11:29:38 PM EDT
For the beauty of the earth,
For the glory of the skies;
For the love which from our birth,
Over and around us lies;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This, our hymn of grateful praise.
For the joy of human love,
Brother, sister, parent, child;
Friends on Earth and friends above,
For all gentle thoughts and mild;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This, our hymn of grateful praise.
For Thy church that evermore
Lifteth holy hands above
Offering up on every shore
Perfect sacrifice of love
Lord of all to Thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.
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jamcs605
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11:45:18 PM EDT
Another rainy day
THE HOUSE WITH NOBODY IN IT
Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.
I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.
I know this house isn't haunted, and I wish it were, I do;
For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.
This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass,
And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass.
It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied;
But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.
If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid
I'd put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.
I'd buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be
And I'd find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.
Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window and door,
Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store.
But there's nothing mournful about it; it cannot be sad and lone
For the lack of something within it that it has never known.
But a house that has done what a house should do, a house that has sheltered life,
That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and held up his stumbling feet,
Is the saddest sight, when it's left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.
So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track
I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,
For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.
--Joyce Kilmer
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1:06:07 AM EDT
Some blooms
Picked some rhubarb today too. There sure is a lot of it but forgot to take a picture of the pretty flower it gets. I made rhubarb ice cream, one of Owen's favorite things. He'll be surprised to find out there is no recipe for it and he can't ever get it anywhere else.
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12:36:01 PM EDT
Hearing Undimmed by human tears....America, America...
O beautiful for patriot dream, That sees beyond the years, Thine alabaster cities gleam,
Iran
more than 4,000 dead...30,000 wounded
Afghanistan...often forgotten second war
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8:00:18 PM EDT
this and that with pictures
Saturday I put together and planted the 'crib' arbor. Planted with Cucumbers and Pole beans. Hali saw it and said 'Baby night night' and layed down in the grass under it. I didn't think she'd remember it but she did. I have planted the morning glories at the other arbor. The yellow flowers are Leopard's Bane. One of the Wisconsin native plants from last year's garden.
Kids weekend here, we've been busy shopping, playing, cleaning, gardening, etc.
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4:22:31 PM EDT
Owen says he's going to try out for Bret Favre's position.
Here he's practicing
Hali's saying I don't think so bro.
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10:40:48 PM EDT
sunny spring day
Worked in the yard, placing rocks around the little trees, pulling weeds, planting seedlings, playing.
Here are a few pictures from today.
1. My red maple is starting to leaf out
2. Owens Arbor Day Tree
3. My raised bed of Wisconsin native plants
4. Walter
5. Halis Arbor Day Tree
6. A few tulips in bloom that I thought were different..the rabbits like them too. I sure do miss my ferals.
BIRCHES
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground,
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm,
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows--
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about notlaunching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree~
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
a favorite poem by Robert Frost
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