#life
AIN’T MY PENNY NO MORE
by Haley Jameson
In a small town
somewhere South
somewhere East
where there were more corn
and more green beans
than people,
I asked my brother
about his dreams.
He told me,
“You gotta get out soon,
start planning now
or you’ll be stuck here.”
“Like you?”
“Like me,” and he
plodded along with his back
hunched low
and his hoe cutting deep.
From a distance,
he looked no different
than a workhorse.
I started working odd jobs,
delivery here
grocery clerk there,
and I started putting
everything into my porcelain
piggy.
But Daddy got sick,
so I gave Mama
half my savings.
So I gave Mama
all my savings.
I had to pick up the slack
help lift the burden
’cause Daddy couldn’t work
no more.
But I could.
Daddy had something
growing inside him
something bad
something big
and it was hungry,
just like we were.
And it ate Daddy,
took all the meat
off his bones
until he was just a skeleton
and then it ate his bones, too.
“That’s one less mouth to
feed,” Mama said
and I agreed.
So I started saving up again.
My brother’s hunched back
got permanent,
and he didn’t talk to me no
more about leaving.
He started showing me how
to farm
just like Daddy showed him.
But I knew if I picked up that
hoe,
I ain’t gonna be getting out of
here no more.
I saved every penny I could
said I gotta keep saving
while the savings were mine.
But then Mama got sick.
So I gave my brother
half my savings.
So I gave him
all my savings.
I had to pick up the slack
carry the burden on both
shoulders now.
Mama had swallowed the
whole ocean
and it filled up her lungs
and no matter how much she
coughed
she just couldn’t get that
water back out.
It swallowed her,
too.
“That’s one less mouth to
feed,” my brother said
and I agreed
and he handed me that hoe
and I took it.
—from Rattle #82, Winter 2023
Haley Jameson: “I journal through poetry. I’ll write about a mundane event or follow a train of thought to the end. It’s healing to get it out of my head and see it written down in front of me, whether it makes sense or not.”
Clarity
by Vievee Francis
Sorrow, O sorrow, moves like a loose flock
of blackbirds sweeping over the metal roofs, over the birches,
and the miles.
One wave after another, then another, then the sudden
opening
where the feathered swirl, illumined by dusk, parts to reveal
the weeping
heart of all things.
About this poem:
“Clarity is hard to come by. I believe in paths, and I have set myself upon mine. I believe in openings, like signals toward extraordinary possibilities. I hear it in a susurration of birds, a large flock I cannot identify moving overhead at sunset. Their calls billowing over this valley. As I listen, intently, I lose the sound and find myself enrapt by a thought. A new thought. The sound takes me somewhere then brings me back. Aren’t we all feeling some dread sorrow? It seems to me the birds echo the restless ache that I am only free of when I am sleeping, and even then—but, as I watch those birds in stark silhouette against the sky I never fail to see a brief opening. A sudden lustrous disclosure. Others are listening and watching the winged creatures with the same awe. Together we watch the dark-swung canopy open and we, because we feel lifted, we know, you and I, the weight of our lives.”
—Vievee Francis
https://mailchi.mp/poets/january-12-2024-poemaday-12138304-331miebijr-12138888?e=2706955217
Photo by Suitcase Joe.
🛒 [SIDEWALK CHAMPIONS series]
https://www.flaunt.com/blog/sidewalk-champions
#SuitcaseJoe #sidewalk #champions #SkidRow
#LA #homelessness #bw #street #life #portrait #photo #art
A Sanctuary Made of Books
https://lithub.com/a-sanctuary-made-of-books-stephen-mccauleys-love-letter-to-writing-in-libraries/
Not my way!
I don't think this can lead to a #natural, #sustainable #life close to nature.
The higher you are in the north, the more #sensitive #nature is. The #destruction caused in a few months will take centuries to regenerate
#Klima-Vorbild #Schweden?
#Energiewende im hohen #Norden
(The audio is available in German and French as well as subtitles in French.)
https://static-cdn.arte.tv/de/videos/107193-008-A/re-klima-vorbild-schweden/
Our #capitalism cannot tolerate permanently satisfied consumers, as it thrives on people trying to satisfy their dissatisfaction with #consumption.
Each #card in the #Major #Arcana has a path on the #Tree #of #Life leading from #Kether to #Malkuth,
Primary #Tarot Correspondences for the Major Arcana
The Fool: Air
The Magician: Mercury
High Priestess: Moon
The Empress: Venus
The Emperor: Aries
The Hierophant: Taurus
The Lovers: Gemini
The Chariot: Cancer
Strength: Leo
The Hermit: Virgo
Wheel of Fortune: Jupiter
Justice: Libra
The Hanged Man: Water
Death: Scorpio
Temperance: Sagittarius
The Devil: Capricorn
The Tower: Mars
The Star: Aquarius
The Moon: Pisces
The Sun: Sun
Judgement: Fire
The World: Earth (element) / Saturn
A quotation from Gibran, Kahlil
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) Lebanese-American poet, writer, painter [Gibran Khalil Gibran]
“On Children,” The Prophet (1923)
#quote #quotes #quotation #children #childrearing #parenting #autonomy #future #independence #life #parent #posterity
Sourcing / notes: https://wist.info/gibran-kahlil/35352/
The real and complicated reasons why Los Angeles still has so many RV encampments
Those who live on Jefferson Boulevard see themselves as residents, the block along the Freshwater Marsh as their neighborhood, and their RVs spread throughout it like houses with addresses and yards. They look out for one another too.
#la #California #usa #homeless #problem #news #life #society
The coolest part about having a garden is to be able to walk out in the morning and pick a small handful of raspberries for my yoghurt.
Pretty good life.
Also if I dissappear I have developed a medical condition and I might drop dead at any point between now and when they can book in medical treatment which is not cool but I will enjoy what life gives me.
If I do survive I am making plans to change the world, I am getting very disappointed with the status quo.
Cheers
https://mastodon.social/@br00t4c/111603312474017623 br00t4c@mastodon.social - "Museum of Austerity" tells story of those killed due to punitive UK benefits system
https://youtube.com/watch?v=pNTd7yCNN4chttps://youtube.com/watch?v=pNTd7yCNN4c
#64
Terrence howard and the #flower of #life #floweroflife #terrencehoward
ON REALIZING THERE ARE TOO MANY POEMS ABOUT ONIONS, PEARS, AND BRUEGHEL’S PAINTINGS
by M.L. Clark
While cutting an onion I am reminded of Brueghel,
the lack of tears in his art. Mine are everywhere, yet his
paradise of dancers runs dry—too busy with the frenzy
of living—and even in The Triumph, the littered dying
do not weep—busy, in their own way, with the frenzy
of becoming dead. But I am still alone in the kitchen,
no orgiastic throng to advance my sullen mood as art;
there is time enough for me to cry. Who will stop me?
The pears ripening on the sill—bitter, mealy, and hard—
are making more of themselves, growing crisp and fresh
in the wan, white light of the world. Neutral, indifferent,
they cannot tell me what to do. So I think about layers
because they are there, because they are easy. Onions
cannot help being metaphors; they would rather stay
mysteries in the moist soil. They would rather I unwrap
myself. If I could, I tell them through the blur, I would.
—from Rattle #28, Winter 2007
A person who lacks the means, within himself, to live a good and happy life will find any period of his existence wearisome. But rely for life’s blessings on your own resources, and you will not take a gloomy view of any of the inevitable consequences of nature’s laws. Everyone hopes to attain an advanced age; yet when it comes they all complain! So foolishly inconsistent and perverse can people be.
[Quibus enim nihil est in ipsis opis ad bene beateque vivendum, eis omnis aetas gravis est; qui autem omnia bona a se ipsi petunt, eis nihil malum potest videri quod naturae necessitas adferat. Quo in genere est in primis senectus, quam ut adipiscantur omnes optant, eandem accusant adeptam; tanta est stultitiae inconstantia atque perversitas.]
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
De Senectute [Cato Maior; On Old Age], ch. 2 / sec. 4 (2.4) [Cato] (44 BC) [tr. Grant (1960, 1971 ed.)]
#quote #quotes #quotation #aging #contentment #oldage #complaint #humannature #life #nature #self-sufficiency
Sourcing / notes: https://wist.info/cicero-marcus-tullius/65511/
