The green fuse

The landscape looks different from every blade of grass.
~Marty Rubin

Happy Poetry Friday! Today I have a poem I read on Grateful Living.

photo by Nicholas A. Tonelli

Belonging
by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

And if it’s true we are alone,
we are alone together,
the way blades of grass
are alone, but exist as a field.
Sometimes I feel it,
the green fuse that ignites us,
the wild thrum that unites us,
an inner hum that reminds us
of our shared humanity.
Just as thirty-five trillion
red blood cells join in one body
to become one blood.
Just as one hundred thirty-six thousand
notes make up one symphony.
Alone as we are, our small voices
weave into the one big conversation.
Our actions are essential
to the one infinite story of what it is
to be alive. When we feel alone,
we belong to the grand communion
of those who sometimes feel alone—
we are the dust, the dust that hopes,
a rising of dust, a thrill of dust,
the dust that dances in the light
with all other dust, the dust
that makes the world.

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I'm guessing everyone has heard about the economic boycott tomorrow (Friday)? I'm looking forward to not spending any money.

Dare to Care has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Denise!

P.S. How appalling is it to be allied with Russia? Utterly.

Chess knights

The game is so full of events, there is such a variety of turns in it, the fortune of it is so subject to sudden vicissitudes, and one so frequently, after long contemplation, discovers the means of extricating one's self from a supposed insurmountable difficulty, that one is encouraged to continue the contest to the last, in hopes of victory by our own skill, or, at least, of giving a stalemate, by the negligence of our adversary.
~Benjamin Franklin

For Art Thursday, chess knights. I grew up thinking of them as the horses, but I also like these pieces which include the rider:

The Lewis Chessmen, probably made in Norway, about AD 1150-1200
Found on the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland
photo by Rob Roy

Chess Figure, 12th to 16th century
photo by Andreas Praefcke
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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.

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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?



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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."

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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

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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

Waking up singing

I'm walking and talking with my mind
stayed on freedom
~Reverend Robert Wesby

So, I got a comment on my last post that was just the word "die!" written three hundred times. Hmm...was it something I said? I didn't expect to hear from the pro-defenestration contingent, but am I like, "Malevolent stranger, what would YOU like for me to say?" Umm, no.

The dust might have to settle before we find out if this is still the land of the free, but at least it can still be the home of the brave.

There aren't too many photos of groups where everyone in it looks good, but this is an exception. "Woke Up This Morning" with The Freedom Singers:

Darkness and strength

The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.
~Howard Zinn

Happy Poetry Friday! Glad we can gather together even when things are grim.

Sharing a song by Russian songwriter and guitarist Vadim Stroykin, who did not support the war on Ukraine and "fell" from a window today during a police raid.



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I shared this poem in 2018 but had forgotten about it until I saw Diana Butler Bass post it today. Yes, Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29, perfect.

photo of Glockenbaum sculpture by Symposiarch

Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29
by Rainer Maria Rilke

Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.

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by Shannon Downey

Shannon Downey's Let's Move the Needle: An Activism Handbook for Artists, Crafters, Creatives, and Makers
This is not normal (cross stitch pattern)
When it all feels insurmountable, do something kind for someone (embroidery)

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Beyond Literacy Link has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Carol!

Just the facts

It's like Kremlin Christmas, every day now.
~Rachel Maddow

There are a lot of great protest posters out there. "No one elected Elon" is one I've seen a lot, and I like this colorful one that taps into a meme to cover the salient points:

USAID info from Samantha Power on Stephen Colbert

Protector

There's a long line of hands carryin' your name, mm
Liftin' you up, so you will be raised
~Beyoncé

Congratulations to Beyoncé on winning Album of the Year at the Grammys last night: