Archives for 2014

Finding What You’re Looking For

December 26, 2014 by John Leave a Comment

[Image: “Found Anything Yet?,” by Yau Hoong Tang on Flickr. (Click to enlarge.)
Used under a Creative Commons license.]

It’s harder to talk about, but what I really, really, really want for Christmas is just this: I want to be 5 years old again for an hour. I want to laugh a lot and cry a lot. I want to be picked up or rocked to sleep in someone’s arms, and carried up to bed just one more time. I know what I really want for Christmas: I want my childhood back.

Nobody is going to give me that. I might give at least the memory of it to myself if I try. I know it doesn’t make sense, but since when is Christmas about sense, anyway? It is about a child, of long ago and far away, and it is about the child of now. In you and me. Waiting behind the door of our hearts for something wonderful to happen. A child who is impractical, unrealistic, simpleminded and terribly vulnerable to joy.

It’s just this: that there are places we all come from — deep-rooty-common places — that makes us who we are. And we disdain them or treat them lightly at our peril. We turn our backs on them at the risk of self-contempt. There is a sense in which we need to go home again — and can go home again. Not to recover home, no. But to sanctify memory.

(Robert Fulghum [source, among others])

…and:

You have no idea how hard I’ve looked
for a gift to bring You.
Nothing seemed right.
What’s the point of bringing gold
to the gold mine, or water to the ocean.
Everything I came up with was like
taking spices to the Orient.
It’s no good giving my heart and my
soul because you already have these.
So I’ve brought you a mirror.
Look at yourself and remember me.

(Jalal al-Din Rumi [widely quoted around the Web, in these or other words, e.g., from this source])

[Read more…]

Midweek Music Break: “Jingle Bells?,” by Barbra Streisand

December 24, 2014 by John Leave a Comment

For some reason, this rendition of the classic song — from La Streisand’s 1967 Christmas album — has ended up on a number of “worst [or least favorite] Christmas songs” lists (e.g.). Maybe just because it’s a family favorite, though, I’ve never minded it at all. True, it’s not a song I’d want to hear over and over; few songs are. But a few times? No problem.

If you’re not familiar with it, the question mark in the title is mandatory. While it’s the same old song, melodically and lyrically, it actually resembles the same old song only in the way that, oh… in the way that Raymond Babbitt (Dustin Hoffman’s Rain Man role) resembles an endearing old vicar tallying up the weekly church offerings. For this reason, unlike probably 90% of the covers I’ve encountered, it doesn’t have James Lord Pierpont or “Traditional” alone credited as its author. To his name are added two new ones, those of producer Jack Gold and arranger Marty Paich.

Pierpont’s probably not exactly rolling over in his grave, although he may be scratching his head.

For what it’s worth, I’ve belatedly added Streisand’s recording to this year’s ~~Quirky~~ Eclectic Christmas Mix, at position #68 overall (#8 for the year). This actually seems to have been a mistake: a couple days ago, I “realized” that I’d repeated one song from an earlier year — and inserted “Jingle Bells?” as its replacement. As it turns out, the mistake was not in this year’s Christmas mix, but in my burning of the earlier year’s CD, for offline listening. Ha!

[Below, click Play button to begin Jingle Bells?. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 1:52 long.]

[audio:68_jinglebells_barbrastreisand.mp3|titles=’Jingle Bells?’|artists=Barbra Streisand]

A Quirky Eclectic Christmas Mix (2014 ed.)

December 19, 2014 by John Leave a Comment

[Video: note the bass with a truncated bottom. It’s called a Czech-Ease road bass, sold (and apparently designed) by one David Gage of New York. As for the performance, lauded by Penn Jillette as “a tiny little bit of perfect,” it really channels Patsy Cline, doesn’t it? (At the outset, you may wonder — as did I — where the plural “duelling bassES” comes from. Give it time — almost a minute.) For more information on Kate Davis, drop by her Web site. Elvis’s original version of the song is number 22 in the below list, from 2010.]

So: another year, another Christmas… Here (as I’ve done annually since 2008), I’ve added ten songs to the bottom of the previous years’ entries. As before, these artists and songs appear, back-to-back, in the following playlist:

Want to visit the pages for earlier playlists, which include videos, other songs, and some background material not in the “official” list? Here y’go:

— 2008: —

Peter Robbins et al.: dialogue from A Charlie Brown Christmas
Anonymous 4: Hodie Christus Natus Est
Waverly Consort: Three Spanish Villancicos – Dadme Albcrecias
Perry Como: Home for the Holidays
Mannheim Steamroller: Joy to the World
George Winston: The Holly and the Ivy
Celtic Woman: O Holy Night
John Denver and the Muppets: The Twelve Days of Christmas
Al Hirt: Nutty Jingle Bells
The Roches: Deck the Halls
— 2009: —
Charlotte Church: Mary’s Boy Child
Madeleine Peyroux/k.d. lang: River
George Winston: Variations on the Kanon
Arthur Fiedler & The Boston Pops: The Toy Trumpet
Eartha Kitt: Santa Baby
Mannheim Steamroller: Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Celtic Woman: The Wexford Carol
The Brian Setzer Orchestra: Jingle Bells
Jimmy Boyd: I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
Cumberland Gap Reunion: Silent Night
— 2010: —
Sam Phillips: Cold Dark Night (lyrics)
Elvis Presley: Blue Christmas
Loreena McKennitt: God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen (may be my favorite addition to this year’s list…)
The Chipmunks: The Chipmunk Song
Frank Sinatra: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
London Philharmonic Orchestra: It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
Tony Elman: Winter Creek
Sara Groves: Toy Packaging (lyrics) (…and this may be my favorite for grins)
Harry Belafonte: Mary’s Boy Child
Ray Conniff Singers: Ring Christmas Bells
— 2011: —
Ralph Marterie and His Band: Dig That Crazy Santa Claus
Nat King Cole: The Christmas Song
The Indigo Girls: It Really Is (A Wonderful Life) (lyrics)
Johnny Mercer and the Pied Pipers: Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town
Dean Martin: Baby It’s Cold Outside (also see the wonderful American Songwriter writeup on the story of this song’s composition [thanks, Jules!])
Ferrante and Teicher: Sleigh Ride
Bo Dollis & Wild Magnolias: Shakana Santa Shake It
Neil Diamond: Silver Bells
Taverner Consort, Choir, & Players (Andrew Parrott, conductor): Branle de l’Officiel (Ding! Dong! Merrily on High)
George Winston: Carol of the Bells
— 2012: —
Michael Tilson-Thomas & Philharmonia Orchestra: The Nutcracker (Overture)
Vince Guaraldi Trio: O Tannenbaum
Troy Hess: Christmas on the Moon (And don’t worry, it’s not just you: no one else seems to understand the lyrics (other than the refrain), either.* America’s Singing Souvenir Troy Hess was four years old when he recorded this in 1970. )
Barbra Streisand: I Wonder as I Wander
Frank Sinatra: Jingle Bells
Al Hirt: Ave Maria
Art Neville: Christmas Gumbo
Ella Fitzgerald: Frosty the Snowman
Dean Martin: I’ll Be Home for Christmas
Choir of King’s College, Cambridge: Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht
— 2013: —
Knightsong: Christmas Is Coming
Mannheim Steamroller: Pat-a-Pan
Vienna Boys’ Choir: The Little Drummer Boy
Tori Amos: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
Cumberland Gap Reunion: The First Noel
I Soloisti di Zagreb & Antonio Janigro: Toy Symphony: I: Allegro
Liuba María Hevia (Spanish-language site): Venid Fieles Todos (Adeste Fidelis) (probably my favorite track in this year’s mix)
Corporal Blossom: White Christmas
Perry Como: O Holy Night
Enya: Oíche Chiúin [Chorale] — 2014: —
George Winston: Some Children See Him
She & Him: Baby It’s Cold Outside (this year’s favorite!)
Bing Crosby: Winter Wonderland
Barry Gordon: Nuttin’ for Christmas
Mahalia Jackson: Go Tell It on the Mountain
Bobby Helms: Jingle Bell Rock
Ray Conniff & the Ray Conniff Singers: The Twelve Days of Christmas
Barbra Streisand: Jingle Bells? (And yes, the question mark belongs there! You might be interested in the Midweek Music Break for this song, posted on December 24, 2014 — which explains why this number replaced the one I first included here.)
Emmylou Harris: Light of the Stable
Boston Pops Orchestra: The Nutcracker: Final Waltz

(Note: The playlist goes automatically from start to finish, once you click the little Play button. To fast-forward to the next number, once a song is playing you’ll find a little fast-forward button to the right of its progress meter. And a fast-rewind to the left, for that matter.)

[audio:00_dialoguefromacharliebrownchristmas.mp3, 01_hodiechristusnatusest_anonymous4.mp3, 02_threespanishvillancicos_dadme_albricias_waverlyconsort.mp3, 03_homefortheholidays_perrycomo.mp3, 04_joytotheworld_mannheimsteamroller.mp3, 05_thehollyandtheivy_georgewinston.mp3, 06_oholynight_celticwoman.mp3, 07_12daysofchristmas_denvermuppets.mp3, 08_nuttyjinglebells_alhirt.mp3, 09_deckthehalls_theroches.mp3, 11_marysboychild_charlottechurch.mp3, 12_river_peyrouxlang.mp3, 13_variationsonthekanonbypachelbel_georgewinston.mp3, 14_thetoytrumpet_fiedler.mp3, 15_santababy_earthakitt.mp3,
16_rudolphtherednosedreindeer_mannheimsteamroller.mp3, 17_thewexfordcarol_celticwoman.mp3, 18_jinglebells_briansetzerorchestra.mp3, 19_isawmommykissingsantaclaus_jimmyboyd.mp3, 20_silentnight_cumberlandgapreunion.mp3, 21_colddarknight_samphillips.mp3, 22_bluechristmas_elvispresley.mp3, 23_godrestyemerrygentlemen_loreenamckennitt.mp3, 24_thechipmunksong_thechipmunks.mp3, 25_haveyourselfamerrylittlechristmas_franksinatra.mp3, 26_itcameuponamidnightclear_londonphilharmonicorchestra.mp3, 27_wintercreek_tonyelman.mp3, 28_toypackaging_saragroves.mp3, 29_marysboychild_harrybelafonte.mp3, 30_ringchristmasbells_rayconniffsingers.mp3, 31_digthatcrazysantaclaus_ralphmarterie.mp3, 32_thechristmassong_natkingcole.mp3, 33_itreallyis_indigogirls.mp3, 34_santaclausiscomintotown_johnnymercer.mp3, 35_babyitscoldoutside_deanmartin.mp3, 36_sleighride_ferranteandteicher.mp3, 37_shakanasantashakeit_bodolliswildmagnolias.mp3, 38_silverbells_neildiamond.mp3, 39_branledelofficiel_tavernerconsort.mp3, 40_carolofthebells_georgewinston.mp3, 41_nutcrackeroverture_tilsonthomas_philharmonia.mp3, 42_otannenbaum_vinceguaralditrio.mp3, 43_christmasonthemoon_troyhess.mp3, 44_iwonderasiwander_barbrastreisand.mp3, 45_jinglebells_franksinatra.mp3, 46_avemaria_alhirt.mp3, 47_christmasgumbo_artneville.mp3, 48_frostythesnowman_ellafitzgerald.mp3, 49_illbehomeforchristmas_deanmartin.mp3, 50_stillenachtheiligenacht_choirofkingscollege.mp3, 51_christmasiscoming_knightsong.mp3, 52_patapan_mannheimsteamroller.mp3, 53_thelittledrummerboy_viennaboyschoir.mp3, 54_haveyourselfamerrylittlechristmas_toriamos.mp3, 55_thefirstnoel_cumberlandgapreunion.mp3, 56_toysymphonyiallegro_isoloistidizagrebantoniojanigro.mp3, 57_venidfielestodos_liubamariahevia.mp3, 58_whitechristmas_corporalblossom.mp3, 59_oholynight_perrycomo.mp3, 60_oichechiuin_enya.mp3, 61_somechildrenseehim_georgewinston.mp3, 62_babyitscoldoutside_sheandhim.mp3, 63_winterwonderland_bingcrosby.mp3, 64_nuttinforchristmas_barrygordon.mp3, 65_gotellitonthemountain_mahaliajackson.mp3, 66_jinglebellrock_bobbyhelms.mp3, 67_thetwelvedaysofchristmas_rayconniff.mp3, 68_jinglebells_barbrastreisand.mp3, 69_lightofthestable_emmylouharris.mp3, 70_thenutcrackerfinalwaltz_bostonpops.mp3|titles=’A Quirky/Eclectic Christmas Music Playlist’|artists=Various Artists]

If you’re pressed for time, and/or just don’t want to (re-)listen to the earlier years’ selections, with the player gizmo below you can listen to just 2014’s ten-song list, without having to fast-forward to it through earlier lists. And as in the last couple of years, I’ve also given RAMH regulars (and anyone else who can figure it out!) the chance to use their secret right-bracket decoder rings, to listen to the playlist later without even visiting here. Here we go with the ten selections from this year only:

[2014 only]

[audio:61_somechildrenseehim_georgewinston.mp3, 62_babyitscoldoutside_sheandhim.mp3, 63_winterwonderland_bingcrosby.mp3, 64_nuttinforchristmas_barrygordon.mp3, 65_gotellitonthemountain_mahaliajackson.mp3, 66_jinglebellrock_bobbyhelms.mp3, 67_thetwelvedaysofchristmas_rayconniff.mp3, 68_jinglebells_barbrastreisand.mp3, 69_lightofthestable_emmylouharris.mp3, 70_thenutcrackerfinalwaltz_bostonpops.mp3|titles=’A Quirky/Eclectic Christmas Music Playlist’ (2014 ed.)|artists=Various Artists]

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Finding Home

December 19, 2014 by John 3 Comments

[Video: “Die gut gemeinten Fesseln,” by Bernhard Riedl, on Vimeo. The title translates as something like “The Well-Meaning Ropes (or Bonds, etc.).”]

From whiskey river:

Pillow

There’s nothing I can’t find under there.
Voices in the trees, the missing pages
of the sea.

Everything but sleep.

And night is a river bridging
the speaking and the listening banks,

a fortress, undefended and inviolate.

There’s nothing that won’t fit under it:
fountains clogged with mud and leaves,
the houses of my childhood.

And night begins when my mother’s fingers
let go of the thread
they’ve been tying and untying
to touch toward our fraying story’s hem.

Night is the shadow of my father’s hands
setting the clock for resurrection.

Or is it the clock unraveled, the numbers flown?

There’s nothing that hasn’t found home there:
discarded wings, lost shoes, a broken alphabet.

Everything but sleep. And night begins

with the first beheading
of the jasmine, its captive fragrance
rid at last of burial clothes.

(Li-Young Lee [source])

…and:

The country seems bigger, for you can see through the bare trees. There are times when the woods is absolutely still and quiet. The house holds warmth. A wet snow comes in the night and covers the ground and clings to the trees, making the whole world white. For a while in the morning the world is perfect and beautiful. You think you will never forget.

You think you will never forget any of this, you will remember it always just the way it was. But you can’t remember it the way it was. To know it, you have to be living in the presence of it right as it is happening. It can return only by surprise. Speaking of these things tells you that there are no words for them that are equal to them or that can restore them to your mind. And so you have a life that you are living only now, now and now and now, gone before you can speak of it, and you must be thankful for living day by day, moment by moment, in this presence.

But you have a life too that you remember. It stays with you. You have lived a life in the breath and pulse and living light of the present, and your memories of it, remember now, are of a different life in a different world and time. When you remember the past, you are not remembering it as it was. You are remembering it as it is. It is a vision or a dream, present with you in the present, alive with you in the only time you are alive.

(Wendell Berry [source])

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The Unimaginable, in Person

December 12, 2014 by John Leave a Comment

[Image: “Mystery Creature,” by user iamthebestartist (Jessamyn West) on Flickr. Used under a Creative Commons license. Apparently, the creature in question is an albino porcupine. Who knew?!?]

From whiskey river:

When you’re dealing with these forces or powers in a philosophic and scientific way, contemplating them from an armchair, that rationalistic approach is useful. It is quite profitable then to regard the gods and goddesses and demons as projections of the human mind or as unconscious aspects of ourselves. But every truth is a truth only for one place and one time, and that’s a truth, as I said, for the armchair. When you’re actually dealing with these figures, the only safe, pragmatic and operational approach is to treat them as having a being, a will, and a purpose entirely apart from the humans who evoke them. If the Sorcerer’s Apprentice had understood that, he wouldn’t have gotten into so much trouble.

(Robert Shea/Robert Anton Wilson [source])

…and (italicized lines):

Our Valley

We don’t see the ocean, not ever, but in July and August
when the worst heat seems to rise from the hard clay
of this valley, you could be walking through a fig orchard
when suddenly the wind cools and for a moment
you get a whiff of salt, and in that moment you can almost
believe something is waiting beyond the Pacheco Pass,
something massive, irrational, and so powerful even
the mountains that rise east of here have no word for it.

You probably think I’m nuts saying the mountains
have no word for ocean, but if you live here
you begin to believe they know everything.
They maintain that huge silence we think of as divine,
a silence that grows in autumn when snow falls
slowly between the pines and the wind dies
to less than a whisper and you can barely catch
your breath because you’re thrilled and terrified.

You have to remember this isn’t your land.
It belongs to no one, like the sea you once lived beside
and thought was yours. Remember the small boats
that bobbed out as the waves rode in, and the men
who carved a living from it only to find themselves
carved down to nothing. Now you say this is home,
so go ahead, worship the mountains as they dissolve in dust,
wait on the wind, catch a scent of salt, call it our life.

(Philip Levine, Our Valley [source])

[Read more…]

Deep Magic

December 5, 2014 by John Leave a Comment

[Image: “When It Exceeds Our Ability to Understand,” by Fred Mancosu on Flickr.
(Click to enlarge.) Used under a Creative Commons license.]

From whiskey river (from which I could have selected the entire week’s offerings):

Alternate Endings

There are times when they gather at the edge of your life,
Shadows slipping over the far hills, daffodils
blooming too early, the dark matter of the universe
that threads its way through the few thousand blackbirds
that have invaded the trees out back. Every ending

sloughs off our dreams like snakeskin. This is the kind of
black ice the mind skids across. The candlelight burning down
into the sand. The night leaving its ashes in our eyes.

There are times when your voice turns over in my sleep.
It is no longer blind. The sky is no longer deaf.

There are times when it seems the stars practice
all night just to become fireflies, when it seems there is
no end to what our hearts scribble on corridor walls.
Only when we look at each other do we cease to be ourselves.
Only at a certain height does the smoke blend into air.
There are times when your words seem welded to that sky.

There are times when love is so complicated it circles
like chimney swifts unable to decide where to land.
There are endings so sad their shadows scuff the dirt.
Their sky is as inconsolable as the two year old, Zahra,
torn from her mother and beaten to death in the Sudan.

There are endings so sad I want the morning light
to scourge the fields. Endings that are only what the river
dreams when it dries up. Endings that are constant echoes.

There are times when I think we are satellites collecting
dust from one of the earlier births of the universe Don’t give up.

Each ending is an hourglass filled with doors. There are times
when I feel you might be searching for me, when I can read
what is written on the far sides of stars. I’m nearly out of time.
My heart is a dragonfly. I’ll have to settle for this, standing under
a waterfall of words you never said. There are times like this
when no ending appears, times when I am so inconsolably happy.

(Richard Jackson [source])

…and:

We are now more than halfway removed from what the unwritten word meant to our ancestors, who believed in the original, primal word behind all manifestations of the spirit. You sang because you were answered. The answers come from life around you. Prayers, chants, and songs were also responses to the elements, to the wind, the sun and stars, the Great Mystery behind them. Life on earth springs from a collateral magic that we rarely consult. We avoid the unknown as if we were afraid that contact would lower our sense of self-esteem.

(John Hay [source])

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ADMIN: Change to Comment Moderation

December 3, 2014 by John Leave a Comment

Just wanted to give you a heads-up: when you leave a comment at RAMH, you will no longer have to decipher some strange image or string of text to prove you’re not a “robot.”

Google, which manages the reCaptcha feature as — I guess — a public service, has replaced it with a very simple device: it presents you with an assertion, “I am not a robot.” You check a checkbox if that’s true (cough), and then you’re done. Google will use a variety of ways to determine that a given site visit is by someone who’s already checked the box. See this article at the Wired site for more information.

A Later Place

November 28, 2014 by John Leave a Comment

[Image: “The 1958 Edsel: Lousy Car but a Great Planter,” by Bill Barber (username “wdwbarber”) on Flickr. (Click to enlarge.) Used under a Creative Commons License.]

From whiskey river:

None of us can truly know what we mean to other people, and none of us can know what our future self will experience. History and philosophy ask us to remember these mysteries, to look around at friends, family, humanity, at the surprises life brings — the endless possibilities that living offers — and to persevere. There is love and insight to live for, bright moments to cherish, and even the possibility of happiness, and the chance of helping someone else through his or her own troubles. Know that people, through history and today, understand how much courage it takes to stay. Bear witness to the night side of being human and the bravery it entails, and wait for the sun. If we meditate on the record of human wisdom we may find there reason enough to persist and find our way back to happiness. The first step is to consider the arguments and evidence and choose to stay. After that, anything may happen. First, choose to stay.

(Jennifer Michael Hecht [source])

…and:

The Old Age of Nostalgia

Those hours given over to basking in the glow of an imagined
future, of being carried away in streams of promise by a love or
a passion so strong that one felt altered forever and convinced
that even the smallest particle of the surrounding world was
charged with purpose of impossible grandeur; ah, yes, and
one would look up into the trees and be thrilled by the wind-
loosened river of pale, gold foliage cascading down and by the
high, melodious singing of countless birds; those moments, so
many and so long ago, still come back, but briefly, like fireflies
in the perfumed heat of summer night.

(Mark Strand, Almost Invisible: Poems [source])

[Read more…]

Check the Clock. Check the Calendar. And Take a Breath.

November 21, 2014 by John 5 Comments

[Photo by user orchidgalore, on Flickr. (Click to enlarge, but it’s a large image — over 3MB.) It took me a beat to realize what I was looking at: I thought it was a real-world recreation of one of Dali’s “melting watches” paintings. (Used here under a Creative Commons license.)]

From whiskey river:

No matter how hard you try to be what you once were, you can only be what you are here and now. Time hypnotizes. When you are nine, you think you’ve always been nine years old and will always be. And then when you turn seventy, you are always and forever seventy. You’re in the present, you’re trapped in a young now or an old now, but there is no other now to be seen. You’re only you, here, now — the present you.

(Ray Bradbury [source])

…and (same whiskey river post):

You who walk the earth know only the moment, which is whisked away with your next exhalation.

(Ray Bradbury [source])

…and:

Exercise

First forget what time it is
for an hour
do it regularly every day

then forget what day of the week it is
do this regularly for a week
then forget what country you are in
and practice doing it in company
for a week
then do them together
for a week
with as few breaks as possible

follow these by forgetting how to add
or to subtract
it makes no difference
you can change them around
after a week
both will help you later
to forget how to count

forget how to count
starting with your own age
starting with how to count backward
starting with even numbers
starting with Roman numerals
starting with fractions of Roman numerals
starting with the old calendar
going on to the old alphabet
going on to the alphabet
until everything is continuous again

go on to forgetting elements
starting with water
proceeding to earth
rising in fire

forget fire

(W. S. Merwinn [source])

…and:

I cannot shake time off me. He squats continually before my tree. Everything that has been in my life is always with me, simultaneously, and the events refuse to stand nicely one after the other in a row. They hook into each other, shift around, scatter, force themselves on me or try to slip out of my memory. I have difficulty with them in the necklace of my memory. I am not a carefree little herder of time at all. Day and night pass. Summer and winter, another summer, and here is winter again. This is easy, but not the time that has made of me what I am and that lives within me with another rhythm.

(Wilma Stockenström [source])

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Just Dancing Through

November 14, 2014 by John Leave a Comment

[Video: black-and-white still images over Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me to the End of Love,” sung by Madeleine Peyroux. (Lyrics here.) See the note at the foot of this post for more information.]

From whiskey river:

The way we move within time is a kind of dance. We are always keeping time within one rhythm or another. Music, of course, is exemplary. One reason we love music so much is that it’s so complete and the notes harmonize with one another in time to make a beautiful, ideal statement; not like our daily life where the rhythms are more subtle or hard to find or are constantly being interrupted or changed in ways that aren’t so easy to handle.

(Mel Weitsman [source])

…and:

Sometimes, I Am Startled Out of Myself,

like this morning, when the wild geese came squawking,
flapping their rusty hinges, and something about their trek
across the sky made me think about my life, the places
of brokenness, the places of sorrow, the places where grief
has strung me out to dry. And then the geese come calling,
the leader falling back when tired, another taking her place.
Hope is borne on wings. Look at the trees. They turn to gold
for a brief while, then lose it all each November.
Through the cold months, they stand, take the worst
weather has to offer. And still, they put out shy green leaves
come April, come May. The geese glide over the cornfields,
land on the pond with its sedges and reeds.
You do not have to be wise. Even a goose knows how to find
shelter, where the corn still lies in the stubble and dried stalks.
All we do is pass through here, the best way we can.
They stitch up the sky, and it is whole again.

(Barbara Crooker [source])

…and:

Why be saddled with this thing called life expectancy? Of what relevance to an individual is such a statistic? Am I to concern myself with an allotment of days I never had and was never promised? Must I check off each day of my life as if I am subtracting from this imaginary hoard? No, on the contrary, I will add each day of my life to my treasure of days lived. And with each day, my treasure will grow, not diminish.

(Robert Brault [source])

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