“It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.” ~ Joseph Heller, from Catch-22

Andrew Graystone outside his local mosque in Levenshulme. Photograph: @AndrewGraystone/Twitter

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“This is the year of burning women in schoolyards
and raided homes, of tarped bodies on runways and in restaurants.” ~ Camille T. Dungy, from “Arthritis is one thing, the hurting another”

Monday evening, drizzle, 55 degrees.

Doctor’s appointment today, so sharing this story found on The Guardian in light of Sunday’s arson attack on a California mosque:

Choosing love over hate: In response to the March 15 mass shooting at a mosque in Christchurch, NZ, a Manchester, UK man stood outside a local mosque with a sign that read, “You are my friends. I will keep watch while you pray.” Andrew Graystone from Levenshulme, Manchester stood outside the Madina mosque holding the sign.

When I heard about this man’s gentle protest, it almost made me cry—one person’s unbelievable humanity in the face of yet another instance of man’s inhumanity to man. We—people, humans, sentient beings worldwide—need more of these small acts of kindness more than most of us even realize. They make us better bit by bit.

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Music by Michael Kiwanuka, “Cold Little Heart”

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Evidence

Helix of pain,

then dull haze,

a dozen or so soft black t-shirts

Distrust of the night, muscled voices,

dark SUVS, the unknown. Sheets

of paper work, faxes, phone numbers,

account statements, business cards,

to-do lists: feed yourself–

for a month of his last meal.

Break down when the bowl

empties. Break bowl, skin to get at

the hunger–an arterial pull that thrums

and thrums through the spine.

Bills–Write Deceased,

write it until you think

you are writing Diseased.

Start to imagine this your truth.

A few striped collard shirts,

Never, or

barely worn.

Size 13 shoes.

One pigtailed crying child,

one infant,

one boy

who wants to be a man,

and refuses to cry.

~ Casandra López (author of Brother Bullet, poem found on Literary Orphans)

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“All this fleetingness | that strangely entreats us.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, from “The Ninth Elegy”

Waitomo Cave, New Zealand
by Martin Rietze

                     

“What sky have the stones dreamed?” ~ Pablo Neruda, from “Stationary Point”

Whilst wasting time watching Jeremy Wade’s “River Monsters,” I came upon an episode that featured the most incredible images of night skies, so when I found this post on my tumblr, I knew that somehow I had to find a way to use it. Hence, having no words of my own, I offer you these most eloquent images of nature’s astounding beauty.

Reblogged from awkwardsituationist:

The Waitomo Caves of New Zealand’s northern island, formed two million years ago from the surrounding limestone bedrock, are home to an endemic species of bioluminescent fungus gnat (arachnocampa luminosa, or glow worm fly), who in their larval stage produce silk threads from which to hang and, using a blue light emitted from a modified excretory organ in their tails, lure in prey who then become ensnared in sticky droplets of mucus.

Photos from spellbound waitomo tours, forevergone, blue polaris, and martin rietze. (more cave photos) (more bioluminescence photos)

                     

Music by Ólafur Arnalds, “Beth’s Theme” (“Broadchurch OST)

                   

Pastoral

I copy out mountains, rivers, clouds.
I take my pen from pocket. I note down
a bird in its rising
or a spider in its little silkworks.
Nothing else crosses my mind. I am air,
clear air, where the wheat is waving,
where a bird’s flight moves me, the uncertain
fall of a leaf, the globular
eye of a fish unmoving in the lake,
the statues sailing in the clouds,
the intricate variations of the rain.

Nothing else crosses my mind except
the transparency of summer. I sing only of the wind,
and history passes in its carriage,
collecting its shrouds and medals,
and passes, and all I feel is rivers.
I stay alone with the spring.

Shepherd, shepherd, don’t you know
they are all waiting for you?

I know, I know, but here beside the water
while the locusts chitter and sparkle,
although they are waiting, I want to wait for myself.
I too want to watch myself.
I want to discover at last my own feelings.
And when I reach the place where I am waiting,
I expect to fall asleep, dying of laughter.

~ Pablo Neruda

“He . . . lifted up his head, and cast up his eyes into the welkin and wept.” ~ Thomas More, from ”Dyalogue”

“When I look from my window at night,
And the welkin above is all white,
All throbbing and panting with stars” ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from ”Sandalphon”

Southern Stars and Aurora Australis
Banks Peninsular, Canterbury, New Zealand
by ~Niv24 (creative commons license)

                   

                   

Harmonic Vases

In the choir of the Église St Martin,
just beneath the light-blasted gothic vaults –
are a number of small holes,
the openings of large ceramic pots
placed in the walls
to improve the acoustic.

Lucius Mummius, who destroyed
the theatre at Corinth,
transported its resonating bronze vessels to Rome
and dedicated them
at the temple of Luna.

In cottages in Co. Clare,
an iron pot or horse’s skull
was buried under the hearthstone
to give resonance to a dancer’s step,
to contain the necessary emptiness

for though we wish to live
utterly alive, within our skins,
there lives in us another yearning –
that whatever harmonic is awakened in us,
reverberate outwards,
through our voice, our step,
and outwards
and outwards.

~ Moya Cannon, from “Seven Poems”