From: “The Union” (Elton John & Leon Russell)
October 26, 2010 at 2:47 pm (Connecting with the Past)
Mom’s Trip to Germany…
October 24, 2010 at 2:20 pm (Connecting with the Past, God Bless the Child, On the Homefront, Shaking the Family Tree)
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Just Luther…
August 11, 2010 at 6:21 pm (Connecting with the Past)
Why are the only men like this in real life gay? Because to this day this song brings me to my knees. And I know I am not the only one…
Two for Today
February 22, 2010 at 3:22 pm (Connecting with the Past)
TO HIS LOVE
He’s gone, and all our plans
Are useless indeed.
We’ll walk no more on Cotswold
Where the sheep feed
Quietly and take no heed.
His body that was so quick
It not as you
Knew it, on Severn River
Under the blue
Driving our small boat through.
You would not know him now…
But still he died
Nobly, so cover him over
With violets of pride
Purple from Severn side.
Cover him, cover him soon!
And with thick-set
Masses of memoried flowers
Hide that red wet
Thing I must somehow forget.
(Ivor Guerney)
~~~
~~~
VISITATIONS
DEATH come to me in my dreams:
A little girl in her first party dress,
a black balloon in her fist.
She smiles when she sees me –
an open smile of recognition.
She’s not afraid of me.
The little girl with the angel eyes
has come to take me home.
DEATH come to me in a nightmare:
Lucifer sits by my bed
to sedate me if I scream.
Drop by drop he dilutes my blood
until I’m totally transfused.
“Hush, hush, hush…don’t you cry!”
He scolds as he watches me
shrink into the counterpane.
DEATH come to me in my bed:
He’s brought flowers for the nightstand.
The linen is fresh and my nightgown sheer.
A bottle of good Rhine wine…
He’ll help me climb just as
I’ve helped him climb –
each of us in search of
our own little DEATH.
©Trina Roach
“The Red Wheelbarrow”
August 3, 2009 at 8:50 pm (Connecting with the Past)
When I was in junior high school I had two favorite teachers. One of them was my English teacher. Looking back, it still difficult to see it as just just your normal schoolgirl crush, and as one of the fortunate side-effects this teacher also further fanned the flames of my love of literature. (Actually, both of them did, though the other one taught biology.)
I remember very well how parents veto’d his idea of our reading things like Kurt Vonnegut‘s “Slaughterhouse 5“, Joseph Heller‘s “Catch-22” or Tom Wolfe’s* “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” in class, deeming their content much too advanced and controversial for our impressionable 9th grade intellects. Although we ended up reading John Knowles‘ “A Separate Peace” in class, he established an after-school reading club for those of us who (with parental permission) felt ready and willing to tackle something a bit headier.
Angel: if there were a place we know nothing of…
July 17, 2009 at 9:47 pm (Connecting with the Past, On the Homefront)
Rainer Marie Rilke (by: Paula Modersohn-Becker)
Learning a new language is a funny thing. In our native language we tend to swallow words whole; giving little or no thought to their etymological source. But when you learn a foreign language – syllable by syllable – you savour each vowel, each consonant, as though it were the seed of a fruit from some exotic tree.
Georgia Douglas Johnson (1886-1966)
July 17, 2009 at 10:46 am (Connecting with the Past, On the Homefront)
I WANT TO DIE WHILE YOU LOVE ME
I want to die while you love me,
While yet you hold me fair,
While laughter lies upon my lips
And lights are in my hair.
I want to die while you love me,
And bear to that still bed,
Your kisses turbulent, unspent,
To warm me when I’m dead.
I want to die while you love me,
Oh, who would care to live
Till love has nothing more to ask
And nothing more to give!
I want to die while you love me
And never, never see
The glory of this perfect day
Grow dim and cease to be.
Poem – Derek Walcott
May 21, 2009 at 2:15 pm (Connecting with the Past, God Bless the Child, On the Homefront, Potpourri)
I haven’t thought about the fact that I don’t copy any of my own poetry here. Except one. A long time ago. I had planned to do just that and comment on how I remember my frame of mind when I wrote it and/or what the poem means to me today.
But just now I looked over at the window sill behind me and a poem I framed several years ago caught my eye. I framed it because it resonated with me then. It resonated with my soul’s best intentions. It used to hang on the wall in my apartment in Düsseldorf; now it sits in its frame on my window sill along with a statuette of a dancer, a small plant, a candle and some cards.
This poem is taken from Derek Walcott‘s “Collected Poems 1948 – 1984”
The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome.and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved youall your life, who you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the lover letters from the bookshelf,the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
4 November 2008
November 5, 2008 at 6:32 am (Connecting with the Past, On the Homefront, Potpourri)
Rosa sat, so Martin could walk;
Martin walked, so Barack could run;
Barack ran, so we all can FLY!
Pix My Sister Sent
June 9, 2008 at 9:24 pm (Connecting with the Past, Potpourri, Shaking the Family Tree)
I had the good fortune of growing up in an intact black middle class neighborhood till I was nine years old. We played safely outside on our street. Though we lived in a city, there was plenty of green in our neighborhood, and many a lazy summer afternoon was spent riding our bikes, picking (and eating!) berries, or playing some sort of outdoor game. Neighborhood mothers (and fathers!) had an eye out for you – and Lord help you, if someone else had call to discipline you. You got it both coming (from them) and going (from your parents).
We also lived two doors down from my aunt and uncle (Dad’s 2nd youngest brother) and two cousins.
My sister has been photo-raiding with my dearest Aunt Henrietta. The following are pix Aunt Henriette (abovementioned aunt; formerly two doors down) sent my sister after a weekend they spent going through some of her Polaroid memories (click to enlarge).
Yes, those were really certainly The Good Old Days!
Pix 1: Our Grandpop. The patriarch of our family. Definitely ‘Old School’ when it came to discipline and other family values!
Pix 2: Me with my two cousins on our bikes
Pix 3: Four cousins
Pix 4: My sister and my younger cousin
24 Carat Star Time 