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Walk on a rainbow trail, walk on a trail of song
And all about you will be beauty.
There is a way out of every dark mist
Over a rainbow trail.
- Navajo Poem
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Out back, behind the yard
in the brush and scrub at the edge
a world unfolds for those willing
to stop and look, crunch and tread
where squirrel and ant, snake and fox
hunt and work amongst the deadfall
Wonder of nature in the back, beyond
the cut lawn and past the leaf litter
a bend of a branch held by ivy
a curl of birch bark
a spider’s leg showing below the
lip of a fungus on an old trunk
patterns in the ground, beneath the
newness of spring in the woods
before the full greening of the
new shoots and leaves
in between time in early April
in New Hampshire
- Raymond A. Foss
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from A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
"I am sure there is plenty of food. It is very bad for the soldiers to be short of food. Have you ever noticed the difference it makes in the way you think?"
"Yes," I said. "It can't win a war but it can lose one."
"We won't talk of losing. There is enough talk about losing. What has been done this summer cannot have been done in vain."
I did not say anything. I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression "in vain." We had heard them, sometimes standing in the rain almost out of earshot, so that only the shouted words came through, and had read them, on proclamations that were slapped up by billposters over other proclamations, now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards of Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it. There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity. Certain numbers were the same way and certain dates and these with the names of the places were all you could say and have them mean anything. Abstract words such as glory, honour, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.
"Yes," I said. "It can't win a war but it can lose one."
"We won't talk of losing. There is enough talk about losing. What has been done this summer cannot have been done in vain."
I did not say anything. I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression "in vain." We had heard them, sometimes standing in the rain almost out of earshot, so that only the shouted words came through, and had read them, on proclamations that were slapped up by billposters over other proclamations, now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards of Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it. There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity. Certain numbers were the same way and certain dates and these with the names of the places were all you could say and have them mean anything. Abstract words such as glory, honour, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.
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The bright thin new moon appears,
Tipped askew in the heavens.
It no sooner shines over
The ruined fortress than the
Evening clouds overwhelm it.
The Milky Way shines unchanging
Over the freezing mountains
Of the border. White frost covers
The garden. The chrysanthemums
Clot and freeze in the night.
Tu Fu 712-770, translated by Kenneth Rexroth - "One Hundred Poems from the Chinese"
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NEXT POST TUESDAY
My Current Blogs are updated as follows
POETRY - A PERSONAL CHOICE - every day
ARABESQUE - POETRY AND PROSE - Tuesday and Saturday
NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL ART - every day
THE PAINTINGS OF EDVARD MUNCH - Monday, Wednesday and Friday
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NEXT POST TUESDAY
My Current Blogs are updated as follows
POETRY - A PERSONAL CHOICE - every day
ARABESQUE - POETRY AND PROSE - Tuesday and Saturday
NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL ART - every day
THE PAINTINGS OF EDVARD MUNCH - Monday, Wednesday and Friday
-o0o-
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