—I DON’T MIND AND I DON’T MIND

 

 

…Happy belated Father’s Day. If you’re a dad, or have a dad, or are a parent, I hope it was a joy-filled day for you.

Parenting—finding that tricky balance between friendship and discipline—is never easy in certain moments, but in so many others it’s nothing but sure bliss.

If you’re not a parent yet, get started on that tonight…

...Happy Juneteenth as well. Dig in. Learn a little.

 

…Here’s a marsala stew of things I like to start the week off…

 

 

…A man never stands as tall as when he stoops to help a child.” K. Pythagoras

 

“Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” Carl Sagan

 

“Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.” Cormac McCarthy

 

In Matters of Love

 

Yours is an ox’s heart —

slow, determined, but

strong enough to move

any load as far as needed

with a perfect knowing of

moment and place and how

it is you mean to let go

--Sam Rasnake

 

“That contempt of urban culture for half the country. I feel like I’m an ambassador between these worlds, trying to explain that if you want to have a conversation you don’t start it with the words, ‘You idiot.’” Barbara Kingsolver

 

“Writing is a delicious agony.” Gwendolyn Brooks

 

“Don’t worry about what anyone else thinks – write what you must.” Carl Phillips

 

“Is there a direction home that doesn’t point backward?” Paul Chan

 

“I can't imagine anything good about being blind and lame at the same time but, still at my age, I've seen about all that life has to dish out. I know to separate the wheat from the chaff, and let the small stuff fall away.” David Lynch

 

“The mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit.” Kurt Vonnegut

 

 

“If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable, those things can unexpectedly become great and immeasurable.” Rilke

 

“Poetry is whatever you pray to, and then also for.” Kerry Giangrande

 

What We Carry / Dorianne Laux

 

“Someone spoke to me last night,

told me the truth. Just a few words,

but I recognized it.

I knew I should make myself get up,

write it down, but it was late…

Now, I remember only the flavor –

not like food, sweet or sharp.

More like a fine powder, like dust.”

 

You meet saints everywhere. They can be anywhere. They are people behaving decently in an indecent society. ~Kurt Vonnegut

 

“Photography is an art of observation. It has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” Elliott Erwitt

 

“Each word, as someone once wrote, contains the universe.

The visible carries all the invisible on its back.

Tonight...what moves in the long-limbed grasses, what touches me

As though I didn’t exist?...

A word I don’t know yet, a little word, containing infinity...”  --Charles Wright

 

“If we’re going to solve the problems of the world, we have to learn how to talk to one another. Poetry is the language at its essence. It’s the bones and the skeleton of the language. It teaches you, if nothing else, how to choose your words.” – Rita Dove

 

“Block the opening;

Shut the doors.

Blunt the sharpness;

Untangle knots;

Soften the glare;

Let your wheels move only along old ruts.

This is known as mysterious sameness.

Hence you cannot get close to it, 

nor can you keep it at arm’s length”

--Lao Tzu

  

“’Do better’ is my love language.” Jennifer Anrea

 

“The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot.” Werner Herzog

 

“The difference between pessimism and optimism is constructing a good ending.” Barbara Kingsolver