Opportunity may knock only once but temptation leans on the door bell

-  Oprah Winfrey b.1954

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As for me - for me, the grass grew longer, and more sorrowful, and the trees were surfaced like flesh, and girls were no longer to be treated lightly but were creatures of commanding sadness, and all journeys through the valley were now made alone, with passion in every bush, and the motions of wind and cloud and stars were suddenly for myself alone, and voices elected me of all men living and called me to deliver the world, and I groaned from solitude, blushed when I stumbled, loved strangers and bread and butter, and made long trips through the rain on my bicycle, stared wretchedly through lighted windows, grinned wryly to think how little I was known, and lived in a state of raging excitement. My mother half knew me, but could not help, I felt doomed, and of all things wonderful. 

It was then I began to sit on my bed and stare out at the nibbling squirrels, and to make up poems from intense abstraction, hour after unmarked hour, imagination scarcely faltering once, rhythm hardly skipping a beat, while sisters called me, suns rose and fell, and the poems I made, which I never remembered, were the first and last of that time  . . . 

from "Cider With Rosie" - Laurie Lee 1914-97

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I remember, I remember,

The house where I was born,

The little window where the sun

Came peeping in at morn;

He never came a wink too soon,

Nor brought too long a day,

But now, I often wish the night

Had borne my breath away!

I remember, I remember,

The roses, red and white,

The vioets, and the lily-cups,

Those flowers made of light!

The lilacs where the robin built,

And where my brother set

The laburnum on his birthday -

The tree is living yet!

I remember, I remember,

Where I was used to swing,

And thought the air must rush as fresh

To swallows on the wing;

My spirit flew in feathers then,

That is so heavy now,

And summer pools could hardly cool

The fever on my brow!

I remember, I remember,

The fir trees dark and high;

I used to think their slender tops

Were close against the sky:

It was a childish ignorance,

But now 'tis little joy

To know I'm farther off from heaven

Than when I was a boy.

- Thomas Hood 1799-1845

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thanks to pixabay.com for the image

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This blog will now be updated
on TUESDAYS and THURSDAYS

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The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater. 

- J.R.R. Tolkien 1892-1973

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When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay,
And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,
Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say,
"He was a man who used to notice such things?"

If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless blink,
The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight
Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer may think,
"To him this must have been a familiar sight."

If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm,
When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn,
One may say, "He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm,
But he could do little for them; and now he is gone."

If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door,
Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees,
Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more,
"He was one who had an eye for such mysteries?"

And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom,
And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings,
Till they rise again, as they were a new bell's boom,
"He hears it not now, but used to notice such things?"

- Thomas Hardy 1840-1928

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Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. - Dwight D. Eisenhower 1890-1969

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thanks to pixabay.com for the image

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NEXT POST THURSDAY

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The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. 

The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. 

The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. 

And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference. 

- Elie Wiesel b.1928

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From "Straw Dogs" by John Gray b.1948
For much of their history and all of prehistory, humans did not see themselves as being any different from the other animals among which they lived. Hunter-gatherers saw their prey as equals, if not superiors, and animals were worshipped as divinities in many traditional cultures. The humanist sense of a gulf between ourselves and other animals is an aberration. Feeble as it is today, the feeling of sharing a common destiny with other living things is embedded in the human psyche. Those who struggle to conserve what is left of the natural environment are moved by the love of living things, biophilia, the frail bond of feeling that ties humankind to the Earth.

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The Lake Isle of Innesfree

W.B. Yeats 1865-1939

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.

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thanks to pixabay.com for the image

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NEXT POST TUESDAY

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There will be a few times in your life when all your instincts will tell you to do something, something that defies logic, upsets your plans, and may seem crazy to others. When that happens, you do it. Listen to your instincts and ignore everything else. Ignore logic, ignore the odds, ignore the complications, and just go for it. 

-  Judith McNaught b.1944

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Democracy will not come

Today, this year

Nor ever

Through compromise and fear.

I have as much right

As the other fellow has

To stand

On my two feet

And own the land.

I tire so of hearing people say,

Let things take their course.

Tomorrow is another day.

I do not need my freedom when I'm dead.

I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.

Freedom

Is a strong seed

Planted

In a great need.

I live here, too.

I want freedom

Just as you.

- Langston Hughes 1902-67

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The impetuous dashing of the rebounding torrent from the dark cavities which mocked the exploring eye, produced an equal activity in my mind: my thoughts darted from earth to heaven, and I asked myself why I was chained to life and its misery? Still the tumultuous emotions this sublime object excited, were pleasurable; and, viewing it, my soul rose, with renewed dignity, above its cares - grasping at immortality - it seemed as impossible to stop the current of my thoughts, as of the always varying, still the same, torrent before me - I stretched out my hand to eternity, bounding over the dark speck of life to come. - Mary Wollstonecraft  from "A Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark"

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I never saw a moor,

I never saw the sea;

 Yet know I how the heather looks,

    And what a wave must be.

             I never spoke with God,         

   Nor visited in heaven;

   Yet certain am I of the spot

  As if the chart were given.

Emily Dickinson 1830-86

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NEXT POST SATURDAY

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The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also. - Mark Twain 1835-1910

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Imagine there's no heaven,

It's easy if you try,

No hell below us,

Above us only sky.

Imagine all the people

Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries,

It isn't hard to do,

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too.

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one,

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one.

Imagine no possessions,

I wonder if you can,

No need for greed or hunger,

A brotherhood of man.

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one,

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will live as one.

- John Lennon 1940-80

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And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.

- Kurt Vonnegut 1922-2007

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Sometimes people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say - So what! That's one of my favourite things to say - So what! - Andy Warhol 1928-87

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Thanks to pixabay.com for the image

NEXT POST THURSDAY

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Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. - Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-82

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Extract from "Absalom, Absalom!"

William Faulkner 1897-1962

"Yes," Judith said. "Or destroy it. As you like. Read it if you like or don't read it if you like. Because you make so little impression, you see. You get born and you try this and you don't know why only you keep on trying it and you are born at the same time with a lot of other people, all mixed up with them, like trying to, having to, move your arms and legs with strings only the same strings are hitched to all the other arms and legs and the others all trying and they don't know why either except that the strings are all in one another's way like five or six people all trying to make a rug on the same loom only each one wants to weave his own pattern into the rug; and it can't matter, you know that, or the Ones that set up the loom would have arranged things a little better, and yet it must matter because you keep on trying or having to keep on trying and then all of a sudden it's all over, all you have left is a block of stone with scratches on it provided there was someone to remember to have the marble scratched and set up or had time to, and it rains on it and the sun shines on it and after a while they don't even remember the name and what the scratches were trying to tell, and it doesn't matter."

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Beautiful Old Age
D. H. Lawrence  1885-1930

It ought to be lovely to be old
to be full of the peace that comes of experience
and wrinkled ripe fulfilment.

The wrinkled smile of completeness that follows a life
lived undaunted and unsoured with accepted lies
they would ripen like apples, and be scented like pippins
in their old age.

Soothing, old people should be, like apples
when one is tired of love.
Fragrant like yellowing leaves, and dim with the soft
stillness and satisfaction of autumn.

And a girl should say:
It must be wonderful to live and grow old.
Look at my mother, how rich and still she is! -

And a young man should think: By Jove
my father has faced all weathers,
but it's been a life!

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Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. - Marcel Proust 1871-1922

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You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,

Love like you'll never be hurt,

Sing like there's nobody listening,

And live like it's heaven on earth. 

William W. Purkey b.1929

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NEXT POST TUESDAY

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I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I'm a human being, first and foremost, and as such I'm for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole. 

- Malcolm X 

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It is well for a man to be frugal, to abstain from luxury, to possess no treasure nor to covet this world’s goods. Since olden times there has rarely been a sage who was wealthy.

In China there was once a man called Hsu Yu. He had not a single possession in the world. He even scooped up water with his hands, until a friend gave him a gourd. But one day, when he had hung it from a branch, it rattled in the wind; whereupon, disturbed by the noise, he threw it away and once more took to drinking from his clasped hands. How pure and free the heart of such a man.

A certain recluse, I know not who, once said that no bonds attached him to this life, and the only thing he would regret leaving was the sky. - Yoshida Kenko 1283-1350

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I sit beside the fire and think
Of all that I have seen
Of meadow flowers and butterflies
In summers that have been,

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
In autumns that there were
With morning mist and silver sun
And wind upon my hair.

I sit beside the fire and think
Of how the world will be
When winter comes without a spring
That I shall ever see.

For still there are so many things
That I have never seen
In every wood in every spring
There is a different green.

I sit beside the fire and think
Of people long ago
And people that will see a world
That I shall never know.

But all the while I sit and think
Of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
And voices at the door.
-  J.R.R. Tolkien 1892-1973

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A star falls from the sky and into your hands. Then it seeps through your veins and swims inside your blood and becomes every part of you. And then you have to put it back into the sky. And it's the most painful thing you'll ever have to do and that you've ever done. But what's yours is yours. Whether it’s up in the sky or here in your hands. And one day, it'll fall from the sky and hit you in the head real hard and that time, you won't have to put it back in the sky again. - C. JoyBell C. 

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NEXT POST SATURDAY

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It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever 

loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.

- Vincent van Gogh  1853-90

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Everyone Sang

Siegfried Sassoon 1886-1967

Everyone suddenly burst out singing:

And I was filled with such delight

As prisoned birds must find in freedom,

Winging wildly across the white

Orchards and dark-green fields: on - on - and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;

And beauty came like the setting sun;

My heart was shaken with tears: and horror

Drifted away . . . O, but everyone

Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

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Extract from "Blindness"

Jose Saramago 1922-2010

Has everyone told their story about the last time they could see, asked the old man with the black eyepatch, I'll tell you mine, if there's no one else, said the unknown voice, If there is, he can speak after you, so fire away, The last thing I saw was a painting, A painting, repeated the old man with the black eyepatch, and where was this painting, I had gone to the museum, it was a picture of a cornfield with crows and cypress trees and a sun that gave the impression of having been made up of the fragments of other suns, Sounds like a Dutch painter, I think it was, but there was a drowning dog in it, already half submerged, poor creature, In that case it must be by a Spanish painter, before him no one had ever painted a dog in that situation, after him no other painter had the courage to try, Probably, and there was a cart laden with hay, drawn by horses and crossing a stream, Was there a house on the left, Yes, Then it was by an English painter, Could be, but I don't think so, because there was a woman as well with a child in her arms, Mothers and children are all too common in paintings, True, I've noticed, What I don't understand is how in one painting there should be so many pictures and by such different painters, And there were some men eating, There have been so many lunches, afternoon snacks and suppers in the history of art, that this detail in itself is not enough to tell us who was eating, There were thirteen men altogether, Ah, then its easy, go on, There was also a naked woman with fair hair, inside a conch that was floating on the sea, and masses of flowers around her, Obviously Italian, And there was a battle, As in those paintings depicting banquets and mothers with children in their arms, these details are not enough to reveal who painted the picture, There were corpses and wounded men, Its only natural, sooner or later, all children die, and soldiers too, And a horse stricken with terror, With its eyes about to pop out of their sockets, Exactly, Horses are like that, and what other pictures were there in your painting, Alas, I never managed to find out, I went blind just as I was looking at the horse. Fear can cause blindness, said the girl with dark glasses, Never a truer word, that could not be truer, we were already blind the moment we turned blind, fear struck us blind, fear will keep us blind, Who is speaking, asked the doctor, A blind man, replied a voice, just a blind man, for that is all we have here. Then the old man with the black eyepatch asked, How many blind persons are needed to make a blindness, No one could provide the answer.

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Life is a treasure-chest of opportunities, choices, and time. 

Unfortunately, the choice many people make is to argue about 

the details of the chest instead of seizing the treasure within it. 

Steve Maraboli  b1975.

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NEXT POST THURSDAY

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A fine glass vase goes from treasure to trash, the moment it is broken. Fortunately, something else happens to you and me. Pick up your pieces. Then, help me gather mine. - Vera Nazarian b.1966

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I want to give you something, my child,

for we are drifting in the stream of the world.

Our lives will be carried apart,

and our love forgotten.

But I am not so foolish as to hope that

I could buy your heart with my gifts.

Young is your life, your path long, and

you drink the love we bring you at one draught

and turn and run away from us.

You have your play and your playmates.

What harm is there if you have no time

or thought for us.

We, indeed, have leisure enough in old age

to count the days that are past,

to cherish in our hearts what our

hands have lost for ever.

The river runs swift with a song,

breaking through all barriers.

But the mountain stays and remembers,

and follows her with his love.

- Rabindranath Tagore 1861-1941

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The leaves streamed down, trembling in the sun. They were not green; only a few, scattered through the torrent, stood out in single drops of green so bright and pure that it hurt the eyes; the rest were not a colour, but a light, the substance of fire on metal, living sparks without edges. And it looked as if the forest were a spread of light boiling slowly to produce this colour, this green rising in small bubbles, the condensed essence of spring. The trees met, bending over the road, and the spots of sun on the ground moved with the shifting of the branches, like a conscious caress. The young man hoped he would not have to die.

Not if the earth could look like this, he thought. Not if he could hear the hope and the promise like a voice with leaves, tree trunks and rocks instead of words. But he knew that the earth looked like this only because he had seen no sign of men for hours; he was alone, riding his bicycle down a forgotten trail through the hills of Pennsylvania where he had never been before, where he could feel the fresh wonder of an untouched world. - from "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand

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Life has loveliness to sell,

     All beautiful and splendid things,

Blue waves whitened on a cliff,

     Soaring fire that sways and sings,

And children's faces looking up

Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,

     Music like a curve of gold,

Scent of pine trees in the rain,

     Eyes that love you, arms that hold,

And for your spirit's still delight,

Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,

     Buy it and never count the cost;

For one white singing hour of peace

     Count many a year of strife well lost,

And for a breath of ecstasy

Give all you have been, or could be.

- Sara Teasdale 1884-1933

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NEXT POST TUESDAY

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Walk on a rainbow trail, walk on a trail of song 

And all about you will be beauty.

There is a way out of every dark mist 

Over a rainbow trail. 

- Navajo Poem

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My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky;

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man;

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

- William Wordsworth 1770-1850

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Extract from A Highland Parish by Norman Macleod 1812-72

The Highland churchyard is a spot which seldom betrays any other traces of human art or care than those simple headstones which mark its green graves. In very few instances is it enclosed; its graves generally mingle with the mountain pasture and blooming heather, and afford shelter to the sheep and lamb from the blast of winter and the heat of summer.

But although not consecrated by holy prayer and religious ceremony, these are nevertheless holy spots in the hearts and minds of the peasantry, who never pass them without a subdued look, which betokens a feeling of respect for the silent sleepers. To deck a father or mother's grave would be, in the estimate of the Highlander, to turn it into a flower-garden. He thinks it utter vanity to attempt to express his grief or respect for the departed by any ornament beyond the tombstone, whose inscription is seldom more than a statistical table of birth and death.

Many of those Highland churchyards, so solitary and so far removed from the busy haunts of men, are nevertheless singularly touching and beautiful.

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Does the road wind up-hill all the way?

Yes, to the very end.

Will the day's journey take the whole long day?

From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place?

A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.

May not the darkness hide it from my face?

You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?

Those who have gone before.

Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?

They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?

Of labour you shall find the sum.

Will there be beds for me and all who seek?

Yea, beds for all who come.

Christina Georgina Rossetti 1830-94

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The dead ends in life force us to turn round and find another way to our destination. Who knows what treasures we will discover along the way. Detours are an opportunity to reshape our lives. Embrace them! - Tom Hackett

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NEXT POST SATURDAY

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Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And though I oft have passed them by
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.
- J.R.R. Tolkien 1892-1973

-o0o-

Night poured over the desert. It came suddenly, in purple. In the clear air, the stars drilled down out of the sky, reminding any thoughtful watcher that it is in the deserts and high places that religions are generated. When men see nothing but bottomless infinity over their heads they have always had a driving and desperate urge to find someone to put in the way. 

- Terry Pratchett 1948-2015

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"Hope" is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I've heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
- Emily Dickinson 1830-86

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There are random moments - tossing a salad, coming up the driveway to the house, ironing the seams flat on a quilt square, standing at the kitchen window and looking out at the delphiniums, hearing a burst of laughter from one of my children's rooms - when I feel a wavelike rush of joy. This is my true religion: arbitrary moments of nearly painful happiness for a life I feel privileged to lead. 

- Elizabeth Berg b.1948

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May you live every day of your life.
- Jonathan Swift 1667-1745

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NEXT POST THURSDAY

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Happiness is always there. You just have to choose to see it. 

There's no point dwelling in the dark and ignoring the light of the stars.

-  Carrie Hope Fletcher b.1992

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We are not going to change the whole world, but we can change ourselves and feel free as birds. We can be serene even in the midst of calamities and, by our serenity, make others more tranquil. Serenity is contagious. If we smile at someone, he or she will smile back. And a smile costs nothing. We should plague everyone with joy. If we are to die in a minute, why not die happily, laughing?  

- Swami Satchidananda 1914-2002

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Happy talk, keep talking happy talk,
Talk about things you like to do,
You got to have a dream, if you don't have a dream
How you gonna have a dream come true?

Talk about the moon, floating in de sky
Looking like a lily on a lake,
Talk about a bird, learning how to fly
Making all the music he can make.

Talk about the star, looking like a toy
Peeking through de branches of a tree,
Talk about de girl, talk about da boy
Counting all de ripples on da sea.

Happy talk, keep talking happy talk,
Talk about things you like to do.
You got to have a dream, if you don't have a dream
How you gonna have a dream come true?
- Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II

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Happiness is only real when shared.
- Jon Krakauer b.1954

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NEXT POST TUESDAY

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The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.
- Daniel J. Boorstin 1914-2004

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And I realised a wondrous truth - that knowledge could be our treasure, that there were things humankind knew that we did not, that our conquest need not comprise taking and killing, but could consist of our mutual conquest of ignorance and distrust.

- Rachel Hartman from "Seraphina"

-o0o-

Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
Four be the things I'd been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.
- Dorothy Parker 1893-1967

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The time will come when diligent research over long periods will bring to light things which now lie hidden. A single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the investigation of so vast a subject. So this knowledge will be unfolded only through long successive ages. There will come a time when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know things that are so plain to them. Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come, when memory of us will have been effaced. 

- Seneca the Younger 4BC-65AD

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A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot!
- Albert Einstein 1879-1955

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NEXT POST SATURDAY

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