Tag: Poetry

T.G.I.F. Oh, so true…

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I acknowledge there is no sweetness
that doesn’t leave a stain
no sweetness that’s ever sufficiently sweet …

— Stephen Dunn, from Sweetness in New and Selected Poems 1974-1994. (via @readalittlepoem)

And most recently, we’ve (aka “I”) been gorging on Brookside Dark Chocolate, Acai Blueberry by the handfuls…and can’t seem to get enough…

Light Child, Lightly.

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Moonlight flows…

I am like a gull

Lost between heaven and earth.

— Du Fu (712 A.D. to 770 AD), from “Night Thoughts While Traveling” in Songs of Love, Moon, & Wind: Poems from the Chinese 

Notes:

  • DK Moolight Video shot at 5:00 am. this morning at Cove Island Park. More pictures of the amazing full moon and clouds here.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

T.G.I.F.: Don’t let the clock cut up your life in pieces

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I sit up late dumb as a cow,
which is to say
somewhat conscious with thirst and
hunger, an eye for the new moon
and the morning’s long walk
to the water tank. Everywhere
around me the birds are waiting
for the light. In this world of dreams
don’t let the clock cut up
your life in pieces.

— Jim Harrison, “Rumination” from Jim Harrison: The Essential Poems, by Jim Harrison

Notes:

  • More DK Photos of a Juvenile Egret at Cove Island Park on April 18 2024 here.
  • Poem: Thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels.

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

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True gardeners cannot bear a glove
Between the sure touch and the tender root,
Must let their hands grow knotted as they move
With a rough sensitivity about
Under the earth, between the rock and shoot,
Never to bruise or wound the hidden fruit.
And so I watched my mother’s hands grow scarred,
She who could heal the wounded plant or friend
With the same vulnerable yet rigorous love;
I minded once to see her beauty gnarled,
But now her truth is given me to live,
As I learn for myself we must be hard
To move among the tender with an open hand,
And to stay sensitive up to the end
Pay with some toughness for a gentle world.

— May Sarton, “An Observation” in “A Private Mythology: Poems.” (W.W. Norton & Co. in 1996)

Notes: Poem via Exhaled-Spirals. Photo via Pexels by Karolina Grabowska.

Sunday, Sparrows, Sawsan (do unto others as….)

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I knew when I took the shot this morning it would be a triggering moment for Sawsan who swoons over Sparrows.

Then I posted the shot on Instagram. In seconds, a text message comes flying in: “POST the Sparrow, PLEASE.”

Then message alerts won’t stop: Ping Ping Ping Ping Ping PING. PING. She lights up my inbox after I ask her to share a few thoughts on why I should post the picture.

I was a bit taken back — she said ‘PLEASE‘ vs. the customary JUST-DO-IT. Finally, a wee bit of control over Her on Something. I feel such joy over this…

Sawsan said it all started here with my post: Riding Metro North. With “My” Little Bird.’

Then she shares a passage from Thoreau in ‘Walden‘: “I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.”

I had to look up “epaulet.”

I re-read the passage, and thought about the summer afternoon when the kids and I went to Cove Island Park. I had Birdie (our Sun Conure) on my shoulder — and, the kids were a least one hundred yards behind me, belly crawling in the grass, nope, don’t know him, never saw him before in our life.

But we digress.

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