Y is for...

Y is for...

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,   And sorry I could not travel both   And be one traveler, long I stood   And looked down one as far as I could   To where it bent in the undergrowth;            Then took the other, as just as fair,   And having perhaps the better claim,   Because it was grassy and wanted wear;   Though as for that the passing there   Had worn them really about the same,            And both that morning equally lay   In leaves no step had trodden black.   Oh, I kept the first for another day!   Yet knowing how way leads on to way,   I doubted if I should ever come back.            I shall be telling this with a sigh   Somewhere ages and ages hence:   Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—   I took the one less traveled by,   And that has made all the difference. The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost

L is for a Love Poem

L is for a Love Poem.

 

 

 

"When the universe was young, and the stars were barely new, when the oceans began to crash upon the shores of worlds unknown, and the suns began to rise on the new ground they watched over, a story began. When the world was light and hope and joy and love and creation, remembering,remembering, remembering.

 

                                                    This was their time."

 

                                                                           by C.M. Williams

 

    My muse for love stories is fed by many things, but hope is what drives them home to me. So when I wax poetic about love, its as much about hope.  Hope that is stronger than the ocean waves and just a tireless. Hope that can be trampled, distorted and buried but still can be seen glimmering silently--waiting for the chance to grow again and conquer.

When we fall in love, hope is what we carry, like a torch (maybe a pocket lighter at first...depends) But we carry hope that this new thing we have found that fills us, distracts us and rearranges our lives will not leave us and drop us back to where we had already been. Love changes us, and I have met few who do not hope for that to some degree.

I don't care if you are a cynic or a saint, we all want to be something more and for some of us that is being someone better. I believe love does that or at least I hope...

 

I is for Invitation and Invictus.

I is for Invitation and Invictus.

 

"Invitation" by Shel Silverstein and "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley.  Both poems I came upon in my preteen years.  Both poems continue to be dear to me. 

 

"Invitation" has always touched the dreamer and artist in me and to this day makes me smile.  "Invictus" helped me through a tough time when I was very young and is the voice of the realist I have always been.  And yes, a dreamer and a realist can live in the same creature.  That creature would be a writer. 

 

Later, A to Z pals.

 

 

 

 

Shel Silverstein



Sunday Musings Under the Steps: Words You Live By

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Invictus, William Earnest Henley

I had found this poem not long after recovering from an extensive and life changing back surgery, when I was 12 yrs old. In no time I remember it word for word (keep in mind I've often forgotten my own phone number) and to this day I can recite it at the asking.

The poem inspired me-made me feel stronger and made my situation feel more real while making it also more manageable. Back then it had made me feel less alone. The irony in that is it took me 22 years to research the writer and find he'd wrote this from his own hospital bed, recovering from a amputation--the result of a illness he was diagnosed with when he was 12. Maybe a century separated us but his words had been there for me when I truly needed them.

How many of you have words that do for you what this poem has done for me--still does? Or a writer thats reached across cultures or time to lend you inspiration?

Sunday Musings From Under the Steps: The Darker Side of Goose

"For every evil under the sun, there is a remedy, or there is none. If there be one, seek till you find it; If there be none, never mind it.
~~~M. Goose


A lovely fairytale survival lesson that translates so well to the real world.

Musings Under the Steps: A Apt Definition

INVITATION

If you are a dreamer, come in.
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer . . .
If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire,
For we have some flax golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!

by Shel Silverstein

A fairly apt definition of a writer, I think. Dream well my writing comrades. Write well and often.

Sunday Sermon

I was rummaging through a few of my old high school lit books a few weeks ago and found some favorite quotes I'd highlighted big and yellow. One was a quote from a fella named Abe...


"I do the very best I know how, the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me wont amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference." ~~Abraham Lincoln

The other, a poem I had loved so much that I not only highlighted it, but wrote it in my own scrawling hand on a slip of stationary and placed it in the book from which it came. Something I use to do to remember things. Like if I write it I will remember it even after the ink or pencil fades. I guess it worked. To this day I can recite this poem quicker than I can remember my own phone number.

Invictus
by William Earnest Henley.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of fate
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gait,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

I think I was reaching for self empowerment and acceptance then. Every teenagers dream.

Do any of you have a favorite quote or poem that still sits close to your heart and speaks, even after all these years, to your soul? I have had many and always search out more for my collection.

So come, share with the class. It might inspire another.