[=18][=darkblue]1870 Mother's Day Proclamation, Julia W Howe:

[=18] "Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage...
Our sons shall not be taken from us....
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
"Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.
To those in the U.S. and elsewhere, Happy Mother's Day from a son, whose mother has passed, but helped put him back togetherafter Viet Nam.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Amazed I looked
out of the window and saw
the early snow coming down casually,
almost drifting, over
the gardens, then the gardens began
to vanish as each white, six-pointed
snowflake lay down without a sound with all
the others. I thought, how incredible
were their numbers. I thought of dried
leaves drifting spate after spate
out of the forests,
the fallen sparrows, the hairs of all our heads,
as still, the snowflakes went on pouring softly through
what had become dusk or anyway flung
a veil over the sun. And I thought
how not one looks like another
through each exquisite, fanciful, and
fall without argument. It was now nearly
evening. Some crows landed and tried
to walk around then flew off. They were perhaps
laughing in crow talk or anyway so it seemed
and I might have joined in, there was something
that wonderful and refreshing
about what was by then confident, white blanket
carrying out its
cheerful work, covering ruts, softening
the earth's trials, but at the same time
there was some kind of almost sorrow that fell
over me. It was
the loneliness again. After all
what is Nature, it isn't
kindness, it isn't unkindness. As I turned
and opened the door, and still the snow pored down
smelling of iron and the pale, vast eternal, and
there it is, whether I was ready or not:
the silence; the blank, white guttering sublime.
There are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot. - Aldo Leopold
Her face was in a bed of hair,
Like flowers in a plot—
Her hand was whiter than the sperm
That feeds the sacred light.
Her tongue more tender than the tune
That totters in the leaves—
Who hears may be incredulous
Who witnesses, believes.
A jet of mere phantom
Is a brook, as the land around
Turns rocky and hollow.
Those airplane sounds
Are the drowning of bicyclists.
Leaping, a bridesmaid leaps.
You asked for my autobiography.
Imagine the greeny clicking sound
Of hummingbirds in a dry wood,
And there you’d have it. Other birds
Pour over the walls now.
I'd never suspected: every day,
Although the nation is done for,
I find new flowers.
[=18][=darkblue]1870 Mother's
)
[=18][=darkblue]1870 Mother's Day Proclamation, Julia W Howe:

[=18] "Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage...
Our sons shall not be taken from us....
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
"Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.
To those in the U.S. and elsewhere, Happy Mother's Day from a son, whose mother has passed, but helped put him back togetherafter Viet Nam.
"We must be the change we wish to see."
Mahatma Gandhi
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and
)
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Macbeth Act 5, scene 5, 19–28
"We must be the change we wish to see."
Mahatma Gandhi
No man is an island. Death of
)
No man is an island.
Death of any man diminishes me.
John Donne, Devotions, quoted from memory.
To the Norwegian teenagers killed on an island by a madman.
Tullio
RE: No man is an
)
Hear, hear. It's so sad this craziness ....
Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
When I was sick and lay
)
When I was sick and lay a-bed,
I had two pillows at my head,
And all my toys beside me lay
To keep me happy all the day.
And sometimes for an hour or so
I watched my leaden soldiers go,
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;
And sometimes sent my ships in fleets
All up and down among the sheets;
Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.
I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow-hill,
And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane.
Robert Louis Stevenson
"We must be the change we wish to see."
Mahatma Gandhi
Early Snow
)
Early Snow
by
Mary Oliver
Amazed I looked
out of the window and saw
the early snow coming down casually,
almost drifting, over
the gardens, then the gardens began
to vanish as each white, six-pointed
snowflake lay down without a sound with all
the others. I thought, how incredible
were their numbers. I thought of dried
leaves drifting spate after spate
out of the forests,
the fallen sparrows, the hairs of all our heads,
as still, the snowflakes went on pouring softly through
what had become dusk or anyway flung
a veil over the sun. And I thought
how not one looks like another
through each exquisite, fanciful, and
fall without argument. It was now nearly
evening. Some crows landed and tried
to walk around then flew off. They were perhaps
laughing in crow talk or anyway so it seemed
and I might have joined in, there was something
that wonderful and refreshing
about what was by then confident, white blanket
carrying out its
cheerful work, covering ruts, softening
the earth's trials, but at the same time
there was some kind of almost sorrow that fell
over me. It was
the loneliness again. After all
what is Nature, it isn't
kindness, it isn't unkindness. As I turned
and opened the door, and still the snow pored down
smelling of iron and the pale, vast eternal, and
there it is, whether I was ready or not:
the silence; the blank, white guttering sublime.
There are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot. - Aldo Leopold
Underground Xmas by Jackie
)
Underground Xmas
by Jackie Sheeler
__________________
Out of the packed train comes a horizontal tree, pine
needles poking through tight
plastic wrap. She’s wearing
a raincoat and a frown, the blue spruce
hugged in her strong arms like a Roman battering ram.
Commuters step aside, all sighs and clucks.
This woman loves someone enough
to bring them Christmas on the subway, wrestle
a tree twice her height through tongue-
sucking rush-hour crowds.
The sharp holiday
scent of pine enlivens the last car of the C train,
trails her to the 50th Street escalator,
where she juggles the pungent
tree on her hip, ascending.
Her face was in a bed of
)
Her face was in a bed of hair,
Like flowers in a plot—
Her hand was whiter than the sperm
That feeds the sacred light.
Her tongue more tender than the tune
That totters in the leaves—
Who hears may be incredulous
Who witnesses, believes.
"1722" by Emily Dickinson
"We must be the change we wish to see."
Mahatma Gandhi
Election Year by Donald
)
Election Year
by Donald Revell
A jet of mere phantom
Is a brook, as the land around
Turns rocky and hollow.
Those airplane sounds
Are the drowning of bicyclists.
Leaping, a bridesmaid leaps.
You asked for my autobiography.
Imagine the greeny clicking sound
Of hummingbirds in a dry wood,
And there you’d have it. Other birds
Pour over the walls now.
I'd never suspected: every day,
Although the nation is done for,
I find new flowers.
Forgetfulness by Billy
)
Forgetfulness by Billy Collins
__________________________________
The way poetry is best.... in the authors own voice.. and a little of his animation to boot..:-)
There are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot. - Aldo Leopold