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A new Art blog begins on Friday 26th June

V IS FOR VINCENT

will show 72 paintings by Vincent van Gogh

http://visforvincent.blogspot.com

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TODAY'S POST CONCLUDES THE PRESENT SERIES

It seemed appropriate that the final item should be the poem that inspired the blog - J.J.

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The Poet circa 1910

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THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

Robert Frost 1874/1963

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveller, 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 travelled by,

And that has made all the difference.

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There is something haunting in the light of the moon; it has all the dispassionateness of a disembodied soul, and something of its inconceivable mystery - Joseph Conrad 1857-1924

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The bright thin new moon appears,

Tipped askew in the heavens.

It no sooner shines over

The ruined fortress than the

Evening clouds overwhelm it.

The Milky Way shines unchanging

Over the freezing mountains

Of the border. White frost covers

The garden. The chrysanthemums

Clot and freeze in the night.

(Tu Fu 712-770, translated by Kenneth Rexroth - "One Hundred Poems from the Chinese")

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Slowly, silently, now the moon

Walks the night in her silver shoon;

This way, and that, she peers, and sees

Silver fruit upon silver trees;

One by one the casements catch

Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;

Couched in his kennel, like a log,

With paws of silver sleeps the dog;

From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep

Of doves in silver-feathered sleep

A harvest mouse goes scampering by,

With silver claws, and silver eye;

And moveless fish in the water gleam,

By silver reeds in a silver stream.

- Walter de la Mare 1873-1956

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NEXT POST THURSDAY

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Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

-  Martin Luther King Jr.

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THE SONG OF THE WANDERING AENGUS

William Butler Yeats 1865-1939

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire a-flame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And someone called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done,

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.

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The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart.

- Helen Keller 1880-1968

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NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL ART
was updated yesterday
http://nowthatswhaticallart.blogspot.com

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Nothing, Everything, Anything, Something: 

If you have Nothing, then you have Everything, because you have the freedom to do Anything, without the fear of losing Something. 

- Jarod Kintz  b.1982

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PLEASE CALL ME BY MY TRUE NAMES

Thich Nhat Hanh  b.1926

Don't say that I will depart tomorrow--even today I am still arriving.  

Look deeply: every second I am arriving to be a bud on a Spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone. 

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, to fear and to hope. The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that is alive. 

I am a mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river. And I am the bird that swoops down to swallow the mayfly. 

I am a frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond. And I am the grass-snake that silently feeds itself on the frog. 

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks. And I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda. 

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate. And I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving. 

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands. And I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood" to my people dying slowly in a forced-labour camp. 

My joy is like Spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth. My pain is like a river of tears, so vast it fills the four oceans. 

Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one. 

Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up and the door of my heart could be left open, the door of compassion. 

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Simplicity, patience, compassion.

These three are your greatest treasures.

- Lao Tzu  (6th cent BC)

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NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL ART
will be updated tomorrow
http://nowthatswhaticallart.blogspot.com

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We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path.

 - Paulo Coelho  b.1947

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from the Charles Aznavour song "Hier Encore" (1964)

Yesterday when I was young

The taste of life was sweet as rain upon my tongue,

I teased at life as if it were a foolish game,

The way the evening breeze may tease a candle flame.

The thousand dreams I dreamed, the splendid things I planned

I always built, alas, on weak and shifting sand,

I lived by night and shunned the naked light of day

And only now I see how the years ran away.

Yesterday when I was young

So many drinking songs were waiting to be sung,

So many wayward pleasures lay in store for me

And so much pain my dazzled eyes refused to see.

I ran so fast that time and youth at last ran out,

I never stopped to think what life was all about

And every conversation I can now recall

Concerned itself with me, me and nothing else at all.

Yesterday the moon was blue

And every crazy day brought something new to do,

I used my magic age as if it were a wand

And never saw the waste and emptiness beyond.

The game of love I played with arrogance and pride

And every flame I lit too quickly, quickly died.

The friends I made all seemed somehow to drift away

And only I am left on stage to end the play.

There are so many songs in me that won't be sung,

I feel the bitter taste of tears upon my tongue,

The time has come for me to pay for yesterday 

When I was young.

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Remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all I’ve taken for granted. 

- Sylvia Plath 1932-63

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Luther Standing Bear 1868-1939, 

one-time chief of the Oglaga Sioux

Three Extracts from his Writings

1) The character of the Indian's emotion left little room in his heart for antagonism toward his fellow creatures. For the Lakota (one of the three branches of the Sioux Nation), mountains, lakes, rivers, springs, valleys, and the woods were all in finished beauty. Winds, rain, snow, sunshine, day, night, and change of seasons were endlessly fascinating. Birds, insects, and animals filled the world with knowledge that defied the comprehension of man.

The Lakota was a true naturalist - a lover of Nature. He loved the earth and all things of the earth, and the attachment grew with age. The old people came literally to love the soil and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power.

It was good for the skin to touch the earth, and the old people liked to remove their moccasins and walk with bare feet on the sacred earth.

Their tipis were built upon the earth and their altars were made of earth. The birds that flew in the air came to rest upon the earth, and it was the final abiding place of all things that lived and grew. The soil was soothing, strengthening, cleansing, and healing.

2) We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills and winding streams with tangled growth as "wild."

Only to the white man was nature a "wilderness" and only to him was the land "infested" with "wild" animals and "savage" people.

To us it was tame. Earth was bountiful and we were surrounded with the blessings of the Great Mystery. Not until the hairy man from the east came and with brutal frenzy heaped injustices upon us and the families we loved was it "wild" for us.

When the very animals of the forest began fleeing from his approach, then it was that for us the "Wild West" began.

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3) I left reservation life and my native people, the Oglala Sioux, because I was no longer willing to endure existence under the control of an overseer. For about the same number of years I had tried to live a peaceful and happy life; tried to adapt myself and make re-adjustments to fit the white man’s mode of existence. But I was unsuccessful. I developed into a chronic disturber. I was a bad Indian, and the agent and I never got along. I remained a hostile, even a savage, if you please. And I still am. I am incurable.

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Beginning tomorrow at

NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL ART

http://nowthatswhaticallart.blogspot.com

PAINTINGS BY EUGENE DE BLAAS

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