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Swift-footed Time

Sonnet 19
– William Shakespeare

Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws,

And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;

Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws,

And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate’er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
O, carve not with thy hours my love’s fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty’s pattern to succeeding men.
Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young.

Kitchentableflowers
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Old Main

Oldmain

Remembering a magnificent day earlier this Fall… This beautiful building called Old Main is a block across the street from my office.  I took this picture one day in mid-October on my lunch hour.  Today, the skies are not quite as blue; those maple trees have lost their leaves; and the grass on the ground is a dull brown.  But Old Main remains unchanged, and I daresay it will stay the same for a long time to come. 

There’s something quite comforting about brick-and-mortar, like that, don’t you think?

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Bird(s) On A Wire: Just Like Cohen Sang

Last Sunday evening, I was riding in the car heading westbound in town, running one last errand for the day, nay, the weekend– when we stopped at a traffic light– and I looked out the window and directly up at the telephone wires and saw the most awesome sight: a row of tiny sparrow-like blackbirds perched close together.  They were tightly packed together like a row of men’s black dress shoes on a store-shelf.

Made me also think of Leonard Cohen’s famous ballad, Like A Bird On A Wire.  Here it is!

But this morning, I stand in awe at the stark contrast in the color of the skies as I look outside my window.  Three days ago, the skies were a bright blue even as the evening sun was fast going down in the west.  This morning, however, the skies are a dense gray but with shock of snow flurries coming down in a hurry.  Each so different, and yet each so very beautiful.  Like birds on a wire!  And a show like none other– one that must go on!

Birdsonawire

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Of Mice And Men: Steinbeck Done Brilliantly

John Steinbeck’s Nobel-prize winning novel, Of Mice And Men presented by the Theatre Department at Wayne State University. A brilliant production!

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See the full gallery on Posterous

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…The Grief Of One…

Exaggeration
– Elizabeth Barrett Browning

We overstate the ills of life, and take
Imagination (given us to bring down
The choirs of singing angels overshone
By God’s clear glory) down our earth to rake
The dismal snows instead, flake following flake,
To cover all the corn; we walk upon
The shadow of hills across a level thrown,
And pant like climbers: near the alder brake
We sigh so loud, the nightingale within
Refuses to sing loud, as else she would.
O brothers, let us leave the shame and sin
Of taking vainly, in a plaintive mood,
The holy name of Grief! – holy herein
That by the grief of One came all our good.

poppy hanging on my wall; pic taken 12.14.09

Poppy
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…I Know Enough…

Fire and Ice
– Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire;
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Planeview
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…Yield With A Grace…

Reluctance
– Robert Frost

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last long aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question ‘Whither?’

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

courtesy CD, 08/2009

Alaskawildflowers
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…All The Difference

The Road Not Taken
– Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Direction