Captured!

I'm captured by your spell. CAPTURED!
~Tina Turner

For Music Monday, the Queen of Rock and Roll (and more): Tina Turner.



From Love Within: Beyond

Dame la mano

You cut off the capacity for grief in your life, and you cut off the joy at the same time. They both come up through the same tunnel. You don't have one without the other.
~William Hurt

For Poetry Friday, a poem from a touching WaPo article: Poems offered me an anchor as I lost my son, so I shared them. Heidi's ghazal goes very well with this poem. "Ask for what you need."

Moses
by Luis Alberto de Cuenca
translated from the Spanish by Gustavo Pérez Firmat

Give me your hand. We have to cross

the river and my strength fails me.

Hold me as if I were an abandoned package

in a wicker basket, a lump that moves

and cries in the twilight. Cross the river

with me. Even if this time the waters

don't part before us. Even if this time God

doesn't come to our aid and a flurry of arrows

riddles our backs. Even if there is no river.

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

Another recent article about poetry: Paul Kelly says poetry is 'thrilling' and, from hip hop to Instagram, there are many ways to embrace it.

Reverie has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Patricia!

Dans le jardin

All gardeners know better than other gardeners.
~Chinese proverb

Running late today! For Art Thursday, gardens:

Jardin à Sainte-Adresse, 1867
Claude Monet

Garden in Shoreham, 1825-50
Samuel Palmer

The Drying Place
Adolph von Menzel (1815–1905)

Park von Schloß Belvedere bei Weimar
Curt Herrmann

In the Garden
Władysław Podkowiński

Pleasure garden with a maze, c. 1579-84
Lodewijk Toeput

Peonies
Matilda Browne (1869 – 1947)

Multitude of mercies

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
~Abraham Lincoln

The last time I shared a performance of this composition was in 2015, so it's been long enough to share it again, right? For Music Monday, Allegri's Miserere mei, Deus (Have mercy on me, O God). The acoustics are amazing and the performances are spot-on. Tenebrae:



If you want to hear different versions of people hitting that top C, someone compiled them here.

Blue footprints

The sight of the deep-blue sky and the clustering stars above seems to impart a quiet to the mind.
~Jonathan Edwards

Happy Poetry Friday! I am happily making celebration preparations. We have four days of celebrations coming up in a row: birthday (Dash's), college graduation (Elena's), anniversary (Ben's and mine). (In case you were wondering how those three make four days, Elena has two ceremonies: one for her department and one for the entire class.)

I picked today's poem by Katherine West for its exuberance and perseverance. "I carry infinity/inside me/a multitude of blue doors // that I open/one by one/day by day."

THE SILENCED MAJORITY
by Katherine West

The silenced majority
that some day
will decide
which small piece of the sky
belongs to them
—Rigoberta Menchú quoted in Poetry Like Bread.

70% of Americans don’t trust politicians to make abortion policy. —19thNews

Today it is cloudy
I can’t see the sky at all
I have to imagine it

the way it was
when I was young
when life was a blue door

opening
on an even bluer
even bigger sky

Some days
the sky was so blue
it was almost purple

and I could see
all the way
to Mexico

The birds seemed to fly higher
farther
taking me with them...

read the rest here

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

Janice Scully has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Janice!

Harps

I have been in Sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and sword in my hands.
~Zora Neale Hurston

Isn't that a great quote? So vivid. For Art Thursday, harps:



Two seated angels making music
Gherardo Starnina (fl. 1398–1409)

Concert
by Edward Okuń (1872–1945)

A Song of the Sea
by Amalie Bauerlë

An Egyptian man is playing a large harp adorned with the figurehead of a woman

The Concert of the Angels, ca 1608-1614
by El Greco

The War Between the Frogs and the Mice
by Theodor Kittelsen

Person-centered care

Those with dementia are still people and they still have stories and they still have character and they're all individuals and they're all unique. And they just need to be interacted with on a human level.
~Carey Mulligan

Hi folks! I found this video very moving.



And here's a song by Rodrigo y Gabriela:

Crooked Tree

Trees have long been trying to reach us. But they speak on frequencies too low for people to hear.
~Richard Powers, The Overstory

Happy Poetry Friday, y'all!

I watched the Poetry Out Loud finals last night, which was fun. I don't have a video of the winning poem recitation, but here's the winner:



I have more lyrics this week!

Crooked Tree by Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway:



Two trees in the forest, one was crooked, one was straight
Crimson bark and emerald needles growing day by day
And though they looked so different, they enjoyed the rain the same side by side
A chickadee had told them of a darkness on the land
Spinning blades that came to visit carried by a man
And every other tree would see them cut down where they stand by and by

Oh, can't you see
A crooked tree won't fit into the mill machine?
They're left to grow wild and free
Oh, I'd rather be a crooked tree

Perfect trees were driven down the mountain to the mill
They turned them into toothpicks and twenty dollar bills
It seemed the more the people took, the more they needed still in the end
The crooked trees were left there after all the work was done
Now they go for weeks and never witness anyone
No one left to tell them if they’re growing right or wrong but the whispering wind

People say I'm different and my way of life seems strange
I took the road less traveled, twists and turns along the way
But like the crooked tree, I'm growing stronger day by day as the clouds roll by
A river never wonders why it flows around the bend
A mountain doesn't question how it rose up from the land
So who am I to wish I wasn't just the way I am? Who am I?

Oh, can't you see
A crooked tree won't fit into the mill machine?
They're left to grow wild and free
Oh, I'd rather be a crooked tree

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

Addendum: Poetry Out Loud uploaded the winning performance after I posted this. It's here.

Robyn Hood Black has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Robyn!

Leila Fanner

The butterfly is a flying flower. The flower is a tethered butterfly.
~Ponce Denis

For Art Thursday, work by South African artist Leila Rose Fanner. I like its dreamy quality, the colors, the integration of people and nature. Posted with permission of the artist. Thanks, Leila!

The Butterfly Bowl
by Leila Fanner

Succulent Garden
by Leila Fanner

AJR

Betcha won’t believe it
But you kinda set me free
~The Metzger brothers

For Music Monday, the making of a song by three brothers. The Dumb Song by AJR:

The Three Ravens/Twa Corbies

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing.
~Edgar Allan Poe

For Poetry Friday, A traditional poem/folk song with two versions: English and Scottish. Here's the English one:



The Three Ravens

There were three ravens sat on a tree,
Down a down, hey down a down,
They were as black as black could be
With a down;
Then one of them said to his mate,
Where shall we our breakfast take?
With a hey derry down.

Down in yonder green field,
There lies a knight slain under his shield;
His hounds they lie down at his feet
So well do they their master keep.

His hawks they fly so eagerly,
There's no fowl that dare him come nigh;
Down there comes a fallow doe,
As great with young as she might go.

She lifted up his bloody head,
And kissed his wounds that were so red;
She got him up upon her back
And carried him to earthen lake.

She buried him before the prime,
She was dead herself ere evensong time;
God send every gentleman,
Such hawks, such hounds, and such a leman.

Author unknown

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

wet crow visitor

In the Scottish version, The Twa Corbies, no one stops the birds from eating the dead knight...



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

P.S. I almost forgot! Last chance to sign up for the Summer Poem Swap.

P.P.S. I am not sure whether to interpret the difference between the two songs as the Scots being grim or the Scots saying "the heck with nobles," but I am leaning toward the second, haha.

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

Cyanotypes

Cyanotypes are created by treating paper with light-sensitive iron salts. This paper can then be exposed to the sun and its ultraviolet light to create an image.
~Greta Bahnemann

For Art Thursday, cyanotypes:

Indigo XII
by Kate Cordsen

Cystoseira fibrosa, 1843
by Anna Atkins

Fern, New Zealand, 1843
by Anna Atkins (from a book she self published by hand)

Cyanotype
photo by Thomas Smillie

Cassette
byThierry R

Want to try it yourself? Cyanotype prints for beginners

A song for Beltane

May the roof overhead be well thatched
And those inside be well matched.
~Beltane blessing

Maypole photo by Frank R. Snyder

Happy May 1st! A song by Loreena McKennitt for Music Monday:



How to Make a Maypole: Martha Stewart, Oh Happy Day, or Modern Mom
May Day flower baskets (Rosemary's Sampler)