A Challenge

If you enter the New York City Public Library along 41st Street, you will walk past a series of brass engraved plaques.

The Challenge: Look through all the quotes and comment here in the blog on the one that spoke you the most.

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Ashokan Farewell

by Grian MacGregor

TO WATCH: http://youtu.be/HxDP6q6C5mE

The sun is sinking low in the sky above Ashokan.
The pines and the willows know soon we will part.
There's a whisper in the wind of promises unspoken,
And a love that will always remain in my heart.

My thoughts will return to the sound of your laughter,
The magic of moving as one,
And a time we'll remember long ever after
The moonlight and music and dancing are done.

Will we climb the hills once more?
Will we walk the woods together?
Will I feel you holding me close once again?
Will every song we've sung stay with us forever?
Will you dance in my dreams or my arms until then?

Under the moon the mountains lie sleeping
Over the lake the stars shine.
They wonder if you and I will be keeping
The magic and music, or leave them behind.

To Autumn-Keats

 
I

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
      Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
      To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
      For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.


II                                  

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
   Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
      Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
   Steady thy laden head across a brook;
   Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
   Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.


III

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
   And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
   Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
   Among the river sallows, borne aloft
      Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
      The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
      And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Ode to the West Wind - Percy Bysshe Shelley

Please look here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2018182534522.2100203.1242652615

Remember Me



REMEMBER me when I am gone away,   
Gone far away into the silent land;   
When you can no more hold me by the hand,   
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.   
Remember me when no more day by day 
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:   
Only remember me; you understand   
It will be late to counsel then or pray.   
Yet if you should forget me for a while   
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave   
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,   
Better by far you should forget and smile   
Than that you should remember and be sad.

Christina Rossetti

I am from...

“I am from”

Got this idea from the radio show and blog "ON BEING." Let’s use this incomplete line as an opportunity to share and learn about each other, have a little fun.

Here are the guidelines: answer it any way you like. If you want to build on this phrase in prose — with one word, one sentence, one paragraph, one essay, then do so. If you want to finish this phrase with a photo or a photo essay, then do it. If you want to elaborate on this phrase with a line of poesy or a stanza, then do so.

Share something about yourself, your heritage, your geography, your interior mind, your imaginings or vulnerabilities.

Guess Title and Fill In Blanks, Just One Word.

My mother loves ___ more than I do,

more than anyone. She pulls chunks off

the stick and eats it plain, explaining

cream spun around into ____! Growing up

we ate turkey cutlets sauteed in lemon

and ____, ____ and cheese on green noodles,

___ melting in small pools in the hearts

of Yorkshire puddings, ___ better

than gravy staining white rice yellow,

___ glazing corn in slipping squares,

___ the lava in white volcanoes

of hominy grits, ___ softening

in a white bowl to be creamed with white

sugar, ___ disappearing into

whipped sweet potatoes, with pineapple,

___ melted and curdy to pour

over pancakes, ___ licked off the plate

with warm Alaga syrup. When I picture

the good old days I am grinning greasy

with my brother, having watched the tiger

chase his tail and turn to ___. We are

Mumbo and Jumbo’s children despite

historical revision, despite

our parent’s efforts, glowing from the inside

out, one hundred megawatts of ___.