My heart's a drummer

It's funny...as I get older, I'm reverting to my roots. I want to plant stuff.
~Melissa McCarthy

Before we have songs for Music Monday, does anybody need emotional care?
Plant Care for Emotional Care: Grounding Techniques for Anxiety Using the Garden from Garden Therapy

Eva Noblezada's voice!



For a more serious song, here are two versions of a catchy anti-Nazi tune from Chumbawamba: an a cappella cover and Chumbawamba live.

Do you hear the people sing, for Ukraine

Visual Communication

Graffiti is one of the few tools you have if you have almost nothing.
~Banksy

Graffiti is permitted in the Leake St Tunnel, London.
Photo by Dmitry Djouce

Happy Poetry Friday! I've got two poems for you today. The first one is mine and has a side story. I'm doing a Coursera poetry class with Denise (called Sharpened Visions) and one of the prompts was to take the rhymes from someone else's poem and use them in the same order. I picked Longfellow's The Arrow and the Song.

At first I had trouble coming up with a poem because his was stuck in my head. I had to think of a very different topic to send me off in another direction. I picked graffiti, which must have come to mind because I am going to be making graffiti for my birthday in a couple of weeks. (Although this is a lawless age, mine will be law-abiding, never fear.)

Rap it, as best you can:

GRAFFITI

Spray paint shakes, shoots through the air--
A word from a can freed to go where
It lands on a wall and gives in-sight--
Not every wall catches words in-flight.

Go outside, breathe unplugged air--
What you seek finds you out there.
Start out weak and wrap up strong,
Listen up hard for a skeleton song--

That's all you need to sprout a mighty oak--
The bones, the seeds, your acorn unbroke.
It's not like the end is even the end--
The painted-over wall is still your friend.

***********

Our second poem is by Sophia Thakur:



Laura Purdie Salas has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Laura!

Holodomor

At that time the punishment for a stolen handful of grain was 5 years of prison. One was not allowed to go into the fields, the sparrows were pecking grain, though people were not allowed.
~Olexandra Rafalska

It's Art Thursday! I started out just wanting to share "Overthrow of Autocracy" by Ukrainian artist Petro Martyniuk. It is circa 1930, so, when I couldn't find out more about the artist, I looked up the time period.

There was a famine in Ukraine (and the greater Soviet Union) during the years 1932-33, which was a Soviet-made disaster. "Holodomor" means "Murder by Starvation."

We Americans often don't know very much about world history (or even our own history), which puts us at a disadvantage when we are trying to understand contemporary events. You don't have to know about the Holodomor to understand why Ukraine would not want to lose its sovereignty to Russia, but learning about it casts light on their fierce determination.

Overthrow of Autocracy
by Petro Martyniuk

Holodomor plaque in Los Angeles

Holodomor Remembrance Day

Uplifting

This is a chance
To dance your way
Out of your constrictions
~Funkadelic

For Music Monday, two songs. First, "One Nation Under a Groove" by George Clinton Jr., Walter Morrison and Garry Shider, performed by The Detroit Academy of Arts & Sciences Choir ft. King Bethel and Anaiya Hall:



Next, a cover of Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" performed by Little Big Town:

Smarty Plants

Along with a home-inspection duo, a science writer, and some enterprising scientists at Princeton University, we dig into the work of evolutionary ecologist Monica Gagliano, who turns our brain-centered worldview on its head through a series of clever experiments that show plants doing things we never would've imagined.
~Radiolab

Cacao by Monica Gagliano

Want to be fascinated?
I heard this podcast on a drive today and loved it: Smarty Plants

The howlin' old owl in the woods

I look forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft.
~John F. Kennedy

Happy Poetry Friday!

I'm going to miss the Kennedy Center! It was a cool place when it was led by someone who loves the arts. I enjoyed seeing Phantom of the Opera, The National Symphony Orchestra, the Chieftains, The Lion King, The King & I, and more.

I didn't see the song below in person, but isn't it stunning?



*******************

I don't know how long this will be available, but currently you can download a Poem Forest Toolkit from The Kennedy Center. They say "Poem Forest is an eco-poetry project that invites students, teachers, and communities to become environmental advocates through connecting with local ecology and the creative power of poetry."

*******************

A poem by IN-Q, who will be at the Kennedy Center on March 16th.

When I think of superheroes I think of super humans.
I think of Superman, Wolverine and Wonder Woman.
Usually they have a cape, or a mask to hide their face just in case.
They have X-ray vision and super-human strength.
Some can even breathe in outer space.
They fly around a while, but always come back to keep our cities safe.
They’re here to save humanity from itself.
It’s a metaphor for how we look outside ourselves for help, and while the fantasies are fun, I choose to look for me and you.

read the rest here

*******************

Happy Valentine's Day!

Little Free Lit Mag, in case you want to put it in a Little Free Library near you.

Free meditation resource: Tara Brach's "How to Meditate"

TeacherDance has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Linda!

P.S. Let me give a shout out to some recent things I've gotten from Etsy: a beautiful phone case from this Ukrainian store, Emily Dickinson pencils, and a "word of the year" mini banner.

P.P.S. I heard the insurrectionist prison choir has been invited to come sing at the Kennedy Center...To quote Liz Cheney: "There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain."

The Cone of Montmorency

We of the United States of America consider ourselves blessed. We have much to give thanks for. But the gift of providence that we really cherish is that we were given as our neighbors on this great, wonderful continent, the people and the nation of Canada.
~Lyndon B. Johnson

Sending love to our neighbors to the north during Art Thursday. I haven't seen it in person, but doesn't Canada's Montmorency Falls in winter (in the 1800s) look fun? I'm also including one from a warmer season because it looks pretty then too.

The Cone of Montmorency, as it appeared in 1829
James Pattison Cockburn

Montmorency Falls in Winter
French-Canadian artist Joseph Légaré, 1850

The Ice Cone, Montmorency Falls, Québec, 1866
Robert Clow Todd

Montmorenci Falls, seen from close by
Coloured engraving by G.K. Richardson, 1840, after W.H. Bartlett