Grass

  

Antietam/Sharpsburg

Burnside's Bridge

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.

Shovel them under and let me work—

                                          I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg

And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.

Shovel them under and let me work.

Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:

                                          What place is this?

                                          Where are we now?

                                          I am the grass.

                                          Let me work.

Carl Sandburg

classification:  social commentary

Cure for Gossip

(commonly called Scandal)

Take one ounce of  “good nature”

One ounce of an herb called by the Mormons “mind your own business”

Add “oil of benevolence”

And two ounces of “brotherly love”

Mix with a little “charity for others”

And a few sprigs of “keep your tongue between your teeth”

Let this compound simmer for a short time in a vessel called “circumspection”

And it will be ready for use.

Symptoms:  A violent itching in the tongue and roof of the mouth when you are in the company of a species called “gossips”

Application:  When you feel a fit of the disorder coming on, take a teaspoonful of the mixture, and hold it in your mouth which you must keep closely shut until you get home.

classification:  humour

Excerpt from "Days"

What are days for?

Days are where we live

They come, they wake us,

Time, and time over.

They re to be happy in:

Where can we live but days?

by Phillip Larkin
photo from "That Tree" Mark Hirsch

Are You in My Story?

Don Quixote makes us wonder if people are part of our story?  or are we part of their story?
Also:  it's not over until it's over.

Some People Actually Talk Like This

"In a village of Estramadura there was a shepherd–no, I mean a goatherd–which shepherd or goatherd as my story says, was called Lope Ruiz–and this Lope Ruiz was in love with a shepherdess called Torralva, who was daughter to a rich herdsman, and this rich herdsman—"

"If this be thy story, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "thou wilt not have done these two days. Tell it concisely, like a man of sense, or else say no more."
"I tell it in the manner they tell all stories in my country," answered Sancho, "and I cannot tell it otherwise, nor ought your Worship to require me to make new customs."

"Tell it as thou wilt, then," said Don Quixote, "since it is the will of fate that I should hear it, go on."

Sancho continued:
"He looked about him until he espied a fisherman with a boat near him, but so small that it could only hold one person and one goat. The fisherman got into the boat and carried over one goat; he returned and carried another; he came back again and carried another. Pray, sir, keep an account of the goats which the fisherman is carrying over, for if you lose count of a single one, the story ends, and it will be impossible to tell a word more. . . . I go on, then. . . . He returned for another goat, and another, and another and another—"

"Suppose them all carried over," said Don Quixote, "or thou wilt not have finished carrying them this twelve months!"

"Tell me, how many have passed already?" said Sancho.

"How should I know?" answered Don Quixote.

"See there, now! Did I not tell thee to keep an exact account? There is an end of the story. I can go no further."

"How can this be?" said Don Quixote. "Is it so essential to the story to know the exact number of goats that passed over, that if one error be made the story can proceed no further?"

"Even so," said Sancho Panza.

From Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Painting by Geli Korzhev, "Don Quixote and Sancho Panza" 1977-1984, oil on canvas
Museum of Russian Art, private american collection

Fugue on Money

Workers earn it,                                          

Spendthrifts burn it, 

Bankers lend it,                                                     

Women spend it,                                            

Forgers fake it,                                         

Taxes take it,                                                      

Dying leave it,                                                     

Heirs receive it,                                            

Thrifty save it,                                                             

Misers crave it,                                             

Robbers seize it,                                             

Rich increase it,                                                    

Gamblers lose it,                                                   

I could use it.

                                                                  

Richard Armour

Southbound on the Freeway

A tourist came in from Orbitsville,

parked in the air, and said:

The creatures of this star

are made of metal and glass.

Through the transparent parts

you can see their guts.

Their feet are round and roll on diagrams or long

measuring tapes, dark with white lines.

They have four eyes.

The two in back are red.

Sometimes you can see a five-eyed

one, with a red eye turning

on the top of his head.

He must be special—

the others respect him

and go slow

when he passes, winding

among them from behind.

They all hiss as they glide,

like inches down the marked

tapes.  Those soft shapes,

shadowy inside

the hard bodies—are they

their guts or their brains?

by May Swenson

classification:  social commentary

Excerpts from "Ulysses"

I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
that loved me, and alone; on shore, 
...........
How dull it is to pause, to make an end.
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life! 
...................
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
..........................
you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with gods. .....
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are---
One equal temper of heroic hearts, 
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 

Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1842

Guys Like That

Drive very nice cars, and from
where you sit in your dented
last-century version of the
most ordinary car in America, they

look dark-suited and neat and fast.
Guys like that look as if they are thinking
about wine and marble floors, but
really they are thinking about TiVo

and ESPN. Women think that guys
like that are different from the guys
driving the trucks that bring cattle
to slaughter, but guys like that are

planning worse things than the death
of a cow. Guys who look like that —
so clean and cool — are quietly moving
money across the border, cooking books,

making deals that leave some people
rich and some people poorer
than they were before guys like that
robbed them at the pump and on

their electricity bills, and even
now, guys like that are planning how
to divide up that little farm they just
passed, the one you used to call home.

by Joyce Sutphen. 

category:  Social Commentary

"Your Kind Will Never Understand War, Hobbit"

says your dad to me from time to time.

To which I respond:  "If more of us valued food and cheer over hoarded gold,
this would be a merrier world." (from the Hobbit by JRR Tolkien

When tempers rise, your dad says "wait a minute, wait a minute, let's talk about this.
I'm not a rabbi for nothing you know..."(from the Movie Frisco Kid)

"The Stoning of the Organist" Acts 29

¹And it came to pass, when Paul was at Corinth, he and certain disciples came upon a mob that was stoning an organist.                                                                                     
                    ²And Paul said unto them, "What then hath he done unto thee that his head should be bruised?"                                            

³And the people cried with one voice, "He hath played too loud.  

⁴Yea, in the singing of psalms, he maketh our heads to ring as if they were beaten with hammers.                          

⁵Behold, he sitteth up high in the loft, and mighty are the pipes and mighty is the noise thereof, and though there be few of us below, he nonetheless playeth with all the stops, the Assyrian trumpet stop and the stop of the ram's horn and the stop that soundeth like the sawing of stone, and we cannot hear the words that cometh out of our own mouths.          

⁶He always tosseth in the variations that confuse us mightily and playeth loud and discordant and always in a militant tempo, so that we have not time to breathe as we sing.  

⁷Lo, he is a plague upon the faith and should be chastised."       

⁸Paul, hearing this, had himself picked up a small stone, and was about to cast it, but he set it down and bade the organist come forward.                                                                     

 ⁹He was a narrow man, pale of complexion, dry, flaking thin of hair.   

¹⁰And Paul said unto him, "Why hath thou so abused thy brethren?"       

¹¹And the organist replied, "I could not hear them singing from where I sat, and therefore played the louder so as to encourage them."
¹² Paul turned round to the mob and said loudly, "Let him who has never played an organ cast the first stone."                     

¹³And they cast stones for awhile until their arms were tired and Paul bade the organist repent and he did.  

¹⁴And Paul said unto him, "Thou shalt take up the flute and play it for thirty days, to cleanse thy spirit."                                             

¹⁵And afterward, they returned to Corinth and sang psalms unaccompanied and then had coffee and were refreshed in the faith.

By Garrison Keillor

Classification:  Humour

For Donna, also for the organist in our congregation who does indeed use the "Assyrian  Trumpet Stop"

Let Me Live So That When I Die, Even the Undertaker is Sorry

So let me live
That when I die
A tear will come
To every eye
In every heart
There'll be a spot
An empty place
Where I am not.
And folks will say
With grief inside:
"I sort of wish
She hadn't died."

Your Mom Learns to Cook

Once upon a time I planned to be

An artist of celebrity

A song I thought to write one day

And all the world would homage pay

I longed to write a noted book

But what I did was learn to cook.

For life with single tasks is filled

And I have not done what I willed

Yet when I see boy’s hungry eyes

I’m glad I make good apple pies

classification:  home and family

Did I ever tell you I didn't cook much when I was in my mother's home? Pasta, mostly, it seems.

In college I ate canned green beans since I shopped once a semester and mostly lived on charitable snacks from class-mates.  I learned to cook much later and set about learning the chemistry of how to actually MAKE things.  Now I am glad I did, and it pleases me very much to hear my children talk about cooking in their own households.

Excerpts from "The Wind Our Enemy"

The wheat in spring was like a giant’s bolt of silk

Unrolled over the earth.

When the wind sprang

It rippled as if a great broad snake

Moved under the green sheet,

Seeking its outward way to light.

In autumn it was an ocean of flecked gold,

Sweet as a biscuit, breaking in crisp waves

That never shattered, never blurred in foam.

That was the last good year….

They said, “Sure it’ll rain next year!”

When that was dry, “Well, next year anyway.”

Then “Next—“

 ........................

The sun goes down.  Earth like a thick black coin

Leans its round rim against the yellowed sky.

The air cools.  Kerosene lamps are filled and lit

In dusty windows.  Tired bodies crave to lie

In bed forever.  Chores are done at last.

...will it never rain again?  What about

those clouds out west?  No, that’s just dust, as thick

and stifling now as winter underwear.

No rain, no crop, no feed, no faith, only

wind.  

By Ann Marriott  from The Circular Coast: Poems, New and Selected. Oakville, Ontario

The prairies in the 1930s suffered the double disaster of economic depression and drought. In this poem the poet vividly describes the effects of wind and drought on both the physical environment and on the people’s spirits 

"he that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap"
Ecclesiates 11:4

This is What You Should Do

This is what you shall do;
love the earth and sun and the animals,
despise riches,
give alms to every one that asks,
stand up for the stupid and crazy,
devote your income and labour to others,
hate tyrants,
argue not concerning God,
have patience and indulgence toward the people,
take off your hat to nothing known
or unknown
or to any man or number of men,
go freely with powerful uneducated persons
and with the young
and with the mothers of families....
re-examine all you have been told at school  or church or in any book,
dismiss whatever insults your own soul,
and your very flesh shall be a great poem...
not only in its words,
but in the silent lines of its lips and face....
and in every motion and joint of your body.

Walt Whitman  from preface of "Leaves of Grass"
classification:  inspiration
Thank you to Valerie for the picture

I'd Rather Be the Father

Right from the start, it's easier to be the father; no morning

nausea, no stretch marks.  You can wait outside the

delivery room and keep your clothes on.  Notice how

closely the word mother resembles smother, notice

how she is either too strict or too lenient:  wrong for giving up 

everything or not enough.  Psychology books blame her 

for whatever is the matter with all of us while the father

slips into the next room for a beer.I wanted to be

the rational one, the one who told a joke at dinner,

If I were her father we would throw a ball across

the lawn while the grill fills with smoke.  But who

wants to be the mother?  Who wants to tell her what 

to wear and deliver her to the beauty shop and explain

bras and tampons?  Who wants to show her what

a woman still is? I am supposed to teach her how to

wash the dishes and do the laundry only I don't want

her to grow up and be like me.  I'd rather be the father

who tells her she is loved; I'd rather take her fishing

and teach her to skip stones across the lake of history;

I'd rather show her how far she can spit.

by Faith Shearin, from "Moving the Piano"

Austin University Press, 2011

classification:  Home and Family

Summons

Keep me from going to sleep too soon Or if I go to sleep too soon Come wake me up.  Come any hour Of night.  Come whistling up the road.  Stomp on the porch.  Bang on the door. Make me get out of bed and come And let you in and light a light. Tell me the northern lights are on And make me look.  Or tell me clouds Are doing something to the moon They never did before, and show me. See that I see.  Talk to me till I'm half as wide awake as you And start to dress wondering why I ever went to bed at all. Tell me the walking is superb. Not only tell me, but persuade me. You know I'm not too hard persuaded. Robert Francis (not your uncle) Category:  The Good Earth the best way to see the northern lights is to be, well, north.

Little Things

Little things, that run, and quail,

And die, in silence and despair!

Little things, that fight, and fail,

And fall, on sea, and earth, and air!

All trapped and frightened little things,

The mouse, the coney, hear our prayer!

Forgive us all our trespasses,

Little creatures, everywhere!

James Stephens, from Collected Poems

My English teacher was from Great Britain, and in my mind I can still hear him recite "Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie, O, what a panic's in thy breastie!"  (Ode to a Mouse, Robert Burns)

I remember feeling quite moved by the poem. 

Every time I see a creature killed on the road, turned up by the garden shovel, or deliberately killed by people who won't share space with animals, I feel a moment of sadness.  I hope I have passed this on to my children.

Simon the Cyrenian Speaks

He never spoke a word to me
And yet He called my name;
He never gave a sign to me,
And yet I knew and came.
At first I said, "I will not bear
His cross upon my back;
He only seeks to place it there
Because my skin is black."

But He was dying for a dream,
And He was very meek,
And in His eyes there shone a gleam
Men journey far to seek.

It was Himself my pity bought
I did for Christ alone
What all of Rome could not have wrought
With bruise of lash or stone.

by Countee Cullen, part of the Harlem Renaissance during the 1920s.
(learn about this important artistic movement)

Classification:  social commentary, or inspirational

Tradition sets Cyrene in Libya, which puts a new twist on the Bible story
to consider that Simon of Cyrene should be black.
I have occasionally been overcome by the annoying things about going to church: 
Lugging 2 sets of scriptures (English and Spanish), Sunday school manual, "the Friend" magazine to help the kid be quiet in the service, a primary manual if I was teaching...
What about Cub scouts? A royal pain.  What about standing in a cold parking lot waiting for a youth trip?   
But when it comes right down to it, It is Christ Himself we are drawn to.
It is His meekness and kindness that soften our hearts and make us want to be kind 
to others too.