Tuesday, January 30, 2007

We are but a moment’s sunlight


Get Together



Love is but a song we sing
And fear’s the way we die.
You can make the mountains ring
Or make the angels cry.
Though the bird is on the wing
And you may not know why.
C’mon people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now
Some will come and some will go
And we shall surely pass.
When the one that left us here
Returns for us at last.
We are but a moment’s sunlight
Fading in the grass.
C’mon people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now
If you hear the song I sing
You will understand (listen)
You hold the key to love and fear
All in your trembling hand.
Just one key unlocks them both
It’s there at your command
C’mon people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

Youngbloods

Monday, January 29, 2007

Father Chrismas on globe


Hey, even snakes need Christmas. . . .


African Father Christmas (in private collection)

Julia at three


Julia at two


48 wasn't too bad either

When I was 42, it was a very good year

Sunday, January 28, 2007

We are stardust, we are golden

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Photo by AP

Woodstock


Well, I came upon a child of God
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, 'Tell where are you going?'
This he told me

Said, 'I'm going down to Yasgur's Farm,
Gonna join in a rock and roll band.
Got to get back to the land and set my soul free.'

We are stardust, we are golden,
We are billion year old carbon,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

'Well, then can I walk beside you?
I have come to lose the smog,
And I feel like I'm a cog in something turning.
And maybe it's the time of year,
Yes and maybe it's the time of man.
And I don't know who I am,
But life is for learning.'

We are stardust, we are golden,
We are billion year old carbon.
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.
We are stardust, we are golden,
We are billion year old carbon.
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

By the time we got to Woodstock,
We were half a million strong
And everywhere was a song and a celebration.
And I dreamed I saw the bomber death planes
Riding shotgun in the sky,
Turning into butterflies
Above our nation.

We are stardust, we are golden,
We caught in the devil's bargain,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.



Written by Joni Mitchell, performed by
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young



Thursday, January 25, 2007

This was a work badge picture. . .



I was 32.

This was my Daddy's favorite picture of me



Sorry for the streak on the nose: something on the original.

I was 19.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Mutineer

http://morris2k.cti.depaul.edu/zevon/mutiny.jpg


Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
Hoist the mainsail - here I come
Ain't no room on board for the insincere
You're my witness
I'm your mutineer

I was born to rock the boat
Some may sink but we will float
Grab your coat - let's get out of here
You're my witness
I'm your mutineer

Long ago we laughed at shadows
Lightning flashed and thunder followed us
It could never find us here
You're my witness
I'm your mutineer

Long ago we laughed at shadows
Lightning flashed and thunder followed us
It could never find us here
You're my witness
I'm your mutineer

I was born to rock the boat
Some may sink but we will float
Grab your coat - let's get out of here
You're my witness
I'm your mutineer
You're my witness
I'm your mutineer
I'm your mutineer......


~~ Warren Zevon

http://wildflowers.jdcc.edu/Grass%20Pink%20Orchid4.JPG

Love you like Grass Pink. . . .

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Monday, January 15, 2007

Thank You Martin

http://www.solidsender.com/dstrbo/news/mlk.gif

So, today is Martin's birthday. And I'm glad this country acknowledges it.

But his birthday always brings to mind so clearly to me the first week that he wasn't. It was beautiful weather in D.C. that week. There was a Forsythia in bloom at my back door, and I spent the whole week digging it out, to replace it with a Mock Orange. I had a radio on the porch listening to the news of the riots as I sweated, disentangling the Forsythia's roots from around the construction junk the builders had buried next to the house.

My neighbor across the street with her doors locked was calling frequently, convinced that the rioters were headed our way. (Right, all the women in the neighborhood had to drive to the bus stop to pick up their maids ~~ was she expecting them to take taxis out from DeeCee just to get our little chicken sh!t ghetto?)

As I sweated, dug and pulled, and the sky was blue and beautiful, and 7th street burned and burned, I recall feeling so hopeful. At last they were angry, and standing up!

When I first came East, I worked in the personnel records dept of Hot Shoppes/Marriott. We had thousands of employees in D.C. mostly cooks, busboys, dishwashers. They bought furniture on credit from the stores on 7th Street. Whole house suites. The terms were very easy, the furniture crappy. But the monthly payments were possible even on a busboy's salary. The interest, outrageous, but at least you had a couch to sit on, a table to eat on, and a bed to sleep on -- for a year or two, until it fell apart. Then generally, they stopped paying. And went down the street to buy another set from another store. The owners didn't much care, D.C. had a really good garnishee law. The buyers were sometimes paying for two or three deceased suites as well as the currently useable one. Every time I'd filed another garnisheeing notice, I'd felt outraged. They were paying double or triple what the junk was worth in the first place. And yet I could see no way out for them, then. No one else would give them credit. They were doing what they could. But if I were angry, just standing helplessly by, how much more angry must they be?

And now, 7th Street was being burned! One could see the smoke from the burning city even from Maryland.

I pulled several bushels of construction junk from that hole, and dragged it to the curb. I planted the Mock Orange with much new dirt, and manure, and hope. And it flourished. And I always think of that week as the beginning, though I know it began earlier, with a man who would not have approved of the riots, but who had given the heart and the hope into the making of them and heart and hope did not end when he did. . . .

Thank you Martin.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is a repost of a blog I posted on the Howard Dean blog in 2005

Tuesday, January 09, 2007




"Marriage is not only time: it is also, paradoxically, the denial of time. For forty years I saw myself through John's eyes. I did not age."
~~ Joan Didion

Not marriage. Love.

To wake knowing you are beautiful
despite what time has done
because in one moment
his eyes will open
and he will see you
and he will smile, indeed: glow
and say
Good morning, Sweet Heart
and
kiss your hair


Monday, January 08, 2007

Tanner

Just got word that they are scheduled to go home today. Waiting for the new PICC line to be put in. So he/they have cleared this hurdle. More to come, but peace and joy for now.

Love you all for being here with and for me.


Saturday, January 06, 2007

Tanner update


I believe we have a miracle going on here. This is from his mom:

January 06, 2007 at 01:59 PM MST

Tanner is playing with the phone right now, he's mad because for some mysterious reason it is not working. (I unplugged it.)
He went downstairs today for an abdominal ultrasound to make sure the blood flow in his liver and everything else was ok. It was. We had told him he was going downstairs for pictures of his tummy. To him, that meant Catscan, and he was fine with that. But, when we walked into the ultrasound room, he was less than happy. He doesn't like ultrasounds.
The nurses all say he looks like a new boy today. He still doesn't feel 100%, but we're on our way.
more to come..
Megan

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Looks like the meds worked, as hoped for. Oh, JOY!!

Thank you *all* for the love and caring here. For the candles, for the light and vibes, for the love. What can I say? I'm overwhelmed.

puddle

Tanner

No. No news yet. I'm trying to go with: No news is good news. It mostly has been in the past.

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Timkat

We want this truth
light shining forth
unmistakable

The camels, tired, resting in the rear
Gifts, a baby, a mother in blue
These stories will always be with us

Epiphany
indeed

Friday, January 05, 2007

Renee made a candle page for Tanner

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At listener's request

The image “http://www.carepages.com/usr/G31902/P615444_FS.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Tanner update

Short form. Tanner had an earache and fever last night. The family spent the night in OR, came home and was called back because the culture showed gram negative bacteria. The fear now is sepsis.

Sepsis is what killed Edwin.

Prayers, please.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Tears

http://www.walkerart.org/programs/vaexhib_images/tears.jpg


Oh let them fall
like warm salt rain
like a shower
washing away hurt, pain

cleaning a heart
where you will remain
with all the others
the ones who grew away
or never grew
the cleanest clearest of leavings:
against both your will and mine.

each a flame, and claim
on who I have become
like root growing around rock
or the push of a persistent
coast wind on tamarisk
I am glad for each, for every

each, a teacher
But for you, the bonfire
in my heart, most of all
who left that heart
an open door

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

http://cc.joensuu.fi/seulaset/palviainen/milkyway.jpg


Water gathering


most days I wait
through blue and sun
till dusk

or even later
and the rose has faded
to lavender, to gray

some days, the sleet
has started
and the leaves underfoot
are slick with ice

somehow I'm never sorry
and never learn

one night I waited
till the stars were out
dropped the bucket into
sound, only felt the weight
of it filling

and the night full of stars
and the river full of stars
and the bucket full of stars

come morning, the coffee
is also full of stars


Tuesday, January 02, 2007

The Queen of Chicago






The Queen of Chicago
was taken to hospice today
Did I not love his sister
I would not have known.

A week. Or two. And even this
a miracle. I stood with her on
Thanksgiving Eve, holding his hand,
the hand of a man I'd never known,
breathing in rhythm with her and
the respirator. He looked startlingly
like Van Gogh. Fine blue veins surfacing
in pale pellucid skin, rough red beard;
skin drawn against the bone of his skull.

Hands flaccid and warm in ours
we stood, blue-paper clad and masked
like towers to either side of his bed
just out of the reach of the monster
machines that ate and breathed for him.

An only son, an only brother, blessed uncle,
a very special godfather,
beloved partner, mate. Who had
already taken his last step,
and when he waked, was only
to know with certainty
it was to say goodbye.

The decades of battle
resolved in this one, kind, word:
palliative.

Like the battles of his childhood,
it was never a fight he
was going to win.


Monday, January 01, 2007