WISH
DENA KIRKWOOD
I need to be held and told I am lovely-
To hear magical, wild, magnificent things,
Which will surge through my senses with the good pain
Of new blood pumping its way into numbed extremities.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Steve Hanks Art
The vices we scoff at in others laugh at us within ourselves. Perfect virtue is to do unwitnessed what we should be capable of doing before the entire world. Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence. If you wish to save men from any particular vice, set up a tremendous cry of warning about some other, and they will all give their special efforts to the one to which attention is called. If a man has no vices, he is in great danger of making vices about his virtues, and there’s a spectacle. Hypocrisy is the homage which vice pays to virtue. We tolerate without rebuke the vices with which we have grown familiar. The extremes of vice and virtue are alike detestable, and absolute virtue is as sure to kill a man as absolute vice is. It takes a vice to check a vice, and virtue is the by-product of a stalemate between opposite vices. Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue. It’s a vice to trust all, and equally a vice to trust none. Seneca As virtue is its own reward, so vice is its own punishment. Search other for their virtues, thyself for thy vices.
Sir Thomas Browne
Rochefoucauld
Samuel Butler
Charles Dudley
Thornton Wilder
LA Rochefoucauld
Publilius Syrus
Samuel Butler
Eric Hoffer
Confucius
All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.
Aristotle
Thomas Fuller
Benjamin Franklin
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Bcharri,lebanon(Birthplace of Khalil Gibran)
Khalil Gibran
Kahlil Gibran wrote the following during the First World War (1914 to 1918), a time when many places, including Lebanon, were struck by famine. At the time of writing he was living in Boston in the United States. Dead are my people, gone are my people, but I exist yet, lamenting them in my solitude. Dead are my friends, and in their death my life is naught but great disaster. The knolls of my country are submerged by tears and blood, for my people and my beloved are gone, and I am here living as I did when my people and my beloved were enjoying life and the bounty of life, and when the hills of my country were blessed and engulfed by the light of the sun. My people died from hunger, and he who did not perish from starvation was butchered with the sword; and I am here in this distant land, roaming amongst a joyful people who sleep upon soft beds, and smile at the days while the days smile upon them. My people died a painful and shameful death, and here am I living in plenty and in peace. This is deep tragedy ever enacted upon the stage of my heart; few would care to witness this drama, for my people are as birds with broken wings, left behind the flock. If I were hungry and living amid my famished people, and persecuted among my oppressed countrymen, the burden of the black days would be lighter upon my restless dreams, and the obscurity of the night would be less dark before my hollow eyes and my crying heart and my wounded soul. For he who shares with his people their sorrow and agony will feel a supreme comfort created only by suffering in sacrifice. And he will be at peace with himself when he dies innocent with his fellow innocents. But I am not living with my hungry and persecuted people who are walking in the procession of death toward martyrdom. I am here beyond the broad seas living in the shadow of tranquillity, and in the sunshine of peace. I am afar from the pitiful arena and the distressed, and cannot be proud of ought, not even of my own tears. Were I an ear of corn grown in the earth of my country, the hungry child would pluck me and remove with my kernels the hand of Death form his soul. Were I a ripe fruit in the gardens of my country, the starving women would gather me and sustain life. Were I a bird flying the sky of my country, my hungry brother would hunt me and remove with the flesh of my body the shadow of the grave from his body. But, alas! I am not an ear of corn grown in the plains of Syria, nor a ripe fruit in the valleys of Lebanon; this is my disaster, and this is my mute calamity which brings humiliation before my soul and before the phantoms of the night. This is the painful tragedy which tightens my tongue and pinions my arms and arrests me usurped of power and of will and of action. This is the curse burned upon my forehead before God and man. And oftentimes they say unto me, the disaster of your country is but naught to calamity of the world, and the tears and blood shed by your people are as nothing to the rivers of blood and tears pouring each day and night in the valleys and plains of the earth." Yes, but the death of my people is a silent accusation; it is a crime conceived by the heads of the unseen serpents. it is a sceneless tragedy. And if my people had attacked the despots and oppressors and died rebels, I would have said, "Dying for freedom is nobler than living in the shadow of weak submission, for he who embraces death with the sword of Truth in his hand will eternalize with the Eternity of Truth, for Life is weaker than Death and Death is weaker than Truth. If my nation had partaken in the war of all nations and had died in the field of battle, I would say that the raging tempest had broken with its might the green branches; and strong death under the canopy of the tempest is nobler than slow perishment in the arms of senility. But there was no rescue from the closing jaws. My people dropped and wept with the crying angels. If an earthquake had torn my country asunder and the earth had engulfed my people into its bosom, I would have said, "A great and mysterious law has been moved by the will of divine force, and it would be pure madness if we frail mortals endeavoured to probe its deep secrets." But my people did not die as rebels; they were not killed in the field of battle; nor did the earthquake shatter my country and subdue them. Death was their only rescuer, and starvation their only spoils. My people died on the cross. They died while their hands stretched toward the East and West, while the remnants of their eyes stared at the blackness of the firmament. They died silently, for humanity had closed its ears to their cry. They died because they did not befriend their enemy. They died because they loved their neighbours. They died because they placed trust in all humanity. They died because they did not oppress the oppressors. They died because they were the crushed flowers, and not the crushing feet. They died because they were peace makers. They perished from hunger in a land rich with milk and honey. They died because monsters of hell arose and destroyed all that their fields grew, and devoured the last provisions in their bins. They died because the vipers and sons of vipers spat out poison into the space where the Holy Cedars and the roses and the jasmine breathe their fragrance. My people and your people, my Syrian Brothers, are dead. What can be done for those who are dying? Our lamentations will not satisfy their hunger, and our tears will not quench their thirst; what can we do to save them between the iron paws of hunger? My brother, the kindness which compels you to give a part of your life to any human who is in the shadow of losing his life is the only virtue which makes you worthy of the light of day and the peace of the night. Remember, my brother, that the coin which you drop into the withered hand stretching toward you is the only golden chain that binds your rich heart to the loving heart of God.
What can an exiled son do for his starving people, and of what value unto them is the lamentation of an absent poet?
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Dance Life Dance! and you ARE Dance… Dance… Dance… Dance! May it take a moment
Sandie Hum
Sink your fingers into the earth
taste the delicacy of the herbs
Feel the suffering of the world
and send out love in return
Until the pulse of life…throbs within…
the creation and destruction of the universe
With each solider going into war
each refugee wondering where home is
Each child
dancing in the rain
or starving, no energy to move
Or playing, running with a pack of kids in a park
or falling and crying for Ma
or staring in wonder at a birthday cake aflame
with candles and presents beyond…
with the elder, sitting wisely in state
or the one sitting cold, hungry, lonely and in pain
With the businessman barking into his cell phone
as he strides forth with his briefcase
With the mother, wailing, holding the bullet-ridden body
of her son amidst the street’s rubble
with the lava, flowing in the dark
moving, congealing, spreading its fiery river
With each star spiraling out in expanding galaxies
and the drop of rain falling into the Pacific Ocean
With the rabbit, bounding across the plain,
suddenly snatched up and torn apart by the eagle’s talons
with the lovers, tangled, sweaty, heaving
lost in each other’s eyes, united with the universe
With the father, lovingly standing strong against his young son,
who he will see grows into a man
With the board member, feeling into each personality and figure
with her heart, mind and body even as she runs a meeting
With each texture, sound and taste of a moment
letting it engulf you, feel you, inspire you, breathe you
Dance Life, my love, dance
Or a lifetime
To truly feel the texture of a child’s hair against your cheek
to fully embrace the pain of your breaking heart until it cracks open
Until you laugh so hard your stomach is one big clench
and tears run free down your face
Dance
Monday, July 16, 2012
THE RIDER Some believe the end will come
By Sarah Manguso
in the form of a mathematical equation.
Others believe it will descend as a shining horse.
I calculate the probabilities to be even at fifty percent.
Either a thing will happen or it won't.
I open a window,
I unmake the bed.
Somehow, I am moving closer to the equation
or to the horse with everything I do.
Death comes in the form of a horse
covered in shining equations.
There will be no further clues, I see.
I begin to read my horse.
The equations are drawn in the shapes of horses:
horses covered in equations.
I am tempted to hook an ankle
around the world as I ride away.
For I am about to ride far beyond
the low prairie of beginnings and endings.
The sun at midnight See, I tried everything, went everywhere, I studied hundred learned manuscripts; I heard your voice in the rustling breeze; Then came the storm.
Anne marie Schimmel~
But never found a friend as dear as you;
Drank from all the fountains, tried the grapes,
But never tasted wine as sweet as you.
In every letter I saw only you.
I washed away the letters with my tears;
A mirror was the shining page for you.
The snow, the grass were lovely veils for you;
I divided the ocean without shore; The lustrous pearls reflected only you.
The garden of my heart
Was shivering in the cold, all leaves were shed.
There was the desert.
And the barren cloud.
And silence. And
the sun at midnight – you.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
VICTOR HUYNH - Imaginations
The rose is fairest when 'tis budding new,And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears;
The rose is sweetest wash'd with morning dew,
And love is loveliest when embalm'd in tears.
Sir Walter Scott, The Lady of the Lake
Where fall the tears of love the rose appears,And where the ground is bright with friendship's tears,
Forget-me-not, and violets, heavenly blue,
Spring glittering with the cheerful drops like dew.
William Cullen Bryant, translation of N. Miller's Paradise of Tears.
If I could bribe them by a Rose
I'd bring them every flower that grows
From Amherst to Cashmere!
I would not stop for night, or storm
Or frost, or death, or anyone
My business were so dear!
by Emily Dickinson
How fair is the Rose! what a beautiful flower.The glory of April and May!
But the leaves are beginning to fade in an hour,
And they wither and die in a day.
Yet the Rose has one powerful virtue to boast,
Above all the flowers of the field;
When its leaves are all dead, and fine colours are lost,
Still how sweet a perfume it will yield!
saac Watts, The Rose
In my garden there is a large place for sentiment. My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful. Abram L. Urban
Sweet letters of the angel tongue,I've loved ye long and well,
And never have failed in your fragrance sweet
To find some secret spell,
A charm that has bound me with witching power,
For mine is the old belief,
That midst your sweets and midst your bloom,
There's a soul in every leaf!
M. M. Ballou, Flowers.
This old world that we're livin' inIs might hard to beat.
You get a thorn with every Rose
But - ain't the roses sweet?"
Frank Stanton
Let me show you
Sweet smell of a delicate whisper
Behind the vision of gardens
Go and read of your life
Tiny ripping at the heart
Drunk from a rose.
Erica Caitlin Lee
Long, long be my heart with such memories fill'd!Like the vase, in which roses have once been distill'd—
You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will,
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.
Thomas Moore
Loveliest of lovely things are they
On earth that soonest pass away.
The rose that lives its little hour
Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.
William Cullen Bryant
I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields,
A fresh-blown musk-rose; 'twas the first that threw
Its sweets upon the summer: graceful it grew
As is the wand that Queen Titania wields.
And, as I feasted on its fragrancy,
I thought the garden-rose it far excelled;
But when, O Wells! thy roses came to me,
My sense with their deliciousness was spelled:
Soft voices had they, that with tender plea
Whispered of peace, and truth, and friendliness unquelled.
by John Keats,To A Friend Who Sent Me Some Roses
Eyes of some men travel far
For the finding of a star;
Up and down the heavens they go,
Men that keep a mighty rout!
I'm as great as they, I trow,
Since the day I found thee out,
Little Flower!—I'll make a stir,
Like a sage astronomer.
William Wordsworth, To the Small Celandine
I kept looking at the flowers in a vase near me: lavender sweet peas, fragile winged and yet so still, so perfectly poised, apart, and complete. They are self-sufficient, a world in themselves, a whole — perfect. Is that then, perfection? Is what those sweet peas had what I have, occasionally in moments like that? But flowers always have it — poise, completion, fulfillment, perfection; I only occasionally, like that moment. For that moment I and the sweet peas had an understanding.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
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