OT ~ Welcome to Saturday!

Submitted by smiley7 on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 6:05am

Sit-a-while
on swinging porch
where tin-dippers and
sweet water
in cool touches
meet lips
from hand dug wells.

I have always tried to hide my efforts and wished my works to have the light joyousness of springtime, which never lets anyone suspect the labors it has cost me.... ~ Henri Matisse

Good morning good people,

Dancing in harmony should not be a difficult enterprise. The earth needs a moment like the green before sunset breathing in delicious words.

How do i tell you what you mean to me, what it is to be human, anyways?

Toddlers toddle as sensors grow, naturally

destined to sidewalks

walking upright

groomed to slave in Plato’s cave

few steps pointing up, too many nights in frights

Lent the hand of god in excuses

on pews saturated,

stained in tears

polished into constraining norms

sliding to the knees just as am, singing in chorus

Turns out not to be

running amok, causing wars

crippling babies on distant shores

taking money from the chores

having no mores, no mores,

U S A, U S A

no candles in the caves

or delicious tastes in words.

I tire as I carve the passage
Til the wind peeks out from underneath.
Yes, I guess this is clean now.

And the worked-over sounds
of newly learned notes on the violin
escape the box beneath my chin

and bustle out the window beside me,
off on their own like geese
following the curve of the sky curtain,

their way lit periodically
by lanterns
pounded into the clouds

by the brushes of Sienese painters.
And now,
isn't it strange—

the room feels empty,
like towns after men have left for sorrow,
and though I could play these notes again,

they feel gone for good.
There is something about notes—
the lines and dots themselves—

that make them so hard to open up
as if really getting them right

meant keeping sand from the oyster
when you pry open its shell on the beach
looking for pearls.

~ Like Children by Gabriel Boyers

To early to see what this day will bring; a little chill in the air mixed with green leaves failing to turn. Hoping each of you have, as Cornelius Hackl said, "If i have to be a ditch-digger for the rest of my life, I'll be a ditch-digger who once had a wonderful day!" ~ Thornton Wilder
The porch is yours ...

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Submitted by HenryAWallace on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 7:32am

Poetry and music. What a wonderful way to start a

Saturday.

Thank you so much, smiley. I'd never heard any of those songs before.

I have nothing to add. I'm just happy.

Submitted by smiley7 on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 7:40am

Good morning, Henry,

@HenryAWallace

Glad you are happy; feeling rather good this morning, too.

Have a great one.

Submitted by randtntx on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 8:18am

Good morning smiley

good to see you. The Matisse puts me in mind of this:

The morning wind spreads its fresh smell.
We must get up and take that in,
that wind that lets us live.
Breathe before it's gone.
Dance, when your're broken open.
Dance, if you've torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of the fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance, when you're perfectly free.

Rumi

Submitted by smiley7 on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 9:47am

Good morning, randtntx; thanks for the poem,

@randtntx @randtntx
apropos, dervish for real.

More Matisse:
The essential thing is to spring forth, to express the bolt of lightning one senses upon contact with a thing. The function of the artist is not to translate an observation but to express the shock of the object on his nature; the shock, with the original reaction.

Submitted by randtntx on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 10:09am

I love that,

@smiley7 artistic inspiration, recognition. We all experience this at times, we just forget.

Submitted by randtntx on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 8:35am

With a nod towards

other parts of your OT:

Submitted by randtntx on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 9:08am

Your OT runs the gamut of our situation.

causing wars

crippling babies on distant shores

taking money from the chores

Submitted by smiley7 on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 9:55am

goosebumps listening, "this not the way to put an end to war."

@randtntx
Lots of words concerning war in essays and threads this week; question remains, is anybody listening but the saints?

Submitted by randtntx on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 10:06am

I don't know.

@smiley7 but I wish at least the kids would listen. Everyone knows it's unsustainable and will be the end of all of us.

Submitted by randtntx on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 9:22am

Columbus day

and unvarnished history. The most important question is how do we live, and what is the path forward. The hippies were right in their ideals of simplicity, community, dance, joy, and honoring the connection to mother earth. I wonder if we can ever get back to the garden.

Submitted by smiley7 on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 10:27am

Have never lost the feelings, the

@randtntx
camaraderie i recall with thumb out and welcome mats everywhere.

Young man, friend from our village, a good man with three kids i know stopped on I 40 in Oklahoma under $100,000 bail for five pounds of weed.

Struggling to help from afar; apparently it's the latest money-maker filling the route back east's small town coffers, impounded vehicle too. Damn, it dangerous out there in many ways.

Oh well, back to dance:

Cheers for the great music and hoping you've a wonderful weekend.

Submitted by enhydra lutris on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 10:11am

Good morning, Smiley7. Time to get going here and the Kuti

really helps with that endeavor. Farmers' market day, also bread making day and we have to decide whether there is a proper time interval for us to walk to farmers' market and back, which would be a first for us. It's only a bit over 2 miles, but should take us at least 1/2 hour to walk each way and we have a semi-rigid schedule for the bread rise and knead periods and intervals. Trivial, but it beats the hell out of worrying about climate collapse and the coming economic melt-down.

Have a great day.

—

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Submitted by smiley7 on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 10:52am

Good morning, el.

@enhydra lutris

Enjoy the hike. Baked twice this season thus far as it's cool enough to have the stove on. Purchased semolina and did a double overnight rise for pizza dough, yummy. And a round of french bread.

It's a good day to bake, think i'll take along the ingredients and bake this afternoon as i'm off to dogsit for the night, soon. Thanks for the idea.

Hoping you two have a wonderful weekend.

Submitted by Anja Geitz on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 10:49am

I had a dream last night

Where I was living in Manhattan again taking a walk with an old friend along the Hudson River.

Over on the East Side was the moon.

Big and Close.

Like REALLY BIG and REALLY CLOSE.

"Wow, that's beautiful," my friend said.

Epically so.

But it was also frightening because it was now so BIG and so CLOSE it filled the sky like some other worldly alien ship about to land

"There is something wrong with this" I said,

Still moving closer. Still getting bigger.

Weirdly, it never made a sound when it hit land.

Plowing through the buildings like they were Lincoln logs.

Watching in horror.

It felt exactly like it did standing on the roof of my apartment building on September 11th when in an instant, the WTC turned into expanding clouds of dust taking everything and everyone that was once inside of it.

Away.

—

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Submitted by smiley7 on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 11:14am

zoebear; touches deep.

Been trying to express the uneasiness i feel lately as well, and anxiety--the leaves not changing--ominous, but it doesn't reach the trauma of your experience that day.

Hugs.

Thanks for sharing.

Submitted by Anja Geitz on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 1:42pm

I had a dream the morning of 9/11

@smiley7

Where I was on the LIRR and I knew it was going to crash. The only way for me to survive was to pry the doors open. I kept banging away at them with my shoulder not knowing how many seconds I had left before impact. When all of a sudden the doors opened and I went tumbling out.

I woke up as soon as I hit the ground in my dream. I had a terribly stiff shoulder which I put a heating pad on and some hot ointment.

I was temping for Morgan Stanley that morning and called my agency to say that I would be running late.

My assignment was supposed to be on the 16th floor at the WTC but had been cancelled that day.

—

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Submitted by Deja on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 2:37pm

Whoah!!!! Goosebumps n/t

@Anja Geitz

Submitted by smiley7 on Mon, 10/22/2018 - 8:35am

zoebear,

@Anja Geitz
Late replying, had a dogsit Sat. afternoon through yesterday.

What a memory, extraordinary as if you had a premonition. Recall watching on a small TV in editor's office; that was bad enough, but to have been in the city is a perspective altogether
shocking, and the dream, Deja is right, wow, the thoughts penetrate.

Again, thanks for sharing.

Submitted by mimi on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 11:25am

What is so beautiful about you writing here is

that I always start smiling just by reading your name.
Your are blessed with smiles all around. I am sure of that. Thank you for the songs, I am a little down and they made me lighten up.

—

https://www.euronews.com/live

Submitted by smiley7 on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 11:52am

Bittersweet may best describe the mood as

@mimi

the words flow today so goes the world; maybe it's the fall we feel, letting go of summer before the cold. One thing is for sure, the news, the constant bombardment of trump's, must unnerve us all; well, except his cheerleaders; where do those people come from? Next door, sadly.

In this, we must embrace, hold hands across the sea ... cause we must.

Thank you, my friend, for being here.

Submitted by lotlizard on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 12:22pm

Latest German election poll (federal)

Nationwide, if federal election were next Sunday
27 % CDU – Christian Democrats; chancellor Angela Merkel’s party
20 Greens
16 AfD – Alternative for Germany; right-wing populists
14 SPD – Social Democrats
10 Left Party
8 FDP – Free Democrats, laissez-faire-economics party; “liberals” (European terminology)
5 other parties (each below 5 percent cutoff, winning no seats)
——
Source (FG Wahlen released Oct. 19, via ZDF TV):
https://www.zdf.de/politik/politbarometer/union-und-spd-so-schwach-wie-n...

This latest poll has Greens overtaking Social Democrats as the second largest party nationally as well, after doing so in individual states.

Submitted by smiley7 on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 12:31pm

Cheers for the news.

@lotlizard

Hoping you have a good weekend.

Submitted by magiamma on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 1:27pm

Yay

@lotlizard
Thanks for the update @lotlizard

—

Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

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Submitted by magiamma on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 12:46pm

good morning smiley...

Thank you for the poetry.

"Dancing in harmony should not be a difficult enterprise. The earth needs a moment like the green before sunset breathing in delicious words."

Boyer's words remind me of Varo's images
varo alchemy.jpg

and the music
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3Z6LHtxN3U]

Have a good one.

—

Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook

Submitted by smiley7 on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 1:18pm

Hi magi,

Stunning piece, thank you. Love the Silkroad.

Good one to you, too, cheers

Submitted by magiamma on Sat, 10/20/2018 - 2:13pm

It really is bittersweet

@smiley7
How can there be so much beauty and so much sadness at the same time. Thanks for keeping the light turned towards goodness. We need music and art more than ever now.

—

Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook