipling

Now Chil the Kite brings home the night
    That Mang the Bat sets free -
The herds are shut in byre and hut,
    For loosed til dawn are we.
This is the hour of pride and power,
    Talon and tush and claw.
Oh, hear the call! - Good hunting all
    That keep  the Jungle Law!


(this is the anthem of Hobbes, our German Shepherd mix who chases coyotes all night)

from ODE: INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD
                        - William Wordsworth

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
       Hath had elsewhere its setting,
        And cometh from afar:
      Not in entire forgetfulness,
      And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
      From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
      Upon the growing Boy;
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
      He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
      Must travel, is still Nature's priest,
      And by the vision splendid
      Is on his way attended;
At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.

When the fear is of oneself, the courage has to be super. Thanks for the reminder, Bruce. :)

Yesterday was the 26th birthday of my second son. I don't have sufficient words to describe this amazing individual, but I think the word "nobility" comes closest. He shares that trait with his siblings. He has one of the best hearts, the softest hearts, and the strongest will for good that I know. And an assured calm about him. I call it improvised composure. He can make it up as he goes and have it together better than most of us. He's a real leader and takes that seriously. I thank God for giving him to us. May he flourish forever!  <3

My Holy Place. Deep in the woods....

from The General Prologue to THE CANTERBURY TALES
                                                                 - Geoffrey Chaucer

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath pierced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
When Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,
The smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrames,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Canterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seek.

....try writing THAT with Spellcheck! haha

DEATH, BE NOT PROUD
        - John Donne

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so:
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From Rest and Sleep, which but thy picture be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow;
And soonest our best men with thee go -
Rest of their bones and soul's delivery.
Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke. Why swellest thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die.


My first encounter with this poem was in a book of the same name, by John Gunther, about his son who died of brain cancer. I read it when I was about twelve, and was impacted. Good book, good poem. 

STILL I RISE
   - Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt,
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still, I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Digging in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness offend you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

The sky is gray, the trees and grass are pale green, and the air is cool and damp. Perfect spring afternoon. 

Letting these guys serenade me as I sweep and mop. Michael McDonald, Donald Fagen and Boz Scaggs. Floor chores are SO much fun!  That concert would be a bucket list experience.

You looked at me as if you already owned me
And had been looking at me for years.
Then you introduced yourself.

Marble Halls

Enya

I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls
With vassals and serfs at my side,
And of all who assembled within those walls
That I was the hope and the pride.
I had riches all too great to count
And a high ancestral name. 

But I also dreamt which pleased me most
That you loved me still the same,
That you loved me
You loved me still the same,
That you loved me
You loved me still the same.

I dreamt that suitors sought my hand,
That knights upon bended knee
And with vows no maidens heart could withstand,
They pledged their faith to me.
And I dreamt that one of that noble host
Came forth my hand to claim. 

But I also dreamt which charmed me most
That you loved me still the same
That you loved me
You loved me still the same,
That you loved me
You loved me still the same.

Magical. Needs to be heard every now and then....

Good morning music

My life goes on in endless song
Above earth´s lamentations,
I hear the real, though far-off hymn
That hails a new creation.

Through all the tumult and the strife
I hear its music ringing,
It sounds an echo in my soul.
How can I keep from singing?

VIRTUE
   - George Herbert

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright!
The bridal of the earth and sky -
The dew shall weep thy fall tonight;
        For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave
Bids the rash grazer wipe his eye,
Thy root is ever in its grave,
        And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,
My music shows ye have your closes,
       And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like season'd timber never gives;
But though the whole world turned to coal,
      Then chiefly lives.

Last Saturday night. Hard to beat a good martini on a nippy night, by the fire, with good music playing and a stranger in the corner writing the Great American Novel.

I'll never breathe a word,
Be it wrong or right,
Of the stories I tell myself at night.

You tell yourself stories at night?

Aye, but you'll not be hearing about 'em from me.

from A SHROPSHIRE LAD
      - A.E. Housman

From far, from eve and morning
   And yon twelve-winded sky,
The stuff of life to knit me
   Blew hither: here am I
 
Now - for a breath I tarry
   Nor yet disperse apart -
Take my hand quick and tell me
   What you have in your heart.

Speak now, and I will answer;
   How shall I help you, say;
Ere to the wind's twelve quarters
   I take my endless way.

IMAGINATION
    - John Davidson

There is a dish to hold the sea,
   A brazier to contain the sun,
A compass for the galaxy,
   A voice to wake the dead and done!

That minister of ministers,
   Imagination, gathers up
That undiscovered Universe,
   Like jewels in a jasper cup.

Its flame can mingle north and south;
   Its accent with the thunder strive;
The ruddy sentence of its mouth
   Can make the ancient dead alive.

The mart of power, the fount of will,
   The form and mold of every star,
The source and bound of good and ill,
   The key of all the things that are,

Imagination, new and strange
   In every age, can turn the year;
Can shift the poles and lightly change
   The mood of men, the world's career.