Once again I see
Sarai, Hagar, Miriam,
three women weeping.
Would their many sons could stop,
ashamed by their mothers' tears.

This is the coat of arms for my late husband Herr Wilhelm Baumhecker (MKA Brian Keveney), to be used at the SCA 50th Anniversary Shield Wall.  The stump is blazoned or, but he preferred it proper.  I hope this suffices.


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Good on you, United Kingdom! I'm with you in spirit!

Click to view

( Silent City Patriotism )

The lovely Google doodle of Audrey Hepburn on what would have been her 85th birthday.


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Two saints, two tanka ( Read more... )

A very old man
with enormous wings has died,
but his magic lives.
Adiós, García Márquez,
su pluma un tesoro.

I am a sincere man ( Read more... )

I was in the Bronx running an errand, so I stopped at Woodlawn to visit Brian, Celia Cruz, and her husband Pedro Knight.  There are others I'll pay respects to another time, but these were within reasonable walking distance on a quiet spring day.  Sandy had knocked down one of the six Great Trees there, the pendent silver linden.  It is still there ( Read more... )

Written by Emperor Murakami (926-67; r. 946-67), translated by Steven D. Carter:

I vowed to myself
to think no more of the past--
and yet here I am
my eyes welling up
with unexpected tears.

My reply:

Unexpected tears
fall, scattered jewels from the
vault of memory.
It is hard to walk away
from a storehouse such as this.