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  1. TopTop #2491
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Beauty Blessing


    As stillness in stone to silence is wed
    May your heart be somewhere a God might dwell.


    As a river flows in ideal sequence
    May your soul discover time in presence.


    As the moon absolves the dark of resistance
    May thought-light console your mind with brightness.


    As the breath of light awakens colour
    May the dawn anoint your eyes with wonder.


    As spring rain softens the earth with surprise
    May your winter places be kissed by light.


    As the ocean dreams to the joy of dance
    May the grace of change bring you elegance.


    As clay anchors a tree in light and wind
    May your outer life grow from peace within.


    As twilight fills night with bright horizons
    May beauty await you at home beyond.


    - John O'Donohue
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  3. TopTop #2492
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    What Would An Indigenous Grandmother Do?

    I don’t want to change
    my thoughts.
    I want to change
    the way I think.
    I want to think
    in images, in stories
    spun as threads
    arising long and slow
    out of culture and
    out of the Grandmother Spider
    of indigenous mind.


    I want to learn

    to live in the old ways,
    the ways of spirit.
    I want to see
    the signs and the
    deep, precise wisdom
    of the true ones –
    ancestors, elders, any and all
    trying to inform us that
    there is a way -
    there is a way
    to heal,
    there is a way
    to see,
    there is a way
    to change direction,
    there is a way
    to give the children
    what they need
    to be safe
    to be listening
    to be healthy
    to be whole.


    I, too,
    want to be whole
    all the way into
    death and, yes,
    I’ll say it,
    beyond death,
    beyond it but not beyond
    the cycle of being -
    the ring, the hoop of
    being together.
    This is the place where
    Love remains, where
    Love sustains, where
    Love comes
    into and through
    all things.
    Love is spirit
    flowing into the life
    of the world.
    Knowing this
    I am left with a question
    to pose to myself:
    What would an
    indigenous grandmother do?


    - Maya Spector
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  5. TopTop #2493
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Interview


    Who are you when nobody’s looking? When
    does your shadow appear? What gives it form?
    Will you let us know when you’re triggered?
    Will you stay present and engage with us,
    if we are? How do you relate to sacrament?

    Have you ever made love with the land? Felt
    your own body stir with her gentle rhythms,
    caressed her eagerly with your hands? Slipped
    your nose inside her alert blossoms, sipping
    their generous scent?

    What are you passionate about? Where does
    joy live inside you? Do you laugh with ease?
    Can we laugh together? Are you friends with
    grief? How well do you know yourself? Are
    you willing to do the deep work.?

    Who are you in the kitchen? Will we nourish
    each other? What can we learn together?
    What kind of alchemy can we co-create?
    Do you flinch or welcome these probing
    questions. Are you quiet on the inside?
    Can we be quiet together? Together can
    we come home to what’s sacred?


    - Constance Miles
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  7. TopTop #2494
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Choose Something Like A Star


    O star (the fairest one in sight),
    We grant your loftiness the right
    To some obscurity of cloud---
    It will not do to say of the night,
    Since dark is what brings out your light.
    Some mystery becomes the proud.
    But to be wholly taciturn
    In your reserve is not allowed.
    Say something to us we can learn
    By heart and when alone repeat.
    Say something! And it says, ‘I burn.’
    But say with what degree of heat.
    Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
    Use language we can comprehend.
    Tell us what elements you blend.
    It gives us strangely little aid,
    But does tell us something in the end.
    And steadfast as Keats’ Eremite,
    Not even stooping from its sphere,
    It asks a little of us here.
    It asks of us a certain height,
    So when at times the mob is swayed
    To carry praise or blame too far,
    We may choose something like a star
    To stay our minds on and be staid.

    - Robert Frost
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  9. TopTop #2495

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A series of 7 Frost poems were set to music by Randall Thompson, as some of you likely know, and are known as "Frostiana". In my high school Concert Choir, we sang this one and "The Road Not Taken". There's another tie-in: a few years ago, two poets from my high school in Missouri and I went together to one of Larry's "Oral Tradition" evenings in Sebastapol. We met in San Rafael and rode together the rest of the way. One friend had also been in Concert Choir, and she and I, on the way, sang the beautiful "The Road Not Taken", of which we both still remembered most of the words our parts in the music. If you want to hear that one, just Search on YouTube. Meanwhile, here's this one. Great poems, both. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJZU8ixx8is
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  11. TopTop #2496
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    This Morning


    Up early
    planned to swim half-a-mile
    heard I’d promised my black dog
    a good hike
    OK

    walked out the door in my t-shirt
    heard I need a pocket
    my binoculars
    OK
    back in the house
    changed shirts
    into my car
    drove towards the canyon loop
    heard Corte Madera Estuary
    OK
    turned
    parked near Basich
    hiked down to the water
    turned to the right
    counter-clockwise loops
    heard clockwise
    resisted
    then
    OK
    we all know this listening
    as if we know how we should live
    crossed the Bon Air Bridge
    way low tide

    June
    new moon
    large ripples
    in almost no water
    waited
    until someone surfaced
    couldn’t quite see
    turned clockwise
    up the shoreline path
    through binoculars
    saw
    this far up
    way past null zone
    whiskered
    mud-covered head
    of Harbor Seal


    not seen here before

    then
    further up the clockwise trail
    a smaller head
    binoculars
    River Otter
    and on the shore
    yards from protection
    Clapper Rail
    all three gobbling fish
    in the low low water
    later
    from the opposite shore
    River Otter cavorting
    in small lagoon
    we all know this listening
    listening.


    - Trout Black
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  13. TopTop #2497
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Sunday School Lesson in Oakridge, Tennessee

    The teaching was so clear.

    The golden fish were perfectly koi.

    Not channel cat in dark flat rivers
    or darting trout in clear mountain waters.

    No. In this man made pond on Black Oak Ridge
    surrounded by blooming dogwood trees,
    trees full of the Cardinal’s red flash and song
    these miracles displayed their perfect beauty.

    Silvery yellow white
    Dotted gold orange
    Angel wing tails
    Rolling fat sleekness
    In their water ballet.

    Koi being perfectly who they are
    in front of God and everyone.

    I whisper to the koi,
    “Namaste, beauties, namaste!”

    - Doug von Koss
    Last edited by Barry; 06-20-2015 at 02:17 PM.
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  15. TopTop #2498
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The River of Bees


    In a dream I returned to the river of bees
    Five orange trees by the bridge and
    Beside two mills my house
    Into whose courtyard a blindman followed
    The goats and stood singing
    Of what was older


    Soon it will be fifteen years


    He was old he will have fallen into his eyes


    I took my eyes
    A long way to the calendars
    Room after room asking how shall I live


    One of the ends is made of streets
    One man processions carry through it
    Empty bottles their
    Image of hope
    It was offered to me by name


    Once once and once
    In the same city I was born
    Asking what shall I say


    He will have fallen into his mouth
    Men think they are better than grass


    I return to his voice rising like a forkful of hay


    He was old he is not real nothing is real
    Nor the noise of death drawing water


    We are the echo of the future


    On the door it says what to do to survive
    But we were not born to survive
    Only to live


    - W. S. Merwin
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  17. TopTop #2499
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Summer Day

    Who made the world?
    Who made the swan, and the black bear?
    Who made the grasshopper?
    This grasshopper, I mean--
    the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
    the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
    who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
    who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
    Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
    Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
    I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
    I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
    into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,’how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
    which is what I have been doing all day.
    Tell me, what else should I have done?
    Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
    Tell me, what is it you plan to do
    with your one wild and precious life?


    - Mary Oliver
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  19. TopTop #2500
    Shepherd's Avatar
    Shepherd
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    "Tell me, what is it you plan to do
    with your one wild and precious life?"
    is how Mary Oliver ends the following poem. How would you answer this "Summer Day" question?

    "Who made the grasshopper?" (saltamonte) she asks? How would you answer that question? So many questions, with so many different answers.

    A grasshopper recently jumped on me as I was picking boysenberries, a fun summer activity here. I just sat down and looked at her. She stayed a while, moving her "jaws back and forth." Then she did float away, away, away.

    It is a good time "to kneel down in the grass" and accept how "blessed" we are.
    Saltamonte Shepherd

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    The Summer Day

    Who made the world?
    Who made the swan, and the black bear?
    Who made the grasshopper?
    This grasshopper, I mean--
    the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
    the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
    who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
    who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
    Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
    Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
    I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
    I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
    into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,’how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
    which is what I have been doing all day.
    Tell me, what else should I have done?
    Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
    Tell me, what is it you plan to do
    with your one wild and precious life?


    - Mary Oliver
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  20. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  21. TopTop #2501
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Our Hearts Are Broken, Our Spirits Are Strong, Our Faith Is Triumphant


    “Knee-bone, knee-bone, knee-bone….”


    In the completely black darkness of the night and early morning,

    in the deep recesses of moss-laden oak trees,
    ponds and lagoons where our ancestors toiled for generations,
    we drop down - our knees to the cold floor -
    and we seek understanding,
    we seek solace,
    we seek a way out of this “no-way”.
    Our sobbing voices utter unspoken prayers
    as we gather in supplication
    to the spirits that have brought us this far by faith.

    Our hearts are broken, but we know comfort is there.

    Our spirits are strong because we know guidance is there.

    Our faith is triumphant because we know our beloved community is here.

    “Knee-bone, knee-bone, knee-bone, Oh my Lord.”
    - J. Herman Blake
    Johns Island, South Carolina
    June 18th, 2015
    Last edited by Barry; 06-23-2015 at 01:31 PM.
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  23. TopTop #2502
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Summer

    time - the bones of my life...
    bone soup fulla marrow

    how did a computer screen become my window?
    devices

    devices

    i need flowers to cleanse my retina
    flowers and hummingbirds,
    hummingbirds and kestrels

    i need hills to climb
    views to share

    i need slumber parties and brunches
    a dose of laughter with my gratitude practice
    like hemp oil on chicory
    it just tastes good

    - Claudia L’Amoreaux
    Last edited by Barry; 06-24-2015 at 02:13 PM.
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  25. TopTop #2503
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I Dream A World


    I dream a world where man
    No other man will scorn,
    Where love will bless the earth
    And peace its paths adorn
    I dream a world where all
    Will know sweet freedom's way,
    Where greed no longer saps the soul
    Nor avarice blights our day.
    A world I dream where black or white,
    Whatever race you be,
    Will share the bounties of the earth
    And every man is free,
    Where wretchedness will hang its head
    And joy, like a pearl,
    Attends the needs of all mankind-
    Of such I dream, my world!


    - Langston Hughes
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  27. TopTop #2504
    Ronaldo's Avatar
    Ronaldo
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    My mentor Glen Freeman (author of Kryptadia) was a friend of Langston Hughes and I honor them both with the poem you provided and John Cope's recent photo of Mt. Hood.

    Name:  Dream.jpg
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    Last edited by Barry; 06-26-2015 at 03:56 PM.
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  29. TopTop #2505
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A HAIKU FOR CHARLESTON


    Gun shots fill the place,
    A hallowed sanctuary,
    Nine souls rise to grace.


    - Waights Taylor
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  31. TopTop #2506
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    June 26, 2015

    Rainbow flag goes up
    Confederate flag comes down
    Still much work to do


    - Katherine Hastings
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  33. TopTop #2507
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Supremes


    the joy, the sorrow


    the sun
    rainbow flags
    ecstasy


    arrows in the heart
    all those years
    of silence


    now
    why am I not shouting
    why at last the tears



    - Fran Claggett
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  35. TopTop #2508
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Father Earth


    There is a two-million year old man
    No one knows.
    They cut into his rivers
    Peeled wide pieces of hide
    From his legs
    Left scorch marks
    On his buttocks.
    He did not cry out.
    No matter what they did, he held firm.
    Now he raises his stabbed hands
    and whispers that we can heal him yet.
    We begin the bandages,
    The rolls of gauze,
    The unguents, the gut,
    The needle, the grafts.
    We slowly, carefully turn his body
    Face up,
    And under him,
    His lifelong lover, the old woman,
    Is perfect and unmarked
    He has laid upon
    His two-million year old woman
    All this time, protecting her
    With his old back, his old scarred back.
    And the soil beneath her
    Is black with her tears.

    - Clarissa Pinkola Estes
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  37. TopTop #2509
    BManna
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    OmiGaia!
    How did she do it?
    Upending mythological-scale
    notions of Home
    planet, Gender
    relations, Parent
    identities, and Religious
    icons, invoking new
    commitments to Responsible human
    lifeways and tender Compassion,
    Grounding us in tactile daily tasks,
    discharging species-level Grief, and
    celebrating Fertility!
    in only 26 unhurried, earth-shattering lines.
    I'm splayed.

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    Father Earth...
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  39. TopTop #2510
    Shepherd's Avatar
    Shepherd
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I like the "Father Earth" title, and what follows. That title evokes the Sky Mother. Some cultures tends to use the metaphor of the Earth Mother, whereas other cultures speak of the Sky Mother.

    A trouble I have with Christianity and some religions is that they are not sufficiently grounded, in my opinion. The deity is seen as too male and far away distant on Mt. Olympus or Mt. Zion. I named my farm after the wounded healer Kokopelli, the hump-backed flute player who walked the Earth connecting people with both his upbeat and his melancholic sounds. The tendency to genderize the Earth and ones deities has its limitations, so I appreciate
    Clarissa for reversing the imagery with this poem and ending it with those pregnant "tears."

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post

    Father Earth

    There is a two-million year old man
    No one knows.
    They cut into his rivers
    Peeled wide pieces of hide
    From his legs
    Left scorch marks
    On his buttocks.
    He did not cry out.
    No matter what they did, he held firm.
    Now he raises his stabbed hands
    and whispers that we can heal him yet.
    We begin the bandages,
    The rolls of gauze,
    The unguents, the gut,
    The needle, the grafts.
    We slowly, carefully turn his body
    Face up,
    And under him,
    His lifelong lover, the old woman,
    Is perfect and unmarked
    He has laid upon
    His two-million year old woman
    All this time, protecting her
    With his old back, his old scarred back.
    And the soil beneath her
    Is black with her tears.

    - Clarissa Pinkola Estes
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  41. TopTop #2511
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Nirvana


    At the retreat, Lee wasn't allowed
    to speak or read for ten days, just
    meditate. It was bliss at first
    letting go of the chattering world.
    The silence was like living inside
    a rose. She felt strong and clean.
    Up before dawn to contemplate, and
    then the simple meal with others
    she didn't know, but, now, with all this
    love flowing through her she knew
    she must love them too. They were all
    part of the same Divine Being,
    In a pond of red lotuses,
    in a pond of blue lotuses,
    in a pond of white lotuses,
    is the utter purity of mindfulness
    that is indifference, rightly
    penetrated by wisdom. As the days
    wore on she missed chocolate,
    she missed coffee and cigarettes.
    She missed the office and its
    endless phone calls, she missed
    her secretary and her delicious
    gossip. Martinis! And her husband
    who was chopping his way through
    the rain forest in search of
    a tiny, yellow frog. Meditation
    was great, but ten days of it
    would be enough to make one combust.
    At lunch she looked around the room:
    without speech, without emotion,
    her fellow campers were like ghosts,
    or maybe more like mental patients
    dulled by too much medication and
    electro-shock, sad and empty husks
    of their former selves. The Teacher
    sat by himself eating his bowl of rice.
    Lee stood up and began to walk
    down the long path to the parking lot.
    She wasn't angy. She was excited
    and started skipping and singing
    at the sight of her getaway car.


    - James Tate
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  43. TopTop #2512
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Meanwhile, Music


    Tree to tree the birds fly to perch and sing
    amid the sway and swing of spring's busy wind,
    while wars go on, while the sea rises and the ice melts.


    In the midst of life narrowing to the onyx box,
    the house of Anubis side by side with the house of music,
    sun blesses the breakfast table.


    All is perishing, and yet they sing, they sing.


    - Elizabeth Carothers Herron
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  45. TopTop #2513
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Place Where We Are Right


    From the place where we are right
    flowers will never grow
    in the spring.


    The place where we are right
    is hard and trampled
    like a yard.


    But doubts and loves
    dig up the world
    like a mole, a plow
    and a whisper will be heard in the place
    where the ruined
    house once stood.


    - Yehuda Amichai
    (translated by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell)
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  47. TopTop #2514
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Under the Same Sun


    Apart, we say, as a way
    to soothe our separate souls,
    "We're under the same moon."
    Why not the same sun? The sun
    whose light, too bright
    cannot, will not shelter


    or so we suppose. We chose
    together, in so many languages,
    the moon—softer, sweeter, it
    smoothes the shadows. Still the sun
    shines in broken Palestine and
    Berlin at the same hour.


    We shade our eyes, the luxury
    of blinders, the refusal
    to know what was caused,
    In our name, what we allow.
    We wait for the moon,
    her soft absolution. Under


    the same sun, we suffer
    our simple losses, our separate
    stupors. Our contours,
    contrasts drawn sharp, certain,
    so straight, we cannot
    see how my soul touches,


    reaches inside your body.
    A soul, silver-sweet
    as the moon, a body
    radiant as the sun,
    the one whose life
    we live within and under.


    The life we must bear
    to know or burn together
    in elected ignorance.


    - Rebecca del Rio
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  49. TopTop #2515
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Poem #108
    Downwind, pine and cedar recklessly enter the clouds.
    Everywhere stir the multitude and alarm the crowd.
    I can't do the tricks of "person" and "environment."
    One cup of murky dregs gets me drunk.
    - Ikkyu
    (translated by Sarah Messer and Kidder Smith)
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  51. TopTop #2516
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    O, America!

    O, America, the blood you are bleeding is oil.

    Where is the old red gone
    that once infused your flag?
    Where is the courage for honesty –
    that blue handed out once like a dancer
    so generously?

    Where is white? Where is the place where color
    meant nothing?

    O, America, aren’t you ashamed
    to place a gun where courage should be?

    Aren’t you lost in the insubstantial lies of futures
    eaten like vegetables from a dump!

    And underneath your skin, are you not still –
    like the dove and the wolf
    and the spider and the oat –
    only human too! And fairly! Fairly!

    Spend some heart this way.
    Bend with the wind that holds the flag together in the air
    for all to see,
    not just some.

    On this field of promise
    make again the palm held out
    upon which each of us arrived.

    Grant us communion, flag.
    Give us a whole.
    Give us ourselves together once again
    in quality.


    Our stars.

    - Bruce Moody
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  52. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  53. TopTop #2517
    Shepherd's Avatar
    Shepherd
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    What an appropriate poem for today. So much is in decline in this country. Today is a good day to honor the old-fashioned American values and lament that they are not being adequately followed. "Bleeding" oil is indeed accurate. And too many guns. May this poem help wake us up to our calling to "think globally and work locally."

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    O, America!

    O, America, the blood you are bleeding is oil...
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  54. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  55. TopTop #2518
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Dugout
    They like it here
    shaded from the sun, drinking Gatorade
    in the dugout among the solitude
    of brothers.


    After one strikes out
    or misses a ball,
    angry fathers climb the gated fence
    that separates spectators
    from players and curse.
    All night only the male crickets chirp,


    nocturnal and cold-blooded.
    They take on the temperature
    of their surroundings.
    They run the top of one wing
    along the teeth
    at the bottom of the other.


    Their wings up and open
    like acoustical sails, the sound relentless
    and unending.


    - Jill Bialosky
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  56. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  57. TopTop #2519

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    chilling! powerful image, I love the image of the safety of the dugout.

    The lines about angry dads also call to mind the Texas mom who tried to arrange the murder of her daughter's cheerleader rival, or whatever it was. I guess a lot of people still need to read Gibran's "Your children are not your children..." God help us all,

    I feel this is a mighty poem, with a mighty symbol/contrast which has been under everyone on Earth's eyes/nose, etc, since time immemorial, yet until today, I'VE NEVER EVER SEEN THIS THOUGHT EXPRESSED BY ANYONE! So obvious (and powerful), now that we see it.
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  58. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  59. TopTop #2520
    Shandi's Avatar
    Shandi
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    When was this ever in America? "Where is white? Where is the place where color meant nothing?

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    O, America!

    O, America, the blood you are bleeding is oil...
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