A friend of mine posted this in our synagogue's discussion group.

Dear friends,

I found this on RitualWell, and wanted to share it with you all - to everyone who is and has been caught up in fighting wars, willing or unwillingly, including all the undeclared wars within nations.

blessings,
Nancy

To the Soldier, To the Veteran
By Alden Solovy

These ( Read more... )

Quoted by Mary Oliver for Corona Times (after Wild Geese)

by Adrie Suzanne Kusserow

You do not have to become totally zen,
You do not have to use this isolation to make your marriage better,
your body slimmer, your children more creative.
You do not have to “maximize its benefits”
By using this time to work even more,
write the bestselling Corona Diaries,
( Read more... )

Another poem by Nathalia Crane, about 9 years old at the time. I like it especially for the last five stanzas (starting from "But I'd just"), and especially the last one. See also A poem I just enjoyed.

THE BATTLE ON THE FLOOR

My father was a soldier, so
Some nights he talks of war;
He tells of guns at “action right,” -
The battlefield’s the ( Read more... )

PRESCIENCE
Nathalia Crane
From her book The Janitor's Boy, p.33

A precious place is Paradise and none may know its worth,
But Eden ever longeth for the knickknacks of the earth.

The angels grow quite wistful over worldly things below;
They hear the hurdy-gurdies in the Candle Maker’s Row.

They listen for the laughter from the attics of the earth ( Read more... )

I just posted elsewhere a series of four linked haiku, along with their age at the moment I copied the chain to paste below. They are all true-life observations on the moment.

22 minutes ago:
My noisy kitty! 
Before filling it again 
Let your stomach rest

20 minutes ago:
Let your stomach rest 
Ten minutes by the timer. 
Then you'll get more food.

12 ( Read more... )

From Leo Marks (1998), Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War 1941-1945, p. 597. (My post about this book.)
Chapter 81 (final chapter), “The Last Mischief”.
(The poem has no title in the book.)

We listen round the clock
 For a code called peacetime
 But will it ever come
 And shall we know it when it does
 And break it once it's here
 This code ( Read more... )

On a copyeditors' list I follow, someone asked about scheduling work and the way the current state of the publishing industry causes dry spells and tsunamis in work flow. One tale concluded
I spent one Christmas week wrapping up five books.Someone commented
Surely we all do that?
and another replied
That's gift wrapping, right?   :-)

And then my head ( Read more... )

Ever since high school I have thought this poem to be more pompous than meaningful, more worthy of a sniff than of respect. (The Latin title means "Undefeated".)

Invictus
by William Ernest Henley
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I ( Read more... )

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This entry was originally posted at http://thnidu.dreamwidth.org/1608287.html. You can comment here, or there using OpenID or your Dreamwidth ID.
( Read more... )

(Ganked from Language Log. Also on their LiveJournal feed)

Chinese lung cancer poeticizes in English

January 13, 2017 @ 9:48 pm · Filed by Victor Mair
For several days I've been aware of a strange poem that has gone viral in China:

"Read The Smog-Inspired Poem That China Can't Stop Talking About" (NPR, 1/12/17)

The strangeness of the poem is due to ( Read more... )