“If you are depressed you are living in the past.
If you are anxious you are living in the future.
If you are at peace you are living in the present.”
― Lao Tzu
Archives
All posts for the month February, 2016
The Snowdrop
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Many, many welcomes,
February fair-maid,
Ever as of old time,
Solitary firstling,
Coming in the cold time,
Prophet of the gay time,
Prophet of the May time,
Prophet of the roses,
Many, many welcomes,
February fair-maid!
Time, time, time
See what’s become of me
While I looked around for my possibilities
I was so hard to please
But look around
Leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter
Look around
Leaves are brown
There’s a patch of snow on the ground
Paul Simon ♫
Weekly Photo Challenge: Time
February. Get ink, shed tears.
Write of it, sob your heart out, sing,
While torrential slush that roars
Burns in the blackness of the spring.
Go hire a buggy. For six grivnas,
Race through the noice of bells and wheels
To where the ink and all you grieving
Are muffled when the rainshower falls.
To where, like pears burnt black as charcoal,
A myriad rooks, plucked from the trees,
Fall down into the puddles, hurl
Dry sadness deep into the eyes.
Below, the wet black earth shows through,
With sudden cries the wind is pitted,
The more haphazard, the more true
The poetry that sobs its heart out.
Boris Pasternak ♫
There is a sweet story from the eighteenth century concerning love and dahlias.
Sir Godfrey Webster was living in Florence with his wife when young Lord Holland came to town. Lady Webster took off with Lord Holland and in 1796 their first son was born. A year later old Sir Godfrey divorced her and she and Lord Holland were able to marry. The love affair between the lad of twenty and the girl of twenty-three blossomed into a long and happy marriage. And after they had been together some twenty years he wrote for her a little poem.
Between 1800 and 1805 the Hollands lived in France and in Spain where Lady Holland first saw dahlias that had reached Spain about 15 years before. She sent some home and it is on the strength of that shipment that she is given credit for the introduction of the dahlia into England.
Here is the poem he wrote for her:
The Dahlia you brought to our isle
Your praises for ever shall speak:
Mid gardens as sweet as your smile,
And colour as bright as your cheek.
The Dahlia
Worst Day Ever?
by Chanie Gorkin
Today was the absolute worst day ever
And don’t try to convince me that
There’s something good in every day
Because, when you take a closer look,
This world is a pretty evil place.
Even if
Some goodness does shine through once in a while
Satisfaction and happiness don’t last.
And it’s not true that
It’s all in the mind and heart
Because
True happiness can be attained
Only if one’s surroundings are good
It’s not true that good exists
I’m sure you can agree that
The reality
Creates
My attitude
It’s all beyond my control
And you’ll never in a million years hear me say
Today was a very good day
Now read it from bottom to top, the other way,
And see what I really feel about my day.
Old Groundhog* stretched in his leafy bed.
He turned over slowly and then he said,
“I wonder if spring is on the way,
I’ll go and check the weather today…”
~Author Unknown, “Groundhog Day”
* Prairie dog photos
Maverick Mist 