Come Little Leaves

"Beautiful, dramatic October,
I wish it could last for a year!"
Gladys Taber

One of Gerry's childhood favorites from
Treasure Magazine
Reprinted from Look and Learn
Come, Little Leaves
by George Cooper

"Come, little leaves," said the wind one day.
"Come over the meadows with me and play;
Put on your dresses of red and gold,
For summer is gone and the days grow cold

Soon as the leaves heard the wind's loud call,
Down they came fluttering, one and all;
Over the brown fields they danced and flew,
Singing the sweet little song they knew.

"Cricket, good-bye, we've been friends so long,
Little brook, sing us your farewell song;
Say you're sorry to see us go;
Ah! you will miss us, right well we know.

"Dear little lambs, in your fleecy fold,
Mother will keep you from harm and cold;
Fondly we've watched you in vale and glade,
Say, will you dream of our loving shade?"

Dancing and whirling the little leaves went,
Winter had called them, and they were content,
Soon fast asleep in their earthy beds,
The snow laid a soft mantle over their heads.

also by Cooper . . .

October's Party

October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came-
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band.

The Chestnuts came in yellow,
The Oaks in crimson dressed;
The lovely Misses Maple
In scarlet looked their best;
All balanced to their partners,
And gaily fluttered by;
The sight was like a rainbow
New fallen from the sky.

Then, in the rustic hollow,
At hide-and-seek they played,
The party closed at sundown,
And everybody stayed.
Professor Wind played louder;
They flew along the ground;
And then the party ended
In jolly "hands around."

Come, little leaves . . . and . . . play with Beaumont!

A Song for Gandhi's Birthday

2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948

Mohandas Gandhi
Statue in Union Square, New York City
(I know there are better pictures on the web,
but I like this one because I took it myself, June 2007)

"Whither go the people?
I must hasten to follow them for I am their leader."
~~ Gandhi ~~

Rhymes and Reasons
Words and music by
John Denver

[click to listen]

So you speak to me of sadness
And the coming of the winter
Fear that is within you now
It seems to never end
And the dreams that have escaped you
And the hope that you've forgotten
You tell me that you need me now
You want to be my friend

And you wonder where we're going
Where's the rhyme and where's the reason
And it's you cannot accept
It is here we must begin
To seek the wisdom of the children
And the graceful way of flowers in the wind

[from my National Geographic Scrapbook, 1970s]

For the children and the flowers
Are my sisters and my brothers
Their laughter and their loveliness
Would clear a cloudy day

Like the music of the mountains
And the colors of the rainbow
They're a promise of the future
And a blessing for today
Though the cities start to crumble
And the towers fall around us
The sun is slowly fading
And it's colder than the sea

It is written from the desert
To the mountains they shall lead us
By the hand and by the heart
They will comfort you and me
In their innocence and trusting
They will teach us to be free

For the children and the flowers
Are my sisters and my brothers
Their laughter and their loveliness
Would clear a cloudy day

And the song that I am singing
Is a prayer to non believers
Come and stand beside us
We can find a better way
P.S.
Gandhi: "Western civilization? . . . I think it would be a good idea.”

Gender Equity

Singing People by Debra Frasier
from On the Day You Were Born

Excerpt from new post on Kitti's Book List
Rainer Maria Rilke: pp 77 - 78 . . . someday there will be girls and women whose name will no longer mean the mere opposite of the male, but something in itself, something that makes one think not of any complement and limit, but only of life and reality: the female human being. ~ 1904, from his Letters to a Young Poet

Carole Maso: p 37 . . . All the personal pronouns -- j/e, m/o, m/a, m/es -- are split to emphasize the disintegration of the self that occurs every time women speak male language. ~ 1993, from her novel AVA

*******************************I wonder if Rilke would be disappointed to see what a lengthy and hard - fought transformation it has become? I appreciate Maso's description of the so often unacknowledged and wearying disintegration. First comes the exclusive language; then comes the taxing enterprise of pulling yourself back together again, putting yourself into the picture, the self - integration that is not a given. Like hearing "father" and thinking "and mother." Or "brother" and "sister too." "Men" -- "and women." "Mankind" -- "oh yeah, that means me."

I think the beautiful song "Let There Be Peace On Earth," (sung here by Gladys Knight in 2008 at the National Memorial Day Concert, Washington, D.C.) is a perfect example of what Maso is talking about here. I've loved this song since Junior High when we sang it in Girls' Chorus (emphasis added for irony!), but it requires some mental gymnastics to repair the damage done by the gender exclusivity of that key phrase:

"With God as our Father, brothers all are we
Let me walk with my brother in perfect harmony."
These words are chosen as a fitting observance of a National event, yet by their very nature, they omit half the people in our country. Okay, I can fix that in my head; but should I have too? I can try to believe that "when you say "men" you mean "women" too; that doesn't always work. But one thing I know for sure, without Gender Equity, there is never going to be Peace on Earth.

Last Fruits

Fruit of the Vine Patio Night Light

Autumn Day
Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Lay your shadow on the sundials
and let loose the wind in the fields.

Bid the last fruits to ripen on the vine;
grant them a few more warm transparent days,
bring them to ripeness, and press
the final sweetness into the heavy wine. . .

from the poem
by Rainer Marie Rilke

my favorite lines from various translations:
gratefulness
inward / outward
plough
poemhunter

You can read more Rilke
on my book list blog & on my fortnightly literary blog

Penelope, Who Really Cried

Penelope Unravelling Her Work At Night, 1886
by fabric artist Dora Wheeler, 1856 - 1940
(daughter of Candace Wheeler)
for Associated Artists (New York City, 1883–1907)
To accompany the numerous paintings of Penelope, there are also many poems. My favorite, as so often happens to be the case, is by Edna St. Vincent Millay. In this almost - sonnet, she describes the "ancient gesture" of wiping the corner of your eye with the corner of your apron; it could just as likely be a handkerchief perhaps or a Kleenex, but the apron places Penelope in the heart of the home, the oikos. Not that she does a lot of cooking -- mostly, it's weaving. Subtly, Millay implies a constellation of gestures: hands busy at the loom; arms stretched for relief above one's head; rubbing a stiff neck with one hand while clinching a tired back with the other; bursting all at once into tears; and finally the silent weeping, discreetly wiping the tears away.

"An Ancient Gesture"
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
Penelope did this too.
And more than once: you can't keep weaving all day
And undoing it all through the night;
Your arms get tired, and the back of your neck gets tight;
And along towards morning, when you think it will never be light,
And your husband has been gone, and you don't know where, for years.
Suddenly you burst into tears;
There is simply nothing else to do.

And I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
This is an ancient gesture, authentic, antique,
In the very best tradition, classic, Greek;
Ulysses did this too.
But only as a gesture,— a gesture which implied
To the assembled throng that he was much too moved to speak.
He learned it from Penelope...
Penelope, who really cried. (ellipses in original)

For more poems and paintings concerning Penelope,
see my new blog post
"Penelope, Who Really Cried"
on The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker

Taking Heed of Change

Postcard Photography by
Indiana Photographer Darryl Jones

"One lesson you learn from living a long time in a place is how to see things changing. True seeing is not just scanning what's before your eyes at the present moment. True seeing is cumulative. It is adding today's sights onto what you saw yesterday and what you saw in the preceding season, and in this same season a year ago, and the years before, and taking heed of the changes."
~ James Alexander Thom

quotation found in The Spirit of the Place: Indiana Hill Country
text by James Alexander Thom
photography by Darryl L. Jones
See also Indiana, by Jared Carter & Darryl Jones

Imperceptibly

Poem for the Autumnal Equinox

XLV

As imperceptibly as grief
The summer lapsed away,—
Too imperceptible, at last,
To seem like perfidy.

A quietness distilled,
As twilight long begun,
Or Nature, spending with herself
Sequestered afternoon.

The dusk drew earlier in,
The morning foreign shone,—
A courteous, yet harrowing grace,
As guest who would be gone.

And thus, without a wing,
Or service of a keel,
Our summer made her light escape
Into the beautiful.

by Emily Dickinson
from Complete Poems, Part Two: Nature (1924)

One Last Caress

Late Summer Photography here & below by Jay Beets
A song for the Eve of the Autumnal Equinox

The Summer Knows
performed by Barbra Streisand

The summer smiles
The summer knows
And unashamed
She sheds her clothes
The summer smoothes
The restless sky
And lovingly
She warms the sand
On which you lie
The summer knows
The summer’s wise
She sees the doubts
Within your eyes
And so she takes
Her summertime
Tells the moon to wait
And the sun to linger
Twist the world
Round her summer finger
Lets you see
The wonder of it all
And if you’ve learned
Your lesson well
There’s little more
For her to tell
One last caress
It’s time to dress
For fall
And if you’ve learned
Your lesson well
There’s little more
For her to tell
One last caress
It’s time to dress
For fall

lyrics by Alan Bergman & Marilyn Bergman
music by Michel LeGrand
Oscar Winner for Original Dramatic Score
from the movie Summer of '42, 1971

Thousand Hills State Park, Kirksville, Missouri

Thank You Fall!

Autumnal Diorama
American Museum of Natural History
~ New York City ~

Thank you wikipedia
for giving me the name of someone else (like me)
who photographed this mural,
but not the name of the actual artist.
[I took the above photo on 2 June 2011 ~ my son Ben's 21st birthday]
Comedian Jimmy Fallon is the funniest when he writes his ridiculous yet heartfelt "thank you notes" on Friday nights, always to the tune of sappy background music.

Today is perfect for a couple of my seasonal favorites:

"Thank you Fall,
for arriving this week.
I was really getting tired of Summer's bull---t." *

from Thank You Notes 1

and

"Thank you Fall,
for occasionally going by the name 'Autumn' --
just like my cousin Megan who became a stripper."

from Thank You Notes 2

A few more favorites:
Thank you . . . F12 button on my on my keyboard. What is it you do again? Oh, that's right --nothing.

Thank you . . . the name Lloyd, for starting with two Ls. I'm glad both those Ls were there, because otherwise I would have called you "Loyd."

Thank you . . . lasers, for being spelled with an "s" even though you'd be totally more badass if you were spelled with a "z." Just sayin'.

Thank you . . . people with sesquipedalophobia, which is the fear of long words. Your picked the wrong thing to call your fear.

Thank you nickels, for being the redheaded stepchild of the coin community. You're so thick, yet you're worth so little. You're like the quarter's fatter, less successful brother.

Thank you . . . fun - size candy, for calling yourself "fun" to distract me from the fact that you're smaller than regular candy. Nice try. They should call you "disappointment - size candy."

Thank you . . . horseradish, for being neither a radish nor a horse. What you are is a liar food. (I'm looking at you, too, Grape Nuts.) [I think he should have also included "Pineapple"!]

* I'm reminded here of Anne Lamott's characterization of Summer as "the teenage season -- too much energy, too much growth and beauty and heat and late nights, none of them what they are cracked up to be" (see my previous post "Buckle Up!").

Freshman Composition

Freshman Composition in the 1350s?
Henricus de Alemannia Lecturing his Students
from Laurentius de Voltolina, 1350s

Thanks to my husband Gerry McCartney for this slide,
which he uses in his presentations to illustrate the challenges
of classroom instruction -- chatters, sleepers, daydreamers!
It was ever thus!

Freshmen
My freshmen
settle in. Achilles
sulks; Pascal consults
his watch; and true
Cordelia -- with her just - washed hair,

Stern - hearted princess, ready to defend
the meticulous garden of truths in her highschool notebook--
uncaps her ball point pen.
And the corridors drum:
give us a flourish,
flourescence of light, for the teachers come,

green and seasoned, bearers
of the Word, who differ
like its letters; there are some
so wise their eyes
are birdbites; one

a mad grinning gent with a golden tooth, God knows
he might be Pan, or the sub-
custodian; another
is a walking podium, dense
with his mystery -- high

priests and attaches
of the ministry; kindly
old women, like unfashionable watering places;
and the assuming young, rolled tight as a City
umbrella;

thought-salesmen with samples cases,
and saints upon whom
merely to gaze is like Sunday --
their rapt, bright,
cat-licked faces!

And the freshmen wait;
wait bristling, acned, glowing like a brand,
or easy, chatting, munching, muscles lax,
each in his chosen corner, and in each
a chosen corner.

Full of certainties and reasons,
or uncertainties and reasons,
full of reasons as a conch contains the sea,
they wait; for the term's first bell;
for another mismatched wrestle through the year;

for a teacher who's religious in his art,
a wizard of a sort, to call the role
and from mere names
cause people
to appear.

The best look like the swinging door
to the Opera just before
the Marx Brothers break through.
The worst -- debased,
on the back row,

as far as one can go
from speech --
are walls where childish scribbling's been erased;
are stones
to teach.

And I am paid to ask them questions:
Dare man proceed by need alone?
Did Esau like
his pottage?
Is any heart in order after Belsen?

And when one stops to think, I'll catch his heel,
put scissors to him, excavate his chest!
Watch, freshmen, for my words about the past
can make you turn your back. I wait to throw,
most foul, most foul, the future in your face.

by American Poet Barry Spacks (b. 1931)

For this poem & more on Freshman Composition
see my new blog post
"Back to School: A Scent of Knowledge"
on The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker

Clematis: Mental Beauty

Clematis at the Backdoor ~ Similar to Passion Flower*

According to Kate Greenaway's Language of Flowers, this flower symbolizes Mental Beauty
[other sources say, Artifice, Ingenuity]
Wreath by Kate Greenaway

*E - card from jacquielawson.com
~ click on picture below to enlarge
for reading more about the Passion Flower ~

For more . . .
see my post "Mental Beauty"
on The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
NEW FORTNIGHTLY BLOG POST TOMORROW

My Country's Heart

Anthem
from the musical Chess
music by Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus (formerly of ABBA)
lyrics by Tim Rice

performed by David Carrol
on the Original Broadway Cast Recording

No man, no madness
Though their sad power may prevail
Can possess, conquer, my country's heart
They rise to fail
She is eternal
Long before nations' lines were drawn
When no flags flew and no armies stood
My land was born

And you ask me why I love her
Through wars, death and despair
She is the constant, we who don't care
And you wonder will I leave her - but how?
I cross over borders but I'm still there now

How can I leave her?
Where would I start?
Let man's petty nations tear themselves apart
My land's only borders lie around my heart
(emphasis added)

Photographs above and below by Jay Beets

Last year on September 11th, Jay wrote:
"My twin towers...you see them in my pictures...my westward view...
concrete things made to store wheat and grain and corn...
ten years ago...towers of ideas were brought down...
by men who fear ideas...
I like these towers...don't mind if they get in my pictures...
from time to time...
9.11.11

Wheat

Corn

Amber Waves of Grain

Gently Keen

Of his pre - autumnal photos,
Missouri Photographer Jay Beets writes:

"Everything is busy and changing in September
~ an amazing month!"

Gladys Taber writes:

"As summer wanes, we cherish every mild dreamy day.
I love the soft blue haze,
I know summer still walks the lanes,
but the frosty slipper of autumn is just behind.
We now get up early -- or what the books call betimes . . . " (132).

from Stillmeadow Daybook

Ruth Sawyer writes:

”Fall weather was the best
weather for making friends.
You met everybody coming or going;
met them alive and eager and made friendly
by the gently keen September air. . . .
There was a flooding of sunshine,
but the air had a knife's edge to it;
you could feel winter on its way" (32, 71).

from Roller Skates (emphasis added)

More Queen Anne's Lace

Rebel Son . . . In a Good Way

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAM!

My Son
A boy with great pride
Sometimes hard to keep up with
Stop and talk to Mom
Student Haiku ~~ by Jeanneen Wheeler
Community College of Philadelphia, Spring 1998
Rebel Son
performed by Survivor

You're still young, still so sure
So determined you can find a cure
You've always been the driven one
Speak your mind, rebel son

In your eyes, wildfires rage
You read between the lines of every page
Take your chances while you're young
Seek the truth, rebel son

Shatter the silence
Fill the night with your righteous defiance
While you've still got the will to run
Take your message to the streets tonight, rebel son

There's a restless voice that's callin' you
Through the darkest night, fight the fight, rebel son
To yourself alone you must be true, rebel son

Stand your ground, against the tide
The proof of history is on your side
Fight the cause for everyone
Dare to dream, rebel son

Shatter the silence
Fill the night with your righteous defiance
While you've still got the will to run
Take your message to the streets tonight, rebel son

There's a restless voice that's callin' you
Through the darkest night, fight the fight, rebel son
To yourself alone you must be true, Rebel son

In the dark, thunder in your heart
Can't you hear the sound and fury in the night
Feel the heat, risin' from the street
Passion runs so deep
To match the fire in your eyes
Take your message to the streets tonight - rebel son

There's a restless voice that's callin' you
Through the darkest night - fight the fight - rebel son
To yourself alone you must be true
Rebel son

by Jim Peterik, Frankie Sullivan, Jimi Jamison

Previously on Sam's birthday:
2011
2010
2009

A Break From Politics

Photograph by Jay Beets

‎"These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines."
Mark 7:7
A guest blog from my brother, Bruce L. Carriker:

Dear Friends,

Most of you know that I hold some very strong political opinions. With Labor Day behind us, that means this year's Presidential liefest...er, campaign...will begin in earnest. Neither the prospect of electing Mitt Romney nor the prospect of re-electing President Obama excites me. I feel that neither of them is really up to the task of of leading our country at a time when the Congress is determined to obstruct everything. And don't kid yourself. If Mitt Romney is elected but the Democrats retain control (or even just 40 votes) in the Senate, nothing will change except the faces. Senator Reid will do to a President Romney the same thing Senator McConnell and Speaker Boehner have done to President Obama. I see few positives about either option. But, one option is so much more dangerous that my choice is pretty simple, and made for me by default.

Beyond that, here's what I'll be saying this political season, inspired by (and much of it quoted directly from) David Kuo's Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction (which you should all read):

Once it would have bothered me - a lot - to see a political leader I supported with my vote and my efforts and my money break his promises. But that's politics. For too long I've held this secret hope that just the right guy doing just the right thing would make America better: Obliterate poverty, obviate the need for abortions, eliminate loneliness, end despair, wipe out crime, and increase opportunity. I had that hope for Compassionate Conservatism in 2000; and for Hope and Change in 2008. But those hopes were misplaced and unreasonable, and set the bar too high. Our political leaders, after all, are just that - political...just plain old people doing a plain old job. They can't save America...And my ultimate hope is back where it should be - not with people, not with politics, but with God.

Instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on [politics], let's give that money to charities and groups that are closer to Jesus' heart. And we Christians should spend less time arguing with those on the other side and more time communing with them...Let's take every ounce of energy [and every dime of our money] we currently expend on politics and divert it to other things. Instead of sending letters to Congress and engaging in political arguments with friends and listening to political talk radio and canvassing door to door for candidates and volunteering in campaigns, let's spend our time in different ways.

Let's read Matthew 25. Let's start with the things God has commanded us to do - pray, learn, listen to Him and serve a hurting world. There are so many other things we can and should be doing. We Christians need to follow Jesus' commands and flock to soup kitchens, battered women's shelters, prison cells and hospitals. We need to seek Jesus in the distress and disguise of the poor.

If we take a break from politics, will America go to pot? Of course it won't. The brilliance of our Founders is that they created a system where change is very slow and very gradual. Nearly four decades of Democratic congressional control couldn't sink us. Watergate couldn't sink us. Three decades of the "Reagan Revolution" couldn't sink us. Bill Clinton's moral failings couldn't sink us. The presidency* of George W. Bush couldn't sink us. The Great Recession hasn't sunk us yet. Christians retreating from politics this year won't sink us.

Ronald Reagan [was fond of] referring to America as the "shining city on a hill." It is a beautiful metaphor. But for us Christians, it is blasphemy. We ARE NOT the shining city on a hill. When Jesus used the words...he wasn't referring to a country, he was referring to Solomon's Temple - the dwelling place of God - in Jerusalem. The shining city on a hill contained the Ark of the Covenant and the Mercy Seat of God, not the seat of civil government. That was sufficient for Jesus; it should be sufficient for us, too.

So, I'm taking a break this year. If any of you wants my opinion on some political topic this fall, I'll be glad to discuss it with you privately - in person, or via private message or email. But, I won't be sharing my opinions in open, online forums where they serve only to inflame passions, jeopardize friendships, and change no minds in the process.

from The Rev. Bruce L. Carriker

* Bruce had initially typed this as "residency" and asked me to correct it to "presidency," which I did, but not before pointing out to him that "I kind of liked it that way -- you know, like the writer in residence in an English department -- not really on the full time staff, just temporarily sharing his views. I thought that's what you meant!"

Boiler Up!

Purdue Kicker Sam McCartney

Photograph taken by
my multi-talented friend Sandra Dukes, who says,
"I shot that photo of Sam's first points
for US Presswire.
Not always easy to get good shot of the kickers
but that turned out well.
Glad you like it!"

Thank you Sandy! We love it!

In the news . . .

Comments from Sam, excerpted from article:

"I made the decision to come here because I wanted to play. I'm from West Lafayette and I take a lot pride in being a Purdue Boilermaker. I wanted to do everything I could to get out on the field. . . . I'm not here to watch. . . .

"I feel very controlled and coach Gibboney has a plan for me and certain things he's earmarked for me to pay close attention to. . . . Being able to utilize my height and my leg strength and the length of my leg, I'm buying into that and paying attention to what he says.

"I feel very good about myself but we're all competing, we're all pushing each other and making each other better."

Of fellow kickers Cody Webster and Carson Wiggs, Sam says, "They showed me that being a specialist isn't all about kicking on the field. . . . It's about what you do in the weight room and the classroom . . . and having the chip on your shoulder that you need to be able to block people out and focus on what you need to do."

Webster #42, McCartney #43, Wiggs #37

Photo by Michelle Link ~ Football Mom & Photographer
Michigan, 2011

Blue Moon, Blue Heart

The Second Full Moon of August
I like the way this month began with the Lughnasa Moon and will end tonight with a blue moon. The last month to have two full moons was December 2009 (click links for previous related blog posts); the next will be July 2015. Today, no doubt, a lot of people will be humming their favorite version of that old romantic ballad "Blue Moon":

"Blue Moon
You saw me standing alone
Without a dream in my heart
Without a love of my own
Blue Moon . . . "
Some friends have expressed a preference for the upbeat version sung by Sha - Na - Na in the musical Grease, while others prefer the mellow rendition performed by Cowboy Junkies.

But there's a different song running through my mind today.
For me, it's . . .

Blue Kentucky Girl
words & lyrics by Johnny Mullins
sung by Emmylou Harris

You left me for the bright lights of the town
A country boy set out to see the world
Remember when those neon lights shine down
That big old moon shines on your Kentucky girl

I swear I love you
By the moon above you
How bright is it shining in your world
Some morning when you wake up all alone
Just come on home to your blue Kentucky girl

Don't wait to bring great riches home to me
I need no diamond rings or fancy pearls
Just bring yourself, you're all I'll ever need
That's good enough for this blue Kentucky girl

I swear I love you
By the moon above you
How bright is it shining in your world
Some morning when you wake up all alone
Just come on home to your blue Kentucky girl

*********************

One thing I have always loved about "Blue Kentucky Girl" is its similarity in sentiment to "The World as Meditation," a poem in which Wallace Stevens describes Penelope, musing dreamily as she awaits the return of Ulysses, her wandering husband:

"She wanted nothing he could not bring her by coming alone.
She wanted no fetchings. His arms would be her necklace
And her belt, the final fortune of their desire."
Noble Penelope is just like the loyal Blue Kentucky Girl who sings

"Don't wait to bring great riches home to me
I need no diamond rings or fancy pearls
Just bring yourself, you're all I'll ever need . . . "
Neither woman craves jewels, treasure, fortune or riches, only the return of her beloved. Wallace's words are particularly beautiful: "She wanted nothing he could not bring her by coming alone." Penelope needs neither necklace nor belt, no "fetchings," just as the Kentucky girl needs "no diamond rings or fancy pearls." The two woman give the same instruction to their heroes, both of whom have "set out to see the world" -- not a world of meditation, but a world of adventure: Come back. Don't wait. Just bring yourself. Just come on home.

P.S.
It would not be right to conclude this post without observing what a fitting cosmic alignment it is that the night sky has joined in honoring the memory of beloved American astronaut and Purdue Boilermaker Neil Armstrong.
May flights of angels -- and a blue moon -- sing thee to thy rest.

1930 - 2012

Live the Questions

Girl at Writing Table
by Kate Greenaway (1846 - 1901)
English children's book illustrator
"If you trust in Nature, in what is simple in Nature, in the small Things that hardly anyone sees and that can so suddenly become huge, immeasurable; if you have this love for what is humble and try very simply, as someone who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier for you, more coherent and somehow more reconciling, not in your conscious mind perhaps, which stays behind, astonished, but in your innermost awareness, awakeness, and knowledge. . . .

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. *Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."from Letter Four: 16 July 1903
in Letters to a Young Poet (to read online)
by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926)

I also like this alternate translation from Stephen Mitchell:

"Perhaps then, someday far in the future,
you will gradually, without even noticing it,
live your way into the answer."
As I wrote a few years back, my inclination to blog is fueled by "those moments when Life offers its own theme to a strand of apparently accidental events, and everything hangs together for a moment in such an uncanny way that you'd swear it was all planned out somehow!" The latest thrilling trail of irresistible coincidence that I just had to follow concerns the above quotation by Rilke.

For more on this ingenious web of connection and coincidence,
see my new post "Mental Beauty"
on The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker

Do I Dare to Eat a Peach?

Basketful of Peaches from a Neighborhood Tree

"And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” . . .
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. . . .
Do I dare to eat a peach? . . . "

from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
by T. S. Eliot
A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that a neglected but nevertheless very healthy peach tree just up the street was dropping dozens of golden peaches. Those on the bough were absolutely perfect, and even the slightly damaged windfall fruit was too beautiful to pass by! As a public service, to prevent squashing and slipping, I picked up whatever had fallen on the sidewalk and in the street. Growing bolder each time I biked by, I started clearing the ground under the tree in addition to the street & sidewalk. However, I did not dare to touch any still on the tree! That might be robbing! But was this fruit really forbidden? I had to know! So, on my next trek up the street, I knocked on the door to ask if the householders were planning to harvest. A nice young man (student? renter?) answered and said, with some surprise, as though he had not yet noticed the bounty right outside the door, "No we are not! Please, take all you want, even from the tree." There you go: permission granted!

In fact, I couldn't really pick from the tree since all the fruit - bearing branches were just too high to reach without a ladder; however, for the next week, I went up once a day to harvest whatever had fallen and share with friends. At first there were dozens per day, ripening by the minute! A few times, even as I was bending over to retrieve peaches from the ground, a flutter of ripe ones would fall from the sky, landing right beside me! The harvest has gradually dwindled down to just one or two every other day or so, but during the exciting thick of the season, in addition to eating as many as possible whole and fresh, we baked two large peach crumbles for immediate consumption and froze four make - ahead pies for future feasts and holidays.

We took the first one from the freezer yesterday afternoon and baked it for the Purdue University Glee Club Ice Cream Social, where a piece of delicious pie was had by all:

Black Cat, Blue Willow, Russian Dolls:
This lovely Irish linen dish towel, a gift from Gerry's parents,
combines several of my favorite motifs!

See also
"Kiss Pie!" & "A Pie for Your Thoughts"

P.S. September 2016

Carolyn's Teapot

Another bright and beautiful painting by
Carolyn Rathbun George

"Find yourself a cup of tea; the teapot is behind you.
Now tell me about hundreds of things."

from the short story "Tea"
by Saki

Scroll down or click: "Perfect Moments"
for more examples of Carolyn's art

Carolyn says:

"I would describe my style as a primitive, colorful and spiritual representation of a world where beauty need not be defined by complexity, but by the simple gifts that surround us every day - a breathtaking view, a beautiful bird or a radiant sunset. . . . my work reveals the memories I have of growing up in the Southwest, and it provides me with an opportunity to share and bring those memories to life - colorful landscapes and icons that have held a warm and comforting place in my soul for as long as I can remember."

Below are some theme presents
that Carolyn created for me
to go along with
The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker:
A fortnightly [every 14th & 28th] literary blog
of connection & coincidence; custom & ceremony

~ Home Is Where the Art Is ~