Lines Written in Early Spring by William Wordsworth

I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:---
But the least motion which they made,
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man? 

March Elegy by Anna Akhmatova

                             Anna Akhmatova - Ukranian - 1889-1966

I have enough treasures from the past
to last me longer than I need, or want.
You know as well as I . . . malevolent memory
won't let go of half of them:
a modest church, with its gold cupola
slightly askew; a harsh chorus
of crows; the whistle of a train;
a birch tree haggard in a field
as if it had just been sprung from jail;
a secret midnight conclave
of monumental Bible-oaks;
and a tiny rowboat that comes drifting out
of somebody's dreams, slowly foundering.
Winter has already loitered here,
lightly powdering these fields,
casting an impenetrable haze
that fills the world as far as the horizon.
I used to think that after we are gone
there's nothing, simply nothing at all.
Then who's that wandering by the porch
again and calling us by name?
Whose face is pressed against the frosted pane?
What hand out there is waving like a branch?
By way of reply, in that cobwebbed corner
a sunstruck tatter dances in the mirror.

Courage by Anne Sexton

It is in the small things we see it.
The child’s first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.

Later,
if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
you did not do it with a banner,
you did it with only a hat to
cover your heart.
You did not fondle the weakness inside you
though it was there.
Your courage was a small coal
that you kept swallowing.
If your buddy saved you
and died himself in so doing,
then his courage was not courage,
it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.

Later,
if you have endured a great despair,
then you did it alone,
getting a transfusion from the fire,
picking the scabs off our heart,
then wringing it out like a sock.
Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,
you gave it a back rub
and then you covered it with a blanket
and after it had slept a while
it woke to the wings of the roses
and was transformed.

Later,
when you face old age and its natural conclusion
your courage will still be shown in the little ways,
each spring will be a sword you’ll sharpen,
those you love will live in a fever of love,
and you’ll bargain with the calendar
and at the last moment
when death opens the back door
you’ll put on your carpet slippers
and stride out.

Momma's mad!

From gather.politics.com - I seldom do this, post a link to another blog - but this blog post made me smile for the first time in 3 days. Like so many American women, I have been aggravated and insulted for years by the vicious, abusive misogynist attitude of men on the right to all women. Chief among them is Rush Limbaugh, the GOP's mouthpiece. But that "hater" has maybe gone too far this time. We can only hope. His vile attacks on a young American woman, a University student, may be his Waterloo. MKT

Rush Limbaugh Advertisers Under Assault from Ticked-Off Tweeters

Rush Limbaugh is used to getting away with stuff. He can say pretty much whatever he wants and his legion of supporters will stand by him. If a GOP lawmaker dares stand against him, within 48 hours, that lawmaker will be on his knees begging him, on the phone, for his forgiveness.

But this time... he may have made that one step beyond.

This time... he made Momma mad. And if Momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

See, this time? Rush went and called this nice little college girl a "slut" because she wants a friend of hers to have employer paid health coverage for birth control she needs to prevent cancer. The porcine one has been rolling about in his own linguistic filth this time. For three days in a row, he has called this woman, this nice little law student, a slut and a prostitute who wants too much sex and that's why she wants the taxpayers to pay for her birth control so she can have all the sex she wants with no consequences.

Except, as Rush would have learned if he had attended his 8th grade health classes, birth control pills don't work that way. Once per day does the trick. It's not like the Viagra Rush got caught with, sneaking back from the Dominican Republic with a suitcase full of little blue pills with someone else's name on the label.

The quadrinuptial, quivering mound of goo has never been mistaken for Mr. Goodbar by the ladies. It didn't matter since most of his listeners are men.

But this time? Momma heard about what he said about the nice little law student.

Momma called her friends, and they all got on the Twitter and tweeted to Rush's advertisers and said if they kept advertising on this pig's radio show, then they won't see dime #1 from Momma ever again. And so far, two mattress companies and one auto parts store have said, "Yes, Momma. We won't advertise on that bad man's show ever again."

And Momma saw and Momma said it was good, and Momma got on her Facebook with all her other Momma pals, and now they're hitting all the advertisers that advertise on Rush's show. Now Momma is going to do what all the Republicans who kowtowed to Rush and all the liberals who wished Rush would have lost more than just his hearing due to his drug abuse, and all the people who enjoy reasoned political discourse could not do.

Momma's going to shut Rush down!

See, the advertisers know what's coming. After El Rushbo reels out enough sturdy rope to hang himself with, this nice little law student is going to get a pack of sharp lawyers who will go have a meeting with the lawyers at Clear Channel, which owns Premiere Radio which syndicates El Rushbo's show on the radio stations that Clear Channel owns upon which Rush Limbaugh owns the AM airwaves from noon to 3 pm Eastern. And these lawyers are going to demand that Rush be summoned before them so the young lady's lawyers can extract as much money as they can from between his flabby, drug-addled hams. And once they've emptied out Rush's hams, they're going to want to have a look at the books of the Clear Channel radio stations and see how much money they have. Then they're going to have a look at the books of Premiere Radio. And then they're going to have a look at the books of Clear Channel Corporation and its radio and TV stations, and its shopping malls and its outdoor advertising and God knows whatever else Clear Channel owns and the lawyers will giggle and high-five each other as the Clear Channel lawyers moisten their dark blue pants and rend their Italian-made suits and Rush is banished from their presence.

Rush's 4th wife will not be happy about this, for sure. Not at all. She won't like having to go back to live in the trailer park that Rush was born in when the lawyers take every scrap of property he owns. No doubt she'll want a quick settlement while Rush still has a couple bucks to pay in alimony.

Then the former head of the Republican party will find himself among the people he mocks every day, his dittoheads who don't have two nickels to rub together.

Please, Rush, when the grand denoument comes, don't do anything stupid. Well, at least not anything rash. You can still get a gig recording voice tracks at a radio station somewhere. It pays by the page, and it isn't much. But it's something.

http://politics.gather.com/