My streams of thought meet here
Sandhill cranes again as every autumn ever float over our fields. Exiles, always calling their lost and lonely plaint. Drifting, always searching a place to rest, a scattering of grain not gathered in. Gleaning, always mourning, like us, the coming chill. Shadows of autumn gliding, all too briefly, over our land and gone. We're left to mourn alone the chilling, biting winds.
Hello to all friendly readers near and far. I’ve mentioned this already, but for awhile now I’ve been getting daily e-mails from the FlyLady, with the idea that sometimes I may get serious about following her system. right now I’m working on the general monthly goals, and the goal this morning is to eliminate paper clutter.
She’d be delighted if she could see the big green garbage bag of papers I’ve already shredded this week — but most of that is years-old records hubby has been storing until recently. Now it’s time for me to dig into my own stash of scribbles, weed out and post various poetry and musings. Here’s one I did awhile ago about the COVID isolation:
No Customers The merchant opens his door to let the wind to rush in and a masked young mom with hurried, worried eyes. Then a child wanting chips, her eyes crinkling in smiles, her mask Sleeping Beauty She heads home to school; he turns his sign to OPEN. The wind flips it back. What does it matter? Few customers will come, this Covid-tainted morning where lock-down rules.
Good morning everyone!
I have been reading in Lynne Truss’s book, Eats, Shoots and Leaves and came across her lament about misused and AWOL apostrophes.
Ms Truss tells of how she wrote an article for The Daily Telegraph about incorrect or missing punctuation and got an avalanche of letters from readers sharing and ticked off over violations they’d seen.
A lack of apostrophic know-how & know-where leads to signs like:
Lemon’s – 2 for $1
(or even) Lemon,s – 2 for $1
Trouser’s shortened
Summer cottages’ for rent
Member’s Only
Mikes’ Garage
The Smiths’s Silver Anniversary
Cyclist’s only on this path
The guest speakers talk will be about…
XMA’S trees
Jamison Antique,s
Her account, coupled with various writing prompts yesterday and today, has led me to write this verse:
THE OVER-WORKED EDITOR
Apostrophe confusion
gives Editor such grief:
he finds them wandering randomly
or employed beyond belief.
For Thompson’s prone to muff it
typesetting the word beaux’s
and covering the Jone’s affair
his know-where hits new lows.
An ad reads “Naval orange’s”
and Molly’s ship is sinking,
while it’s and its and their and they’re
confuse that fellow Pinking.
Restrained the Editor may be
but don’t you know he’ll rage
should “Sports Marts’ Sale on Bycycle’s”
appear on his printed page.
He caught “the citys’ bylaw”
before it got to press,
but a write-up about the Queens’ speech
led to a royal mess.
So he begs them to get serious:
“Study punctuation rules!
We need to shake this errancy
so we don’t look like fools.”
“But I was sure I had it right,”
dumbfounded Molly wails.
Editor sighs and insists again
on accurate details.
“Our readers are nit-picking,”
young Thompson quickly states.
Editor growls. “Get it right or else
your job here terminates.”
“From now on I’ll be checking
on every bit of copy;
your pages will be cremated
if you hand in anything sloppy.”
“No apostrophic laxity
permissible henceforth
or there will be pecuniary
punishment in store.”
Ragtag Daily Prompt: SERIOUS
Fandango’s FOWC: STUDY and DUMBFOUNDED
Word of the Day: CREMATE
M-W’s Word of the Day: PECUNIARY
Ragtag Daily Prompt: FROTH
FOWC Prompt: IMMINENT
Pocket has posted an article from The Atlantic about people’s last words. I don’t know about you, but I’ve though a few times about death and what sort of farewell I might give to a loved one standing near. I’d probably offer some variation of Tom Paxton’s lines:
“I could have loved you better, didn’t mean to be unkind;
you know that was the last thing on my mind.”
Using this morning’s prompt words — and with apologies to Adam Lindsay Gordon — I shall respond with the fuzzy last words of Pete the Poet as he faces his imminent demise:
Life is mostly froth and bubble
two things tossed like foam:
all the money I have made;
the places I've called Home.
The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is UNPERTURBED
My first thought with regard to this prompt was The Desiderata by Max Ehrmann.
“Go placidly amidst the noise and haste…”
This isn’t the easiest thing to do; we do have emotions and sometimes we must react. But it’s a goal to aim for. We can remind ourselves to stop, take a deep breath, and rmember how today’s troubles will look much smaller in the rear-view mirror. And with regard to all the pointless noise around us — oh, for the wisdom to tune it out!
These Bible verses speak of trust in God as the source of peace:
“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.
There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early.” Psalm 46:1-5
The poem, IF, by Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936) also gives
a good picture of a person who lives an unperturbed life.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son.
Dear friend, tomorrow we shall part – the tides of time bear you away. So little yet remains to us, and so this evening, stay. Sit awhile, let us share fond memories – assay to layer gently in our words our hearts' deepest desires. Yes, stay, my old friend. Stay! Your work may take you far, my friend – we cannot know when next we'll chance to say a hearty welcome home again. So stay, my brother. Stay. The Ragtag Daily Prompt word today is STAY
