Monday, March 7, 2011

NATURE'S HOURGLASS

                         [PHOTO SOURCE: National Geographic online images]
                         (Weathered clothes pins on clothes line in an outdoor setting)

SOME OF MY WORDS

Our middle years are the best of times and proffer a chance to take 'stock' of where we have been and where we want to go. Down the road of tomorrow, the ravages of age will line the face and make us frail. However, these are but layers of time cocooning the child that lives in happy wonderment of making it to another birthday. [~dht-2011]


Each year is a special gift that you can hold and put into your Heart's Treasure Chest nestled with all the treasures and memories of yesterday. [~dht-2011]

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SOME WORDS OF OTHERS


"I'm as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth." [~Jonathan Swift]

Old Time, that greatest and longest established spinner of all!.... his factory is a secret place, his work is noiseless, and his hands are mutes. [~Charles Dickens]

A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time. [~Oliver W. Holmes, Sr.]

You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely. [~Ogden Nash]

They say that age is all in your mind. The trick is keeping it from creeping down into your body. [~Author Unknown]

The other day a man asked me what I thought was the best time of life. "Why," I answered without a thought, "now." [~David Grayson]

Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many. [~Author Unknown]

Father Time is not always a hard parent, and, though he tarries for none of his children, often lays his hand lightly upon those who have used him well; making them old men and women inexorably enough, but leaving their hearts and spirits young and in full vigour. With such people, the grey head is but the impression of the old fellow's hand in giving them his blessing, and every wrinkle but a notch in the quiet calendar of a well-spent life. [~Charles Dickens]

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been. [~Mark Twain]

It's important to have a twinkle in your wrinkle. [Author Unknown]

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. [~Samuel Ullman]

There is always a lot to be thankful for, if you take the time to look. For example, I'm sitting here thinking how nice it is that wrinkles don't hurt. [~Author Unknown]

Middle age is when your age starts to show around your middle. [~Bob Hope]

The years teach much which the days never knew. [~Ralph Waldo Emerson]

In youth the days are short and the years are long; in old age the years are short and the days long. [~Nikita Ivanovich Panin]

A man's age is something impressive, it sums up his life: maturity reached slowly and against many obstacles, illnesses cured, griefs and despairs overcome, and unconscious risks taken; maturity formed through so many desires, hopes, regrets, forgotten things, loves. A man's age represents a fine cargo of experiences and memories. [~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry]

A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams. [~John Barrymore]

Thirty-five is when you finally get your head together and your body starts falling apart. [~Caryn Leschen]

Forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age. [~Victor Hugo]

Years ago, we discovered the exact point, the dead center of middle age. It occurs when you are too young to take up golf and too old to rush to the net. [~Franklin Adams]

Everyone is the age of their heart. [~Guatemalan Proverb]

Youth is a disease from which we all recover. [~Dorothy Fulheim]

There was no respect for youth when I was young, and now that I am old, there is no respect for age - I missed it coming and going. [~J.B. Priestly]

I still have a full deck; I just shuffle slower now. [~Author Unknown]

To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old. [~Oliver Wendell Holmes]

Age is a high price to pay for maturity. [~Tom Stoppard]

The key to successful aging is to pay as little attention to it as possible. [~Judith Regan]

The first half of life consists of the capacity to enjoy without the chance; the last half consists of the chance without the capacity. [~Mark Twain]

The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven't changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don't change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion. [~Doris Lessing]

There is still no cure for the common birthday. [~John Glenn]

Some people, no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty - they merely move it from their faces into their hearts. [~Martin Buxbaum]

You can't hide your true colours as you approach the autumn of your life. [~Author Unknown]

I don't believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates. [~T.S. Eliot]

Whatever poet, orator, or sage may say of it, old age is still old age. [~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow]

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Thursday, March 3, 2011

TWO SIDES OF A COIN


                             [PHOTO SOURCE: National Geographic online images]


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This Posting was a difficult one for me to 'post',  and I almost did NOT post it.  And then when I did post it, I ALMOST deleted it!!!   NOW, I feel REALLY GLAD that I overcame my "..." , for the comments proffered were very meaningfully to me personally! A special THANK YOU to my Kindred Spirit and Cousin for her comments, which I have posted below (near the end of this posting)!!!

SOME OF MY WORDS


Knowing something and feeling something deeply are two sides of a coin.

Some things that happen are so devastating that they eclipse everything else until healed.

Some things are so wonderful that it's hard to relinquish them.

Two different feelings.
Two different perspectives.

Both powerful responses in a different landscape.

Polar opposites—
sunset – sunrise
night – day
rain – shine
cold – heat
wet – dry
dying – living
death – birth
moonlight – sunlight
endings – beginnings
goings – comings
goodbye – hello
low – high
short – tall
ugly – beauty
old – youth
dull – sharp
sour – sweet
hate – love
down – up
far – near
left – right
east – west
north – south
false – true
fake – real
push – pull
passive – aggressive

JUST A TOSS OF A COIN!

[dht-2011]

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Here is what my Kindred Spirit and Cousin said about my words.


This reminded me of a quote: '"You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see... what it's doing -- that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something." Richard Feynman, US educator & physicist (1918 - 1988)


‎'Polar opposites', the balances of life.
"Some things are so wonderful that it's hard to relinquish them" = parenthood.  Even though we remain parents after our child have left (as we want them to do), the longing for the child remains. Today's poem/reflection (to me) is all about family and especially about children and also about 'changes' that occur regardless of whether or not we want them.  The question is always:   Will we be able to adapt [to our life's changes]?  Or will the changes encompass us, drag us down and spit us out [a more weary, fragile, and wary person]?  Good points to ponder.


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In this offering: What do you notice about the words? Their meaning? Sentence structure? Pairing of Sentences? First word, middle, or last words of Sentences? What words could be substituted? What connection words added for clarity? What meaning of your own would you assign to these words, phrases, sentences?

--------------- OR, Why didn't you just say so! ---------------
What will today bring?
Are events and circumstance just a toss of the coin in one's life?
If there a choice, on which side of the coin will you live?


(COMMENTS ENCOURAGED and WELCOMED)

NATURE'S SECRETS

               [PHOTO SOURCE: National Geographic online images]


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SOME OF MY WORDS

WHAT sweet poetry of NATURE'S anthem
resides in this inhospitable shell

WHAT mental stream of consciousness
keynotes a monologue of regret

WHAT creature exists on Earth's plane
at the changing mercy of NATURE'S whimsy

WHAT awaits the searcher
at the gong of life's end clock

WHAT unanswered calls of yesterday
go unsaid today and forgotten tomorrow

WHAT new dawn foretells
of fortunes lost on yesterday dreams

WHAT spent passion wounds
there cauterized by heartache

WHAT layers yet to unfold
reveal repeating patterns of yesterday shadows

WHAT sweet NATURE does restore
the balance and chase away demons

WHAT instrument NATURE's brandish
doth level the sharpness of lingering regret

WHAT rich nectar of NATURE does sustain
through moments of despair with assurance all's well
[dht-2011]

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SOME WORDS OF MY KINDRED SPIRIT AND COUSIN
This is "sweet poetry" indeed!  The poem goes so well with the picture.  The thing that first caught my attention was the circular patterns in the photo and the poem seems to be of things 'coming around', changing, the "circle of life" (so to speak).  I would venture to say the above questions might be part of your creative process.  "... phantoms, demons, shadows await the explorer" to be sure, but adventure, beauty, and solitude also await.  Although the season is irrelevant (to me), I feel it is late Summer or early Fall ... and I am a "participant", i.e., it is me in the photo standing outside the tent - waiting for my companion to return (notice the two sleeping bags) and enjoy the perfect moment-in-time together.

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"OH MY WORD! YOU have such a poetic SOUL and NATURE! YOU 'see' what is only revealed by the inner heart! YOU are truly one of the NATURE'S BLESSED!! [dht-2011]

Twice BLESSED are ye who see the heart where time and 'stance masks!"
[dht-2011]

"Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.”
[C. Pissarro]

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In this offering: What do you notice about the words? Their meaning? Sentence structure? Pairing of Sentences? First word, middle, or last words of Sentences? What words could be substituted? What connection words added for clarity? What meaning of your own would you assign to these words, phrases, sentences?
--------------- OR, Why didn't you just say so! ---------------
WHAT patterns do you see in this PIX?
WHAT mysteries of NATURE come to mind?
WHAT phantoms, demons, shadows await the explorer?
WHAT season is this?
WHAT time of day's cycle?
WHAT abode? Permanent? Temporal?
WHAT are you? Participant? Observer? Advisor? Companion? Uninvolved? Disinterested?
Don't give a 'hoot' or 'whistle'?
JUST an interesting PIX and some jumble of syllables?
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