Calm soul of all things!

Leonardslee Gardens

Two peace-savoring poems today. The first is by Australian poet Louisa Lawson (1848-1920).

Give Me Only Peace
by Louisa Lawson

Rank with all its dower,
Pomp with all its train,
Wealth with all its power,
Give I these again.

Race with all its story,
Place with all its ease,
Fame with all its glory,
Give I also these.

Ask I for them? Never!
Let their mem'ry cease.
Take them all for ever—
Leave me only peace.

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

An excerpt from Lines Written in Kensington Gardens
by Matthew Arnold

Calm soul of all things! make it mine
To feel, amid the city’s jar,
That there abides a peace of thine,
Man did not make, and cannot mar.

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

I am giving away a copy of Herbs for Common Ailments: How to Make and Use Herbal Remedies for Home Health Care by herbal pioneer Rosemary Gladstar. It's from Storey Basics' Books for Self-Reliance series. If you would like to try making your own remedies, send me an email at tabatha(at)tabathayeatts(dot)com with your name and mailing address. I'll pick an entry at random on March 9th.

Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe has the Poetry Friday round-up today.

Craters

crater -- a large, bowl-shaped cavity in the ground or on the surface of a planet or the moon, typically one caused by an explosion or the impact of a meteorite or other celestial body.

Crater Lake, Oregon
photo by Zainub Razvi

Crater from the 1962 "Sedan" nuclear test, Operation Plowshare
photo courtesy National Nuclear Security Administration

Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania
photo by William Warby

Tongariro Crossing- Red crater
photo by L Gim

The Door to Hell gas crater, Derweze, Turkmenistan
photo by Tormod Sandtorv

Crater
photo by Mario André Cordero Alfaro

The crater of the volcano Poás, Costa Rica
photo by Peter Andersen

The largest crater in this picture of the Moon is Daedalus. Its diameter is about 58 miles.
photo taken by Apollo 11

Like a box of paints that are mixed to make every shade

I posted They Might Be Giants' You Are Old, Father William recently. TMBG is the best, so here's an encore:

Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

Gifts, Wounds, and God's Thread

Love can change a person the way a parent can change a baby-- awkwardly, and often with a great deal of mess.
― Lemony Snicket

Dips and twists of love and land today...

Swiss cheese limestone by James St. John

The Stream
by Mona Van Duyn
for my mother

...I see your loving look wherever I go.
What is love? Truly I do not know.

Sometimes, perhaps, instead of a great sea,
it is a narrow stream running urgently

far below ground, held down by rocky layers,
the deeds of mother and father, helpless sooth-sayers

of how our life is to be, weighted by clay,
the dense pressure of thwarted needs, the replay

of old misreadings, by hundreds of feet of soil,
the gifts and wounds of the genes, the sort or tall

shape of our possibilities, seeking
and seeking a way to the top, while above, running

and stumbling this way and that on the clueless ground,
another seeker clutches a dowsing-wand

which bends, then lifts, dips, then straightens, everywhere,
saying to the dowser, it is there, it is not there,

and the untaught dowers believes, does not believe,
and finally simply stands on the ground above,

till a silver of stream finds a crack and makes it way,
slowly, too slowly, through rock and earth and clay...

Read the rest here.

And a short poem from Seamus Heaney:

Linda at TeacherDance has the Poetry Friday round-up.

Fairy Gardens

Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame!
~William Butler Yeats

We've had dollhouses on Art Thursday before. Now we have an outdoor variant: fairy gardens.

Fairy tea party
photo by Heather

Primose Fairy sets out the food
photo by Heather

Fairy Garden Seating
photo by Susy Morris

For Emily
photo by Amanda Slater

A fairy shelter
photo by Chris Weber

Gnome Home for Antique-Rose Dryad, Ooak
photo by Rjabinnik and Rounien

Meadowlark Botanic Gardens in August
photo by DC Gardens

Want to make one?
* How to make a fairy garden
* Make your own fairy garden
* A collection of DIY fairy gardens
* Inspiration Gallery

Vois Sur Ton Chemin

Look upon your path --
Children lost and forgotten --
Lend them a hand
To lead them
Towards another future
~Vois Sur Ton Chemin

An OCD love poem

I put gloves on before I put gloves on, so I don’t get my gloves dirty.
~Jarod Kintz

There are all kinds of love poems in the world...


Poetry Against Stigma

Cathy at Merely Day by Day has the Poetry Friday round-up today.

A Spot of Tea

Arthur blinked at the screens and felt he was missing something important. Suddenly he realized what it was.
"Is there any tea on this spaceship?" he asked.
~Douglas Adams

Are tea and tea-related things naturally visually appealing or are my own feelings about tea clouding my judgment?

the day we all drank tea
photo by Hasin Hayder

Flavored Sugar for Tea
photo by Emilie Hardman

Tea on camp fire
photo by Khalid Al-Haqqan

Tea
photo by Seasonspics

Tea stories
by Olga Filonenko

Tea in different grades of fermentation
by Haneburger

High Tea Time
photo by Yen-Chi Chen

Afternoon Tea
photo by r.e. Kittson

Heaven Sent

Hat tip to Bonnie Boo for this song by The SteelDrivers :

Do you think, at your age, it is right?

illustration by Sir John Tenniel, 1865

Charming nonsense from Alice in Wonderland today:




‘You are old, Father William’
by Lewis Carroll

“You are old, Father William,” the young man said,
“And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head –
Do you think, at your age, it is right?”

“In my youth,” Father William replied to his son,
“I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I’m perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.”

“You are old,” said the youth, “as I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door –
Pray, what is the reason of that?”

“In my youth,” said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
“I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment – one shilling the box –
Allow me to sell you a couple?”

“You are old,” said the youth, “and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak –
Pray how did you manage to do it?”

“In my youth,” said his father, “I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life.”

“You are old,” said the youth, “one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose –
What made you so awfully clever?”

“I have answered three questions, and that is enough,”
Said his father; “don’t give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I’ll kick you downstairs!”

**********

Liz is the Poetry Friday round-up host today.

Have a Heart

I sometimes think that people’s hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what’s at the bottom. All you can do is imagine by what comes floating to the surface every once in a while.
~Haruki Murakami

Full of anatomically-incorrect hearts today:

Heart of Midlothian
by Neal Fowler

Early 16th century

Big Heart, Waverly Place
by George Eastman House

Heart Type
by Richard Banks

Paris, City of Love
photo by Gideon

Sjoerd Lammers street photography

Balloon Journey
designed by Kristen Foskett
photo by iamtimmo

Playing for Change, II

Feed them on your dreams.
~Graham Nash

Posting a couple Playing for Change songs this Music Monday. (Here's the previous Playing for Change post.)