Dogwoods on Arbor Day

“After all, I don't see why I am always asking
for private, individual, selfish miracles
when every year there are miracles
like white [or pink] dogwood.”

~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh ~

Planting a Dogwood

Tree, we take leave of you; you’re on your own.
Put down your taproot with its probing hairs
that sluice the darkness and create unseen
the tree that mirrors you below the ground.
For when we plant a tree, two trees take root:
the one that lifts its leaves into the air,
and the inverted one that cleaves the soil
to find the runnel’s sweet, dull silver trace
and spreads not up but down, each drop a leaf
in the eternal blackness of that sky.
The leaves you show uncurl like tiny fists
and bear small button blossoms, greenish white,
that quicken you. Now put your roots down deep;
draw light from shadow, break in on earth’s sleep.

Roy Scheele

Vintage Plant Drawings
Explore the Unseen Beauty
of Complex Tree Root Systems

Previous Arbor Day Posts
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023 & Veterans Day
Arbor Vitae

"On the last day of the world
I would want to plant a tree . . . "
~ W. S. Merwin ~

An April Day

“O, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day,
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away!”

William Shakespeare
The Two Gentlemen of Verona (I, iii, 84 - 87)

Not just any April day
but Shakespeare's Birthday & Death Day
April 23, 1564 - April 23, 1616

Ariel: "On the bat's back I do fly
After summer merrily"

William Shakespeare
The Tempest (V, i, 91)

Illustration by
Ida Rentoul Outhwaite
(1888 – 1960)

One of my favorite days to celebrate!
This year, my friend Igor
made sure that I didn't let the day go by
without observation! Thanks Igor!

Ariel on a Bat's Back

Illustration by
Louis Rhead
(1857 – 1926)

Happy 459th!
Additional Shakespeare Birthday Posts

23 April 2010
18 May 2011
23 April 2012
23 April 2013
25 April 2014
29 April 2015
23 April 2016
23 April 2017
~~~
~~~
24 April 2020
~~~
~~~
23 April 2023
23 April 2024

Here On Earth

~ Mary Engelbreit ~
All - time Favorite
Always An Inspirtation

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My Lucky Rock

I said to a squirrel,
“What is that
you are carrying?”
and he said,

“It is my lucky rock;
isn’t it pretty?”
I held it and said,
“Indeed.”

I said to God,
“What is this earth?”
And God said,

“It is my lucky rock;
isn’t it wondrous?”

Yes, indeed.

By Tukaram (c 1598 - 1650)
17th Century Saint and Poet
From what is now the modern-day state of
Maharashtra, India

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Previous Earth Day Posts
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023

Birthday Girls

Happy 97th Birthday
to Queen Elizabeth
21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022

My sister - in - law Tina sent us the red Diamond Jubilee tea towel in 2012, and we saved it for 10 years -- until receiving the In Memoriam version for Christmas 2022. Now, it seems only right to start using them together as a set. As our recent down-sizing move across the country has taught us: use and enjoy! No more saving!

~~ AND ~~

Happy 207th Birthday
to Charlotte Bronte
21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855

Click to see a page of Charlotte's
childhood journal from 1826

Two decades later, putting us all to shame,
Charlotte writes:

"March 24th, 1847:

"I shall be thirty-one next birthday.
My youth is gone like a dream;
and very little use have I ever made of it.
What have I done these last thirty years?
Precious little."

Thanks to my friend Victoria,
lifelong specialist of all things Bronte,
for the heather filled locket and earrings,
imported straight from the moors of Haworth, England.

P.S.
Next to my
Bronte earrings, Jane Austen earrings
from my friend Katy.

Another Literary Coaster
from Victoria & Steven

I Felt Nothing

More about Nothing
Speaking of Nothing, I love the following introspective lyrics from A Chorus Line, but for me there has always been a huge irony in the way Diana deals with the bullshit and the absurdity -- by going to church and praying for guidance! If there was ever anything in my coming of age that left me feeling empty, even after digging way down to the bottom of my soul, it was going to church.

Just like the character Diana, I prayed, "Help me feel it . . . pretty please." But there was no voice; there was nothing. I did, however, eventually draw a conclusion similar to Diana's: "If you want something, / Go find another class" (likewise Langston Hughes).

Nothing

[DIANA]
I'm so excited because I'm gonna go
to the High School of Performing Arts!
I mean, I was dying to be a serious actress.
Anyway, it's the first day acting class-
and we're in the auditorium and the teacher,
Mr. Karp . . . Oh, Mr. Karp . . .
Anyway, he puts us up on the stage with
our legs around each other,
one in back of the other and he says:
"Okay... we're going to do improvisations.
Now, you're on a bobsled. It's snowing out.
And it's cold . . . Okay . . . GO!"

Ev'ry day for a week we would try to
Feel the motion, feel the motion
Down the hill.

Ev'ry day for a week we would try to
Hear the wind rush, hear the wind rush,
Feel the chill.

And I dug right down to the bottom of my soul
To see what I had inside.
Yes, I dug right down to the bottom of my soul
And I tried, I tried.

[Spoken]
And everybody's goin' "Whooooosh, whooooosh ...
I feel the snow . . . I feel the cold . . . I feel the air."
And Mr. Karp turns to me and he says,
"Okay, Morales. What did you feel?"

[Sings]
And I said . . . "Nothing,
I'm feeling nothing,"
And he says "Nothing
Could get a girl transferred."

They all felt something,
But I felt nothing
Except the feeling
That this bullshit was absurd!

[Spoken]
But I said to myself, "Hey, it's only the first week.
Maybe it's genetic.
They don't have bobsleds in San Juan!"

[Sings]
Second week, more advanced, and we had to
Be a table, be a sportscar . . .
Ice-cream cone.

Mister Karp, he would say,"Very good,
except Morales. Try, Morales,
All alone."

And I dug right down to the bottom of my soul
To see how an ice cream felt.
Yes, I dug right down to the bottom of my soul
And I tried to melt.

The kids yelled, "Nothing!"
They called me "Nothing"
And Karp allowed it,
Which really makes me burn.

The were so helpful.
They called me "Hopeless",
Until I really didn't know
Where else to turn.

[Spoken]
And Karp kept saying,
"Morales, I think you should transfer to Girl's High,
You'll never be an actress, Never!" Jesus Christ!

Went to church, praying, "Santa Maria,
Send me guidance, send me guidance,"
On my knees.

Went to church, praying, "Santa Maria,
Help me feel it, help me feel it.
Pretty please!"

And a voice from down at the bottom of my soul
Came up to the top of my head.
And the voice from down at the bottom of my soul,
Here is what it said:

"This man is nothing!
This course is nothing!
If you want something,
Go find another class / [church].

And when you find one
You'll be an actress" / [accepted]
And I assure you that's what
Fin'lly came to pass.

Six months later I heard that Karp had died.
And I dug right down to the bottom of my soul...
And cried.
'Cause I felt . . . nothing. [all ellipses in original; emphasis added]

from A Chorus Line
lyrics by Edward Kleban (April 30, 1939 – December 28, 1987)
music by Marvin Hamlisch (June 2, 1944 – August 6, 2012)

Not sure why -- a sign of the times? --
but it seems to be the case so often these days
that in response to calamity and tragedy,
I just feel . . . nothing.

Some Existential Cartoons

More by Tom Gauld

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More about Roz Chast

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From New Scientist Magazine
Edited by Jeremy Webb

Like a Coloured Map

"Countryside Landscape from the Hills"
Paint By Number

"How often he had ridden over there on fine days in summer, or in early spring, before the green was out, when the whole country was pink and blue and yellow, like a coloured map. . . . one looked down into a sunken world of green fields and gardens, with a pink adobe town, at the bottom of this great ditch. The men and mules walking about down there, or plowing the fields, looked like the figures of a child's Noah's ark." (164 - 65)

by Willa Cather
from Death Comes for the Archbishop

"Pink Adobe"
Paint by Number

~ And this pink house! ~

Further reading:
This lovely blogpost, featuring both
Willa Cather & Georgia O'Keefe

Long-Lasting: A Full Month Later

March 13, 2023

Never before have my daffodils last so long.
A month later, and the flower bed is still in bloom!

April 13, 2023

Even so, I know they can't last forever. My friend Beata's Easter meditation, comparing life to a floating soap bubble, applies also to the delicate springtime bulbs:

"Life is so fragile - bańka mydlana - like a soap bubble. We are mesmerized by its lightness, shine and flow - its flowing existence in our proximal space; but then it is nothing, nonexistent, nonessential in a matter of one second. The space has been emptied for other textures, substances and objects."

An Unclouded Sky

Uncloudy Day

Oh, they tell me of a home far beyond the skies
Oh, they tell me of a home far away
Oh, they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise
Oh, they tell me of an unclouded day

Oh, the land of cloudless day
Oh, the land of an unclouded sky
Oh, they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise
Oh, they tell me of an unclouded day

Oh, they tell me of a home where my friends have gone
Oh, they tell me of that land far away
Where the tree of life in eternal bloom
Sheds its fragrance through the unclouded day

Oh, the land of cloudless day
Oh, the land of an unclouded sky
Oh, they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise
Oh, they tell me of an unclouded day

Oh, they tell me of a King in His beauty there
And they tell me that mine eyes shall behold
Where He sits on the throne that is whiter than snow
In the city that is made of gold

Oh, the land of cloudless day
Oh, the land of an unclouded sky
Oh, they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise
Oh, they tell me of an unclouded day

Oh, they tell me that He smiles on His children there
And His smile drives their sorrows all away
And they tell me that no tears ever come again
In that lovely land of unclouded day

Oh, the land of cloudless day
Oh, the land of an unclouded sky
Oh, they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise
Oh, they tell me of an unclouded day

Music and lyrics by
Josiah K. Alwood (1828 - 1909)

Sung by:
Willie Nelson
Mavis Staples

Happy Easter!

Felicitations!

Easter Eve

Coming From Evening Church, 1830
by Samuel Palmer, 1805 - 1881

Out for a late walk . . .

Scraps of Useless Information

A sunny backyard view ~ Great Crosby ~ suburb of Liverpool

Oh, to be in England . . .
In Grim & Gram's Back Garden

Beata: Here we have grey clouds and high winds.
Grandpa Ron's house - a world's difference!

Etta: Those buildings and clouds in the background
are so scenic and quaint they don't look real!

Jes: Is that for real? Bucolic and beautiful.
Enjoy the Motherland!

Kathleen: So pretty, bucolic.

Katie: Love the little green bench
and the red letter box.
Gorgeous . . . that perfect sky!

Katy: Like a Kincaid painting!
Too pretty to be real.

Lisa: That is absolutely beautiful!

Mumbi: A nice place to relax
and watch the flowers bloom.

Sandy SK: Thank you for sharing;
blustery, rainy, and cold here;
glad you have sunshine and time with the family.

And now, a word
from one of our favorite Brits:

“Anyone who cares to examine my work will see that even when it is downright propaganda it contains much that a full-time politician would consider irrelevant. I am not able, and do not want, completely to abandon the world view that I acquired in childhood. So long as I remain alive and well I shall continue to feel strongly about prose style, to love the surface of the earth, and to take a pleasure in solid objects and scraps of useless information. It is no use trying to suppress that side of myself. The job is to reconcile my ingrained likes and dislikes with the essentially public, non-individual activities that this age forces on all of us.”

by George Orwell (1903 – 1950)
from the essay Why I Write
Thanks Rebecca Solnit

". . . scraps of useless information . . . "
Could that, by any chance, be the quotidian?

Uncle Rudy

Rest in Peace Uncle Rudy
~ died 79 years ago today~

TSgt Raymond R. Carriker
b. June 3, 1921 - d. April 1, 1944
93rd Bombardment Group
Stationed at RAF Hardwick, Norfolk, UK
Killed in action, over Reims, France

Rudy was my father's older brother; their youngest brother -- my Uncle Don has written a sad and beautiful tribute to Rudy's service in the 8th Army Air Corps:

So Briefly An Eagle

The Carriker Family

Grandma Adeline "Shug" ~ Grandpa Willard "Jack" ~ Rudy ~ Robert
Willard [my dad] ~ Frances ~ Gene
Don

Summer 2005
Dear Uncle Don,

Thanks so much for your notes earlier in the summer, and please forgive my delay in getting back to you. How is your Uncle Rudy" project coming along? I greatly look forward to reading it. Last night, Gerry, Ben, Sam and I were watching that old romantic 1980s movie, Yanks, in which a young Richard Gere plays an American soldier stationed in England during WWII. It got me thinking -- did Uncle Rudy have a girlfriend in England? Or someone back home in Kansas? I suddenly felt very sad to think that I knew so little about him. Your book will help fill a gap for all of us.

I got your note about Hardwick the very day we left for England, so I'm very sorry to say that it wasn't possible for me to visit there this summer, but now that I know where it is, maybe I can make it sometime in the future. The location is on the opposite side of the country from Gerry's parents (they are in the north west, just outside of Liverpool; Hardwick is in Norfolk, in the south east). But, who knows, maybe one year before long Ben or Sam will be doing an internship in Cambridge and I'll find myself visiting that part of the country.

All the research I did was just on web here from home, which of course you can easily do also and probably have done already to a much greater extent than I. Still, I'm going to go ahead and send you what I found just in case you don't have it already. If you do, well, just delete. No harm in that!

Reply from Uncle Don

Thanks for the info on Hardwick. Some of it I had seen, some not. Uncle Rudy, as I remember him -- and keep in mind that I was 12 when he died -- was the quintessential "big brother" to me. He is the only one of my brothers (frankly) who had very much to do with me. Now -- in my memory -- he has grown to mythic proportions and I realize that.

Unfortunately he was not much of a writer and left almost no "tracks" behind. A few pictures and a few letters mostly of the "How are you? I'm fine." genre. He went through public school in a very dark time, dealing with extreme poverty, much more "poverty" than anyone in the USA has suffered for decades. So he was not really well educated. But he deserves to be memorialized as best as can be done. He was a gregarious, kind, generous, young man who loved the girls, and loved "real" people, and had the ability to charm them pretty well.

As far as I know, he never dated any English lasses. Quite honestly what little he said about the English people was not complimentary. He did not care for the British "reserve." When I wrote asking him what the English people were like he replied by saying they are cold and unfriendly. "When you speak to them on the street they give you a go to hell look and don't answer." That would've turned him off because he loved interacting with people. But then, the British weren't too fond of the "Yanks." I've heard that the Brits comment about the "Yanks" during the war was, "They're overpaid, oversexed, and over here." It must have been a trying time for "the cousins."

When I complete his biography, God willing, you shall have a copy.

Love, Uncle Don