q

Not where I breathe, but where I love, I live;

Not where I love, but where I am, I die.

        Robert Southwell

p

Sonnet XVII

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close

~ Pablo Neruda ~

 

I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back. -Maya Angelou, poet (1928- )

 

 

p

Consolation

 

 

            All are not taken; there are left behind

            Living Beloveds, tender looks to bring

            And make the daylight still a happy thing,

            And tender voices, to make soft the wind:

            But if it were not so-if I could find

            No love in all this world for comforting,

            Nor any path but hollowly did ring

            Where ‘dust to dust’ the love from life disjoin’d;

            And if, before those sepulchres unmoving

            I stood alone (as some forsaken lamb

           Goes bleating up the moors in weary dearth)

           Crying “Where are ye, O my loved and loving?”

           I know a voice would sound, “Daughter, I AM.

           Can I suffice for Heaven and not for earth?”

 

                        Elizabeth Barrett Browning   

q

All crime is a kind of disease and should be treated as such.

    Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

p

To my granddaughters who visited the Holocaust
Museum on the day of the burial of Yitzhak Rabin

Now you know the worst
we humans have to know
about ourselves, and I am sorry,

for I know that you will be afraid.
To those of our bodies given
without pity to be burned, I know

there is no answer
but loving one another,
even our enemies, and this is hard.

But remember:
when a man of war becomes a man of peace,
he give a light, divine

though it is also human.
When a man of peace is killed
by a man of war, he gives a light.

You do not have to walk in darkness.
If you will have the courage for love,
you may walk in light. It will be

the light of those who have suffered
for peace. It will be
your light.

~ Wendell Berry ~

q

I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand.

        Baruch Spinoza, philosopher (1632-1677)

 

 

For US Taxpayers only

The USA has spent over $400 billion on the war in Iraq thus far.  If you have ever wished that there were a way to keep your tax dollars from supporting the war, (and other wars) there is something you can do. 

 

Bill #HR 2631 is a bill that was introduced to the House of Representatives to provide a means for people to ensure that their tax dollars are not used for military purposes. Visit http://www.peacetaxfund.org/  to find out how you can support this bill.  Call and write your congressperson and your senators, as well, to let them know that you support this initative.

 

Stephen Wilder