Read this book

Love! Love! Love! that is the soul of genius.
~Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin

Red mailbox

Happy Poetry Friday! This time of year, I am very present-centric. I have a homemade gift for my parents that feels impossible to finish, but I am hoping to enlist help (from Ben). I've been thinking about presents, giving thanks, thinking about giving. Which brings us to today's poem by Alberto Ríos. I shared it five years ago, but you don't mind, do you?

When Giving Is All We Have
by Alberto Ríos

              One river gives
              Its journey to the next.

We give because someone gave to us.
We give because nobody gave to us.

We give because giving has changed us.
We give because giving could have changed us.

We have been better for it,
We have been wounded by it—

Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,
Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.

Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,

read the rest here

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

Anastasia Suen has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Anastasia!

Fools

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.
~William Shakespeare

Black Forest Pine Cone Man
photo by bebatut

I was fascinated by this costume, so I looked it up. The translation feature on the page, which is in German, is still in a very BETA stage:

Black Forest pine cones

A fool's industry from Freiburg im Breisgau, which was founded in 1955, is a tanned fian cone. The theme was the pine cones, the product of the local conifers, and created a skin with mask that represents this symbol. The pants of the pine cones are made of green felt spots, for which jackets were chosen brown brick-shaped plastic plates, which are intended to represent the individual scales of a pine cone. The wooden masks of the pine cone show a men's face with red cheeks and thick eyebrows. The feet of the fools are in homely stew finches. As a noise tool, the fools wear small cow and goat bells around their necks. The fool singing Black Forest pine cone is a member of the Breisgauer Narrenzuft.

Another pine cone man photo, this one by James Steakley:

A few other carnival photos by James Steakley:

One last close up, photo by bebatut:

Spellbound

Eivør grew up in Syðrugøta, a tiny village at the top of the [Faroe] island chain, facing the North Atlantic. With a population of around 400, community gatherings were a key part of her early life. People would often get together to share stories and play traditional folk music.
~Rob Hughes

Happy Music Monday!

Chris Hirst:



Eivør:

east side

I love that I don't have to call you on the daily
'Cause in the end we're gonna be just fine
~Lyn Lapid

Doing my Music Monday post on time this week! A song Lyn Lapid wrote for her high school friends, "east side":

Leonids

The Leonids are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Tempel–Tuttle, which are also known for their spectacular meteor storms that occur about every 33 years. The Leonids get their name from the location of their radiant in the constellation Leo: the meteors appear to radiate from that point in the sky.
~Wikipedia

Happy Poetry Friday! From what I hear, the Leonid meteor shower will peak on November 17-18, although it will keep going until the beginning of December. For info about watching, click here.

Depiction of 1833 Leonids
The engraving is by Adolf Vollmy based upon an original painting by the Swiss artist Karl Jauslin, that is in turn based on a first-person account of the 1833 storm by a minister, Joseph Harvey Waggoner

Meteor Shower
by Clint Smith

I read somewhere that meteor showers
are almost always named after

the constellations from which
they originate. It’s funny, I think,

how even the universe is telling us
that we can never get too far

from the place that created us.
How there is always a streak of our past...

read the rest here

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

A lesson plan for Smith's poem from the Moving Writers site.

Live Your Poem has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Irene!

Acorns

Never lose a chance of saying a kind word. As Collingwood never saw a vacant place in his estate but he took an acorn out of his pocket and planted it, so deal with your compliments through life. An acorn costs nothing, but it may spread into a prodigious timber.
~William Makepeace Thackeray

In my area, oaks have been dropping acorns abundantly (it's a "mast year"). For Art Thursday, the tiny acorn.

Acorns, Archeological Museum, Italy
photo by Sailko

Trim in pattern of oak leaves and acorns

Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Germany
photo by Carole Raddato

Tree Fruits
by Conny Siemsen
photo by Janericloebe

California Scrub-Jay with acorn
Becky Matsubara

Coat of arms of the Friis of Landvig family
Anders Thiset

Red Squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) at a park in Wroclaw
Klearchos Kapoutsis

The Water

Please help me build a small boat
One that'll ride on the flow
Where the river runs deep and the larger fish creep
I'm glad of what keeps me afloat
~The Water

Whoops! I am late for Music Monday. Johnny Flynn and Laura Marling with "The Water":



(I recognized Johnny Flynn from Emma).