Two years ago today...

Nights
Return you to me for a while, as sleep returns sleep
To a landscape ravaged
& familiar. The dark watermark of your absence, a hush.

-David St. John

August 29, 2010

"It takes a long time to grow young...you must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children." -Pablo Picasso

Happy Birthday, Michael.
Keep the Faith.

June 25, 2010

To My Brother [by Louise Bogan]

you so long dead,
You masked and obscure,

I can tell you, all things endure:
The wine and the bread;

The marble quarried for the arch;
The iron become steel;
The spoke broken from the wheel;
The sweat of the long march;

The hay-stacks cut through like loaves
and the hundred flowers from the seed;
All things indeed
Though struck by the hooves

Of disaster, of time due,
Of fell loss and gain,
All things remain,
I can tell you, this is true.

Though burned down to stone
Though lost from the eye,
I can tell you, and not lie,
Save of peace alone.

Dante shoved her chair violently aside and left the table, upsetting her napkin ring which rolled slowly along the carpet and came to rest against the foot of an easy chair. Mrs Dedalus rose quickly and followed her towards the door.

At the door Dante turned round violently and shouted down the room, her cheeks flushed and quivering with rage:


-Devil out of hell! We won! We crushed him to death! Fiend!


The door slammed behind her.


Mr Casey, freeing his arms from his holders, suddenly bowed his head on his hands with a sob of pain.


-Poor Parnell! he cried loudly. My dead king!


He sobbed loudly and bitterly.


Stephen, raising his terror stricken face, saw that his father's eyes were full of tears.

-James Joyce, from "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,--but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,--
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
-Edna St. Vincent Millay

SONG

This is the song of those who live alone,
who, when the boat has sailed, the plane has flown,
the train is gone,
turning from an open space to a closed one,
are confronted by other visitors --
promiscuous affection, impotent devotion.

Too little and too late! Too much and much too soon.
When the heart has lost its wisdom,
how shall it be educated?
How, living in a room of more than ordinary view,
can the view be delimited
or the room contain two --
not one and a multitude?

Watchers from behind curtained windows,
receivers of a monthly letter,
lingerers under the arches of bridges,
driftwood and fine-edition collectors,
artists, all of you, in all save living,
pariahs and saints -- this song is for you.
--William Justema

Happy Birthday, Magical Child!

Dear Paris,

Happy 12th Birthday! You are growing up and into a lovely young girl, but I have a feeling that at any age, you will always be a Magical Child. I hope you feel in your heart how much love there is for you out here in the world of people you don't know. I -- as well as so many others I'm sure -- continue to keep you and your brothers in my thoughts and prayers.

Click here for my 'Happy Birthday to Paris' video.

"For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings..."

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday, Prince [February 13th]
Happy Birthday, Blanket [today, February 21st]

To all of you -- Prince, Paris and Blanket -- you are in my thoughts and prayers, as well as in the thoughts and prayers of so many others. You are special people, and you are dearly loved.

Click here for a Happy Birthday video.

My tiny little tribute to Michael Jackson

I am not ready to let you go. If only I could be like Katie and call you back to us again so that we could feel (as she felt your strong arms holding her) your strength all around us -- the strength born of struggle and trials that just made your soul more beautiful, your heart more empathetic, and your art more awe-inspiring. Like Katie, I miss you so and wish with all my heart that you could come back to us -- not only for the creations you gave us but also for yourself, for being an example of making it through some of the worst pain people can inflict and coming out on the other side -- still with love in your heart. The love you had and gave in so many ways helps sustain me (and I'm sure many others) during my own dark days. Maybe we can't get that living, breathing, warm and beautiful person back as she could, but we still have all you gave us, and I know that if you could, you'd be comforting our hearts, still aching so much over losing you, by singing to us how we should 'just smile.' I love you, Michael: the man who made my jaw drop with dances that seemed to defy gravity; who sang with such pathos you made me cry; who wrote such beautiful music AND words, and tried to help so many of the helpless around you; who insisted on being himself and following his heart, no matter how many attacks he received for being 'different'; a man who, besides remarkable talent, I believe had a philosopher's curiosity and scholar's intellect: all of this you had but most importantly and uniquely, a beautiful child's heart and the strength to keep it pure and not allow cynicism or cruelty to defeat you. I hope wherever you are now you are as truly happy as you always deserved to be, and the only thing I can do in your honor is to try to follow your example in my own limited way. [9/10/09, 7:53 am]