Horses at Midnight Without a Moon

Horses in Fog By Wally Hofker (click to see original on Flickr)

Horses at Midnight Without a Moon 

by Jack Gilbert

Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods.
Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt.
But there's music in us. Hope is pushed down
but the angel flies up again taking us with her.
The summer mornings begin inch by inch
while we sleep, and walk with us later
as long-legged beauty through
the dirty streets. It is no surprise
that danger and suffering surround us.
What astonishes is the singing.
We know the horses are there in the dark
meadow because we can smell them,
can hear them breathing.
Our spirit persists like a man struggling
through the frozen valley
who suddenly smells flowers
and realizes the snow is melting
out of sight on top of the mountain,
knows that spring has begun.

Traveler (a poem by Heather Sommer)

Petal's edge of a yellow pansy (I took this last week).

Traveler
by Heather Sommer

Your first time out of the country
of your own skin, I didn’t bring a map.

You always hated that I’d been lucky
enough to pick my way through streets

I couldn’t pronounce to find cathedrals,
graveyards. If you were a city, you said,

I’d only like to know your suburbs.

If you were a city, I said, I’d like to know
your poor neighborhoods, your inner parts.

Read your graffiti. Drink your tap water.
Feel your smog and dirt stick to my sweat.

Hear your orchestra of sirens and gunshots.
I’d know which of your streets to walk.

If you were a city, I’d expect to be robbed.

— Heather Sommer

You are enough.

From Katy Woolrich (click to see original on Flickr)

This is a snippet I'm reposting from Kate Elizabeth Conner's post Ten Things I Want To Tell Teenage Girls; a beautiful message for us all:

You are beautiful. You are enough. The world we live in is twisted and broken and for your entire life you will be subjected to all kinds of lies that tell you that you are not enough. You are not thin enough. You are not tan enough. You are not smooth, soft, shiny, firm, tight, fit, silky, blonde, hairless enough. Your teeth are not white enough. Your legs are not long enough. Your clothes are not stylish enough. You are not educated enough. You don’t have enough experience. You are not creative enough.


There is a beauty industry, a fashion industry, a television industry, (and most unfortunately) a pornography industry: and all of these have unique ways of communicating to bright young women: you are not beautiful, sexy, smart or valuable enough.


You must have the clarity and common sense to know that none of that is true. None of it.


You were created for a purpose, exactly so. You have innate value. You are loved more than you could ever comprehend; it is mind-boggling how much you are adored. There has never been, and there will never be another you. Therefore, you have unique thoughts to offer the world. They are only yours, and we all lose out if you are too fearful to share them.


You are beautiful. You are valuable. You are enough.

-Kate Elizabeth Connor

Tulips on Route 1

I screeched to the side of the road on my way home from work tonight when I saw these beautiful tulips adorning the side of the highway. I had to photograph them. (This is why I always carry a camera!) Here are some of the shots:

"Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light." ~Theodore Roethke

"All flowers in time bend towards the sun,
I know you say there's no one for you, But here is one." ~Jeff Buckley

"And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers
is always the first to be touch'd by the thorns." ~Thomas Moore

(This pic had a watercolor effect applied.)

"We are all treading the vanishing road of a song in the air,
the vanishing road of the spring flowers and the winter snows,
the vanishing roads of the winds and the streams,
the vanishing road of beloved faces." ~Richard Le Gallienne

"By cultivating the beautiful we scatter the seeds of heavenly flowers,
as by doing good we cultivate those that belong to humanity." ~Robert A. Heinlein

"Stretching his hand up to reach the stars,
too often man forgets the flowers at his feet." ~Jeremy Bentham

Procrastination

By Amoo (click to view Original on Flickr)

"Procrastination. What does that word really mean? It means you are doing something you like to do because you don’t want to do something you don’t like to do.

"Hmmm, that sounds pretty good to me!

"But….but….what if you have to do the other thing. The thing you are avoiding. DON’T YOU HAVE TO?

"When a baby touches an oven it pulls its finger back and says “OW!” It learns not to do it again. Physical suffering is a great teacher. The same thing happens with emotional or mental suffering. We say “OW!” but we forget to learn not to do it again. Procrastination is a way of telling us what is causing us emotional and mental suffering.

"If you feel yourself procrastinating, shift directions a little bit. You don’t have to go 180 degrees on us. Go 10 degrees off-course at first. Think of things in a slightly different way. Then go 20 degrees. Try it on. See how it feels."

~ James Altucher, from Be Honest With Me