Le Passe-Muraille

I tend to be attracted to characters who are up against a wall with very few alternatives. And the film then becomes an examination of how they cope with very few options. And that's, I guess, what interests me in terms of human behavior.
~William Friedkin

Happy Poetry Friday! Continuing my National Poetry Month project of using short stories as inspiration for poems...Today's story is The Man Who Could Walk Through Walls (Le Passe-Muraille) by Marcel Aymé (1943), translated by Karen Reshkin. I'm going to give you the shortest summary I can, haha!

In it, a 42-year-old Frenchman named Dutilleul discovers he can walk through walls. He goes to a doctor, who prescribes "two doses a year of tetravalent pirette powder containing a mixture of rice flour and centaur hormone." Dutilleul only takes one and then leaves the other in a drawer. When he becomes annoyed with his contemptuous boss, Dutilleul starts sticking his head through the wall into his boss's office to make him think he's crazy. After that success, Dutilleul robs banks, jewelery stores, wealthy homes, etc., leaving behind notes from "The Lone Wolf."

Although he becomes one of the richest men in Paris, Dutilleul still keeps working at his regular job and one day brags to his coworkers that HE is the Lone Wolf. They laugh and he winds up proving it by getting himself arrested. No prison walls can hold him, of course, so he drives the warden crazy. When he's had enough of prison life, Dutilleul escapes and changes his appearance, planning on leaving Paris.

He falls in love with a woman he sees on the street, which makes him want to stay. She is married to an evil man who watches her every move and locks her up at night. Dutilleul visits her one night, walking through the walls of her room, and they have an affair. He has a headache the next day and takes medicine, accidentally taking the anti-wall-walking pill. After he visits his paramour, he gets stuck in a wall outside her room. "He is there to this very day, imprisoned in the stone."

I wanted to write a poem where Dutilleul is able to use his power to help the locked-up lady, but I went another direction.

photo by Neal Sanche

Walking through Walls

When I imagine
walking through a wall,
it's made of stone
not drywall or plaster,
nothing a fist could find
its way through.
Maybe molecules parted
for M. Dutilleul,
but I picture
moving into
that stone
feels like pushing
through a thick curtain
of slug—
gray-brown jelly
that squishes
and fights back a little—
and you, plunging forward
holding your breath
as tight
and still
as someone who doesn't
want to be
called on in class,
with your hands
searching
in front like
antenna, shuffling
til you slip out
the other side
like a baby being born
gasping
your first breath,
eager
to begin.

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

What If You Could Walk Through Walls (a "What If" video)

There is no such thing as a Godforsaken town has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Ruth!

Osbourne's pictorial alphabet

To her royal highness Princess Alexandrina Victoria...This pictorial alphabet, combining the beauties of art with the first elements of instruction, is, by permission, respectfully dedicated; by her royal highness's humble servant Charles Osbourne, aged 16 at the time of making these series of designs.

For Art Thursday, images from Osbourne's pictorial alphabet (1835) by Charles Osbourne.

The letter F, "A Roman Soldier on the Battlements trying to corrupt the Garrison"

The letter G, "A Greek Galley, on the River Tiber, with Troops on board"

The letter J, "A Persian Magi, or Astrologer"

The letter N, "A Bearer of the Imperial Roman Eagle, wounded, leaning on his Spear"

The letter S, "An Emblematical Figure of Sin"

The letter Z, "The end of all things is Death"

All the ways

Let’s just write the songs honestly as we can, and trust that they’ll reach whoever they’re meant to reach.
~Laura Rogers

For Music Monday, here's a song I heard in a thrift store. "What is this?" I asked the person who was playing the music. "The Secret Sisters." Ah, wonderful!

"All the Ways" by The Secret Sisters feat. Ray LaMontagne:



(I am reminded of this poem. What are all the ways? Let me count...)

Mrs. Ducket's Adventure

[Stockton's] most famous fable, "The Lady, or the Tiger?" (1882), is about a man sentenced to an unusual punishment for having a romance with a king's beloved daughter.

Hi folks! Happy Poetry Friday! I am continuing with my National Poetry Month project, writing poems inspired by short stories. I lucked out the first two weeks because it didn't take me long to find stories that I wanted to write about. This week, however, I read a bunch of stories that fell flat. Finally I happened upon The Widow's Cruise by Frank Stockton. Stockton wrote a juicy part for a woman, which I appreciated :)

Winslow Homer's A Fisher Girl on Beach

In "The Widow's Cruise," four elderly sailors stop by the Widow Ducket's house for dinner and a rest stop on their way down the coast. After dinner, they take turns telling stories. The Widow Ducket has asked for true stories, but the sailors tell one fantastical tale after another. Once they are done, she asks if she can share a story of her own. Hers is the most outlandish of them all, causing the men many a yawp of surprise. ("Madam!" exclaimed Captain Bird, and the other elderly mariners took their pipes from their mouths.") The Widow Ducket may have been annoyed with the men for stretching the truth in her own house after she had fed them so well, but in the end, she felt like she evened the score.

My poem for "The Widow's Cruise" is a retelling of her tall tale, as it needs no embellishment from me.

Mrs. Ducket's Adventure

As Mrs. Ducket had oil and love for lit lamps and safe husbands,
when her sister-in-law had a dry lamp and a dark window,
Mrs. Ducket set off to cross the bay. She had no oars or sailing
knowledge, just a rudder and her own hands to spin it.

She was spinning her way along the water when a mighty storm
rose before her and behind her and crashed into itself atop of her,
so she poured a bit of oil on the water and calmed it like a mother hen
getting an angry chick to unruffle its feathers. Smooth the bay was then,
in a boat-shaped space.

Mrs. Ducket looked down, calculating that the oil could not flatten
a path across the bay and still light the dry lamp. Below her,
she spied a crack in the boat's bottom. The water underneath
-- while full of sharks -- was calm. Placid enough to walk across,
drawing air from her oil tin? She thought about it, until she
abandoned the plan for fear of running into vicious turtles.

Maybe electricity would do the trick. Mrs. Ducket rubbed the soles
of her shoes back and forth on a dusty seat until she fairly crackled
with electricity. Fully charged, she swam through the storm to shore,
buoyant with current. She might not have even needed oil to light
the lamp at journey's end with all the sparks she ferried.

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

My Juicy Little Universe has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Heidi!

2024 Progressive Poem

In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Hi y'all! The 2024 Progressive Poem is here for Day #18. I think this might be my 12th time contributing? Is that possible? Wow. Anyway, I think this might be the hardest. I was befuddled by what is happening. Are our kids alone, no parents? There are so many bad things that could happen to them. I didn't want to make it take a dark turn, so I had to rein in my imagination a lot. My addition is at the bottom, bolded.

cradled in stars, our planet sleeps,
clinging to tender dreams of peace
sister moon watches from afar,
singing lunar lullabies of hope.

almost dawn, I walk with others,
keeping close, my little brother.
hand in hand, we carry courage
escaping closer to the border

My feet are lightning;
My heart is thunder.
Our pace draws us closer
to a new land of wonder.

I bristle against rough brush—
poppies ahead brighten the browns.
Morning light won’t stay away—
hearts jump at every sound.

I hum my own little song
like ripples in a stream
Humming Mami’s lullaby
reminds me I have her letter

My fingers linger on well-worn creases,
shielding an address, a name, a promise–
Sister Moon will find always us
surrounding us with beams of kindness

But last night as we rested in the dusty field,
worries crept in about matters back home.
I huddled close to my brother. Tears revealed
the no-choice need to escape. I feel grown.

Leaving all I’ve ever known
the tender, heavy, harsh of home.
On to maybes, on to dreams,
on to whispers we hope could be.

But I don't want to whisper! I squeeze Manu's hand.
"¡Más cerca ahora!" Our feet pound the sand.
We race, we pant, we lean on each other
I open my canteen and drink gratefully

Catherine at Reading to the Core is next!

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April 1 Patricia Franz at Reverie

The Monteverdi Choir

There’s very little artifice in Monteverdi’s music. It’s his own blood directly on the page.
~Robert Hollingsworth

For Music Monday, the Monteverdi Choir with Claudio Monteverdi's Domine ne in furore tuo and Francis Poulenc's Figure humaine, FP 120 - 5. Riant du ciel et des planètes.

In 1943 [Poulenc] wrote a cantata for unaccompanied double choir intended for Belgium, Figure humaine, setting eight of Éluard's poems. The work, ending with "Liberté", could not be given in France while the Germans were in control; its first performance was broadcast from a BBC studio in London in March 1945, and it was not sung in Paris until 1947.

Changelings

The reason for abducting the human child varies as well: to reinforce the fairy stock, for love of their beauty, or to pay the Devil.
~Austin Harvey

Take the Fair Face of Woman,
and Gently Suspending,
With Butterflies, Flowers, and Jewels Attending,
Thus Your Fairy is Made of Most Beautiful Things
painted by Sophie Gengembre Anderson
(title from from a verse by Charles Ede)

Happy Poetry Friday! For National Poetry Month, I am writing poems inspired by short stories. To be honest, it's an even more compelling project than I anticipated! It's got its challenges, for sure, but the stories are so interesting and they send me in all kinds of directions.

Today's poem was inspired by Irish folktale "The Changeling," collected by Lady Wilde (Oscar Wilde's mother). In it, a woman sees two people (a man of undetermined age and an old woman) come into her cottage late at night. They warm themselves by the fire and then approach her baby in his cradle, whereupon she faints.

When she comes to, she sends her husband to deal with them. He chases them out, and then lights a candle. When they look at the baby's cradle, they see their baby has been swapped for an unattractive (but cheerful) baby. They are weeping and wailing about it when a young woman comes in and asks what the problem is.

The husband tells her the story and she looks at the baby and laughs, because she is a fairy and it is the child who was stolen from her that very evening. She says that she would rather have her own ugly baby than any mortal child, so she takes him and tells the couple how to get their child back.

They need to go to the old fort on the hill (during a full moon, naturally) and burn some sheafs of corn, threatening to burn down the fort. The fairies can't deal with fire and will give the baby back. The fairy advises that, for his safety, they tie a nail from a horseshoe around the baby's neck after they get him back.

The husband goes to the old fort and follows the fairy's directions, which work. The last advice the husband is given is to draw a circle of fire with a hot coal around the baby's cradle when he gets home. (Fairies really can't stand fire, but the first fairies who stole the baby did seem to warm themselves by it. Maybe they just can't cross it?)

Anyway, the husband goes home, the fairy's fort is still standing, and they live peacefully from then on. "The man would allow no hand to move a stone or harm a tree, and the fairies still dance there on the rath, when the moon is full, to the music of the fairy pipes, and no one hinders them."

My poem:

Changeling

Fairies walk like the tinkle of wind chimes,
their wings guiding them through the world
like a hand on the back of a dancer,

so no human would expect a fairy's baby to be ugly,
not that the humans had given a moment's thought
to the fairy babies, far away under the hill,
when humans had their own concerns
and their own baby, so new and pink and tight and perfect,
sleeping quiet as a hiding hare,

silent, even when the strangers entered the cabin,
brazen as you please, and sat by the fire.
Once, twice, three times, the baby's desperate mother
tried to send them away, but magic weighed her down
like a blanket, left her flush with angry sleep.

By the time she had come to herself,
her husband was chasing the crone away
and some other baby had his hairy knuckles
wrapped around the top of the wooden crib.

When he gave them a startling grin and held his arms up,
they screamed and sobbed, only too relieved to give him
to his mother-fairy when she came knocking.

If the exchange had gone differently,
if fairy babies were more sleek than unsightly,
would they have cocked their heads
and marveled that their baby was more beautiful
than they remembered,
bewildered,
but pleased?

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

I wrote my poem thinking about how the fairy mother, who loved her child, would have appreciated them taking good care of her son while they had him but would they have if she hadn't shown up? (And the flipside of that: Would they have wanted to keep the fairy baby if it had been handsome?)

I read this sad article after writing my poem. Not sure how it would have affected me if I had read it beforehand.

Jone Rush MacCulloch has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Jone!

Valkyries

Valkyries, ride over the battlefield
I'm dying and glad to bleed
Because I know today I will take my place with the heroes
In Valhalla of old
~Richard Wagner

Happy Art Thursday! Have you watched the Marvel movies with valkyries in them? I did, but I can't remember what they said about what valkyries are/do. From what I've just read, in Norse mythology valkyries escort the battle-dead to Valhalla (Odin's realm) or Fólkvangr (Freyja's realm). The goddess Freyja seems like the original valkyrie, which means "one who chooses the slain." Some sites say that valkyries choose which slain soldiers to bring to Odin or Freyja and others say they choose who will die in a battle, which seems like a bigger deal to me. Valhalla is the realm that we hear about, so valkyries are often portrayed bringing fallen soldiers to Valhalla.

A valkyrie speaks with a raven (1862)
woodcut engraved by Joseph Swain from art by Frederick Sandys

Valkyries carrying the battle-dead to Valhöll
Johannes Gehrts (1855–1921)

The Rhinegold and the Valkryie
Arthur Rackham

Ride of the Valkyries:

A little spark

Take a little spark
From a battery
Electricity
And put me back together
~Nothing but Thieves

Rusty Machine by darkday

For Music Monday, Hozier with "Eat Your Young" and Nothing but Thieves with "Broken Machine."

Hozier's song comes from an album he wrote during the pandemic when he was thinking about Dante's Inferno. Hozier:

[Dante's Inferno] is a poem about a person who's wandering through this sort of underworld space, and in each Circle [of Hell], they meet with a new person who shares their grievance, their pain, their experience. That was something I allowed myself to play with a little bit — that each song starts with my voice, but it allows into itself and the license to just let the song grow to where it needs to be.

Federigo's Falcon

There is too little courtship in the world.
~Vernon Lee

Happy National Poetry Month! I am delighted to be celebrating poetry with you. My project this year features poems inspired by short stories.

The inspiration for today's poem was "Federigo's Falcon" by Giovanni Boccaccio (circa 1353).

In it, a young man named Federigo falls deeply in love with a woman named Monna Giovanna. I can't tell if she was already married or if she married after Federigo tried to win her heart, but he doesn't get anywhere with her even though he tries everything and spends all his money doing it.

Federigo winds up leaving the city, nearly broke, and hanging out on his farm with his falcon. Eventually, Monna Giovanna comes with her son to live on a neighboring farm after her husband dies. Her son is interested in Federigo's falcon and, when he falls ill, asks his mom to see if Federigo will give him the falcon.

Monna Giovanna doesn't want to ask for the falcon but as she thinks it might help her son recover, she goes to visit Federigo. He doesn't know the reason she has come and is thrilled. With no other suitable food to give her, he arranges for his falcon to be cooked for her supper. She discovers after dinner that she isn't going to be able to bring his falcon to her son after all. Her son tragically passes away and Monna goes back to the city.

When her brothers start encouraging her to remarry, she tells them that the only person she would consider marrying is Federigo. She explains, "I would rather have a man who needs money than money that needs a man." What luck for Federigo! He "lived with her happily the rest of his days."

Aplomado Falcon, U.S. Govt, 1859

My "Federigo's Falcon" poem:

Federigo on how to woo a woman

If you encounter a woman without whom
the world is an endless eclipse,
offer her everything. If you have four flowers,
offer her five and coax one more to grow.
If you have a carriage, cover the seats
with the softest blankets, hitch it to your
calmest horses. If you have a castle,
circle the moat teaching the alligators
that she is sacrosanct or send them away.
What use is a castle if she cannot enter?
If you have anything, offer it:
your time, your patience, your riches,
your poverty, your surprise, your
last friend.

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

Addendum: I'd like to add "Federigo" to the title of my poem. "Federigo's advice about How to woo a woman"? "How to woo a woman according to Federigo"? Suggestions welcome.

Great, thank you, Irene! I changed it to your suggestion. xo

Poems from short stories:
* Hawk Roosting by Ted Hughes inspired by "The White Haired Girl" by Gorky
* Her Kind by Anne Sexton, maybe inspired by Hans Christian Anderson (need more info!)
* If I Could Write Like Poe inspired by "The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe
* Scheherazade inspired by "The Thousand and One Nights" (various)
* The Man He Killed by Thomas Hardy inspired by "The Ambuscade" by Stephen Crane
* Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson inspired by Homer's The Odyssey

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

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

The Mold Gold Cape

With a name like The Hill of the Goblins, one might expect something exciting to be hidden within Bryn yr Ellyllon, near Flintshire, Wales. They’d be right.
When workmen absolutely broke into the ancient burial mound in 1833, they couldn’t believe what they’d found. It turned out the site was a literal treasure trove of ancient artifacts, the most impressive of which was a solid gold artifact known as the Mold Gold Cape.
~Robbie Mitchell

For Art Thursday, a prehistoric gold cape discovered in 1833 in a Mold, Wales burial mound. The cape is small enough that it could have been made for a woman or a teenage boy.

The Mold gold cape. Bronze Age, about 1900-1600 BC/ From Mold, Flintshire, North Wales
photo by David Monniaux

A song about an imagined wearer of the cape...Edie Brickell and Steve Martin:

The floodgates are down

“I’m sure we all know so many incredible bands locally, like artists or musicians or people who are doing incredible things, that don’t get recognised,” [Elizabeth] Stokes says. “And you’re like, ‘Well, they’re really, really good too. So I’m just lucky.’”
~reporter Brodie Lancaster quoting the lead singer of The Beths

For Music Monday, New Zealand band The Beths:

Clutching, sacred things

Women may be the one group that grows more radical with age.
~Gloria Steinem

Happy Poetry Friday! Three poems today. Topics include: aging, friendship, being yourself, taking care of the natural world. "Trust a Woman with Many Jars" seems like it could make a good mentor poem.

circle of blue

Talking Like This
by Kathryn Hunt
— for Andrea

A cold wind blew in gusts that caught
the root-hold of the firs. Clouds fled across the sky
and I felt empty, free of myself, just walking.
The way the trees leaned and circled, tossing
their long branches like a woman whose had
enough might toss away something she loves.
Or a horse might toss its head,
meaning I am dangerous.

A few doors down men were putting up
a wall with their nail guns and saws.
Ladders, bags of sand all over the yard.
How satisfying that must feel, to stand back
at the end of the day and admire a house
you’ve made in the company of others.
To be of practical use, like a frying pan.
Don’t fall off your ladders, I shouted...

read the rest here

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Trust a Woman with Many Jars
by Mackenzie Berry

Who cooks well for only herself—
who makes tomato jam & falls out at the taste of a ground cherry.

Trust a woman who can cast a spell on you but doesn’t.
Who studies carpentry, who can work a saw.

Trust a woman who likes soup. Who can clean a fish.
Who you can weep into & still looks you in the eye.

Who says, Miss Baby...

read the rest here

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Things I Tell Colleen
by Samantha DeFlitch

The Virginia opossum was admitted for severe burns
caused by a third alarm house fire that barely grazed
the surface of the morning news. Carelessness, intention—
the fire’s cause matters zip to the opossum who was
delivered to the rescue center with eleven joeys clinging
to the blistered fur of her back, like a life loaded up with
sick aunts, lunchbox duty, scribbled notes from a brother—
all of us attached to these clutching, sacred things. Fire
is fire to all animals...

read the rest here

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The Miss Rumphius Effect has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Tricia!

Taina Litwak

Like climate change, human news chronicles our impact on our planet.
~Taina Litwak

Last weekend, I went to Artomatic in Washington D.C. It was invigorating and exhausting. So much art! If you, like me, don't have the stamina to check it out all at once, it is a good idea to plan multiple visits. One of the artists who caught my eye was Taina Litwak, who graciously gave me permission to share her work with you. She says:

In January 2020 I began a series of paintings in acrylic and collaged newspaper. I started painting again after 20 years (spent illustrating science) because I felt the need to express my concern more personally about the damage humans are doing to the planet and where our culture is heading.

Ginkgo IV- Climate Change News
Taina Litwak

News Stream III
Taina Litwak

Warblers V - Lost Flocks
Taina Litwak

People's Artist Kolessa

The choral piece “Poisonous Gas” for the male choir, composed by M. Kolessa in the pre-Soviet period (1932). It is based on the verses of his close friend Ivan Krushelnytskyi, whose ruthless execution in 1934, as well as the destruction of the entire Krushelnytskyi family, was profoundly shocking for M. Kolessa.
Performance of the piece during the Soviet period was impossible.
“Poisonous Gas” debuted at the gala concert of the Summer Choral Academy in Lviv in June 2018.
~Choral Society Leontovych

Feasgar math! Good afternoon! For Music Monday, the Lviv Orchestra performing Mykola Kolessa's "Ukrainian Suite" and the Leontovych Choral Society performing Kolessa's "Poisonous Gas." Both are worth hearing all the way through.

In the deep heart's core

[Yeats] was one of those few whose history is the history of their own time, who are a part of the consciousness of an age which cannot be understood without them.
~T.S. Eliot

Happy Poetry Friday, all! Sharing some photos from last Sunday. We celebrated Irish poet William Butler Yeats during St. Patrick's Day. I couldn't forget the Irish women, so I also brought out a St Brigid's cross and my wee St Dymphna.

We had cream cheese scones with lemon curd, sandwiches (egg salad, cucumber, and chicken), pasta salad, strawberries, brie with black currant preserves, and Irish potato candy.

Paul Thompson graciously recorded Yeats poems for us. Here are "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" and "Where My Books Go" (lesser known, but a favorite of mine).

Where My Books go
by W.B. Yeats

All the words that I utter,
And all the words that I write,
Must spread out their wings untiring,
And never rest in their flight,
Till they come where your sad, sad heart is,
And sing to you in the night,
Beyond where the waters are moving,
Storm-darken’d or starry bright.



The Lake Isle of Innisfree
by William Butler Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.



Do you have a favorite Yeats poem? For many people it might be "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" or "When You Are Old":



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Imagine the Possibilities has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Rose!

Addendum: here's an Irish potato candy recipe (I bought them already made).

Julia Kuznetsova

It is in your power, really, to help us bring to justice everyone who started this unprovoked and criminal war. Let's do it. Let the terrorist be held responsible for aggression, and compensate all losses done by this war.
~Volodymyr Zelensky

For Art Thursday, art by Ukrainian artist Julia Kuznetsova. Digital downloads are available for purchase in her Etsy shop (only $5!). I've bought several and printed them as postcards. My daughter Elena also used them as wall decor. Visit her Etsy store here. Slava Ukraini!

Deep Breath
by Julia Kuznetsova

Dandelions
by Julia Kuznetsova

Stradella

One of the most innovative and exciting composers of the 17th century, with hundreds of musical works to his name, Alessandro Stradella (1639-1682) led a rambunctious life encompassing TWO assassination attempts, a fraud, a love story, an abduction… and a lot of brilliant music.
~BBC4

Read more about Stradella's story here, where Frank Cottrell Boyce explains why he wrote a drama about Stradella's life. (Is it a spoiler to say that one of the assassination attempts was successful?)

Joust by Elena

For Music Monday, works by Alessandro Stradella:

Pardoned by the lava of chance

E. Hirsch: You’ve said that you average about six poems per year. Why so few?
W. Meredith: I wait until the poems seem to be addressed not to “Occupant” but to “William Meredith.”

Émile Bernard

Happy Poetry Friday! Our family is doing something different for St Patrick's Day this year...adding a bit of Irish poet W.B. Yeats celebration to it. (BTW, Yeats and Yeatts are not the same, but they do have the same pronunciation.) One of our extended family members is wonderful at reciting poems and has made some videos for us to enjoy. I've planned a tea with scones and truffles and wee sandwiches. Maybe I will share a video next week if I can get permission.

Today's poem is by Pulitzer prizewinner William Meredith, who wrote "The Illiterate" which I shared in 2008 and still think of often. "Accidents of Birth" is one I know I'll also be returning to.

Accidents of Birth
by William Meredith

Je vois les effroyables espaces de l’Univers qui m’enferment, et je me trouve attaché à un coin de cette vaste étendue, sans savoir pourquoi je suis plutôt en ce lieu qu’en un autre, ni pourquoi ce peu de temps qui m’est donné à vivre m’est assigné à ce point plutôt qu'à un autre de toute l’éternité qui m’a précédé, et de toute qui me suit.

—Pascal, Pensées sur la religion

The approach of a man’s life out of the past is history, and the approach of time out of the future is mystery. Their meeting is the present, and it is consciousness, the only time life is alive. The endless wonder of this meeting is what causes the mind, in its inward liberty of a frozen morning, to turn back and question and remember. The world is full of places. Why is it that I am here?

—Wendell Berry, The Long-Legged House

Spared by a car or airplane crash or
cured of malignancy, people look
around with new eyes at a newly
praiseworthy world, blinking eyes like these.

For I’ve been brought back again from the...

read the rest here

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{fiction, instead of lies} has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Tanita!

Renoir

One must from time to time attempt things that are beyond one's capacity.
~Pierre-Auguste Renoir

I like support for trying things one is liable to mess up. Thanks, Renoir! Art Thursday:

La Grenouillère
Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Le Pont-Neuf, 1872
Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Self-Portrait, 1876
Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Harmonies

You try to do what you can to bring harmony wherever you go.
~Aaron Neville

For Music Monday, a "Ms. Mojo" video with her list of Top 20 Harmonies:



Can't leave out Boyz II Men. So good!



More harmonies:
Stay by Little Big Town
Go To Sleep You Little Baby by Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, and Alison Krauss
I Will Wait by Mumford and Sons
Save Me The Trouble by Dan and Shay
Colder Weather by Zac Brown Band
What others would you include?

Not your shoe

The great artists are the ones who dare to entitle to beauty things so natural that when they're seen afterward, people say: Why did I never realize before that this too was beautiful?
~André Gide

hyacinth, coming up

Hi y'all! Happy Poetry Friday! My birthday yesterday threw me off a little bit re: my blogging schedule, so I am pulling out things I liked on Instagram. First, Trevor Noah explaining why friends are like horcruxes. Also, here's literacy advocate Oliver Speaks.

Is something making you uncomfortable? Maybe you just need to let it go. Naomi Shihab Nye:

Todd Dillard from Invisible Chorus, in Only Poems:

Addendum: Dillard's How To Live is worth a read.

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

Reflectogram

The water you touch in a river is the last of that which has passed, and the first of that which is coming. Thus it is with time present.
~Leonardo daVinci

For Art Thursday, an unfinished painting by DaVinci, but the infrared reflectogram version:

The Adoration of the Magi, infrared reflectogram
by Leonardo da Vinci
Preserved in the archives of the Opificio delle pietre dure
photo by Tangopaso

Feed my head

Age ain't nothin but a number!
And like a rare wine, you don't get older, you just get better...
Saffire, Middle Aged Blues Boogie

Blue by Tim Green

I am late for Music Monday! Today I was thinking about Saffire, the Uppity Blues Women. I remember seeing them play "How Can I Say I Miss You" before they released it on an album. I associate them with laughter and pizza.

Sparkling potions

According to [Riverside] cemetery, as of 2023, people have been leaving $1.87 in change (the amount of Della's savings at the beginning of "The Gift of the Magi") on Porter's grave for at least 30 years. The cemetery says the money is given to area libraries.
~John Boyle

Happy Poetry Friday! Have you read "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry (a.k.a. William Sydney Porter)? The ending gets me every time. Here's an excerpt of the poem O. Henry- Apothecary by Christopher Morley, who must have been aware that Porter was a licensed pharmacist:

O brave apothecary! You who knew
What dark and acid doses life prefers,
And yet with friendly face resolved to brew
These sparkling potions for your customers—
In each prescription your Physician writ
You poured your rich compassion and your wit!

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postcard by Mary Lee

Last week, I mentioned that my National Poetry Month project this April will be short story-based:

Take a short story (from a magazine, anthology, one you've written, wherever) and...

* write a black-out poem
* a poem for two voices (two of the characters talking)
* a poem about the setting
* a summary
* a poem imagining the inspiration for the story
* a poem that changes the story in some way
* or whatever you want to do!

I thought I'd give you some links to short stories in case anybody would like help getting started:

* 100 Great Short Stories
* 75 SHORT Short Stories
* 50 Feel-Good Short Stories
* On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning by Haruki Murakami
* The Faery Handbag by Kelly Link
* Going Home: A Short Story Inspired by Emily Dickinson’s poem, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death.” (Okay, maybe it would be too circular to write a poem inspired by that one.)

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