Memorial Day 2019

[Note: I wrote this piece last year for Memorial Day, and I like it so much I decided to reprint it this year.]

Today in the US we memorialize those who have been claimed by war. It's usually celebrated as a great patriotic event, with martial songs and chest-thumping nationalism, all about the glory of dying for your country. What egregious nonsense! As any battle-scarred veteran can tell you, war isn't glorious; it's a gory, bloody, loud hell of a meat-grinder, and the meat being ground is the young of the nation, fed into it by old men who hold grudges or who see a profit to be made, win or lose. I've always said that if the fat old men who declared wars actually had to fight in them, we'd have world peace overnight.

Here are some potent quotes about the reality of war:

"And I can't help but wonder, now Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you 'The Cause'?
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame,
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain.
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again."
– Eric Bogle, "No Man's Land" 

"Either war is finished, or we are."
– Herman Wouk, War and Remembrance 

"War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children."
– Jimmy Carter, Nobel Lecture, December 10, 2002 

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its stupidity."
– Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech, January 10, 1946 

"If civilization has an opposite, it is war. Of these two things, you have either one, or the other. Not both."
– Ursula K. LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness

Probably the greatest antiwar poem ever written is "Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen, an Oxford scholar and poet who enlisted at the beginning of WWI, and who was killed just one week before the armistice which ended it. During the war he wrote his poems in the letters he sent home, and as the conflict continued he used these poems to vent his anger and cynicism at the futility, the barbarity, and the stupidity of it all. "Dulce et Decorum Est" could just as well have been titled "The Lie", the lie in question being the quote from the Roman poet Horace that is fed to soldiers in time of war: "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"; the English translation is "It is sweet and proper to die for one's country". Obviously Owen disagreed, and I'm with him.

Dulce et Decorum Est - Wilfred Owen 

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And toward our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind. 

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. 

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. 

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obsceneas cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, –
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est / Pro patria mori.

Today we lament the deaths of young people killed by adherence to an anachronism, and pledge to end the scourge that killed them. Here are two songs that lament the deaths of soldiers - Eric Bogle's "No Man's Land" and Mark Knopfler's "Brothers In Arms".

Photo © 2009 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Snowy Woods

[Note: This post was inspired by my walk in the woods in the snow last week.]

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep. 

– Robert Frost

Photo © 2018 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Memorial Day 2018

Today in the US we memorialize those who have been claimed by war. It's usually celebrated as a great patriotic event, with martial songs and chest-thumping nationalism, all about the glory of dying for your country. What egregious nonsense! As any battle-scarred veteran can tell you, war isn't glorious; it's a gory, bloody, loud hell of a meat-grinder, and the meat being ground is the young of the nation, fed into it by old men who hold grudges or who see a profit to be made, win or lose. I've always said that if the fat old men who declared wars actually had to fight in them, we'd have world peace overnight.

Here are some potent quotes about the reality of war:

"And I can't help but wonder, now Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you 'The Cause'?
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame,
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain.
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again."
– Eric Bogle, "No Man's Land" 

"Either war is finished, or we are."
– Herman Wouk, War and Remembrance 

"War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children."
– Jimmy Carter, Nobel Lecture, December 10, 2002 

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its stupidity."
– Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech, January 10, 1946 

"If civilization has an opposite, it is war. Of these two things, you have either one, or the other. Not both."
– Ursula K. LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness

Probably the greatest antiwar poem ever written is "Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen, an Oxford scholar and poet who enlisted at the beginning of WWI, and who was killed just one week before the armistice which ended it. During the war he wrote his poems in the letters he sent home, and as the conflict continued he used these poems to vent his anger and cynicism at the futility, the barbarity, and the stupidity of it all. "Dulce et Decorum Est" could just as well have been titled "The Lie", the lie in question being the quote from the Roman poet Horace that is fed to soldiers in time of war: "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"; the English translation is "It is sweet and proper to die for one's country". Obviously Owen disagreed, and I'm with him.

Dulce et Decorum Est - Wilfred Owen 

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And toward our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind. 

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. 

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. 

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obsceneas cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, –
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum estPro patria mori.

Today we lament the deaths of young people killed by adherence to an anachronism, and pledge to end the scourge that killed them. Here are two songs that lament the deaths of soldiers - Eric Bogle's "No Man's Land" and Mark Knopfler's "Brothers In Arms".

Memorial Day 2018 - "Let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with me!"

Photo © 2009 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

The High Priestess

Back in the '80s I hadn't yet discovered photography, and of course there was no Internet and I didn't own a personal computer. In those days I was practicing calligraphy, even doing an informal business in it designing flyers, posters, wedding invitations, and show pieces. I also wrote poetry from time to time. AND... as many of you who have been following this blog for some time know, I also do things with the Tarot. My best piece of art combines all three of those, and I discovered (while going through my photo collection on my hard drive) that I hadn't made a digital copy of it. So here it is, "The High Priestess", a poem I wrote even further back in time than this calligraphic piece, based on my own meditations on and interpretation of the Tarot card. The calligraphy is on hand-laid paper in gouache, and the "illustration" is imitation gold leaf over an impasto base with some of the leaf rubbed to small pieces and sprinkled  on the paper to suggest stars. I love this piece but I've never had the money to have it properly framed. It's kinda big - 22" x 30" (56 x 76 cm) - so framing is something of an expensive proposition. In any case, here's my artistic pride and joy!

© 2018 by A. Roy Hilbinger

America. A Poem for July 4

That's what Katharine Lee Bates called the poem she wrote in 1895 after a trip to Pike's Peak in Colorado. When she got home to Wellesley College outside Boston, MA, where she taught English, she wrote the poem inspired by the sights she saw on the train trip out and back, and which was duly published in the Fourth of July edition of the church periodical The Congregationalist. In 1910 she adapted the words a little to be set to the hymn tune "Materna" by church organist and choirmaster Samuel A. Ward of Newark, NJ, and this became known as "America the Beautiful". It has been proposed as our national anthem throughout the 20th Century, especially during the administration of John F. Kennedy (and you know Jackie had to be the force behind that effort!), but entrenched habits don't give up easily, and "The Star Spangled Banner" remains the national anthem.

If you're a long-time reader of this blog you know I'm a fierce advocate for replacing "The Star Spangled Banner" with "America the Beautiful". I really don't like "The Star Spangled Banner"; the tune is horrible, an old London drinking song called "To Anacreon in Heaven" composed for a drinking society whose whole purpose was to get drunk and sexually assault the "serving wenches". That high note toward the end - "the land of the free..." - was where they lifted up their tankards to clash together and consequently slopped their beer over each other. The character Belize in Tony Kushner's "Angels in America" said of that passage, "The cracker who wrote that knew what he was doing; he set the note for the word 'free' so high that nobody can hit it!" It's really not a tune fit for a national anthem. Add to that the fact that the song is about a single battle in the War of 1812, and not a particularly significant battle at that.

Now look at "America the Beautiful". Lyrics by a teacher and music by a church organist and choirmaster; seriously, how hometown America can you get? The tune is is both simple and memorable, and the harmonization lends itself well to instrumental orchestration and SATB choral arrangement. And most important, the song is about America, the land, the people, and the ideals it was founded upon, everything a piece of music representing a nation should be. Plain and simple, it's a beautiful and meaningful piece of music and it's a travesty that it's not our national anthem.

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness,
And every gain divine!

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

And here's a beautiful rendition of the song from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of the late Eugene Ormandy:

So there's my argument in favor of "America the Beautiful" as the US national anthem. What say you?

© 2017 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Wolf Moon

Wolf Moon, January 13, 2017, 6 am

Do not fear the night.
Instead, summon the wolf inside you
and welcome the darkness
like it is home.
– Nikita Gill

"Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!" – Bram Stoker, Dracula




The highlight of any Paul Winter concert - howling with the wolves!

Photo © 2017 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

It's a Ducky Day

Today the north duck pond was full of Mallard ducks, swimming and dabbling for the Duckweed, their favorite food, that grows on the bottom of the pond. Naturally I thought of Ratty's bantering "Ducks' Ditty" in Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows". So here it is, along with some photos of the ducks and their dabbling tails. Enjoy!

Ducks' Ditty

All along the backwater,
Through the rushes tall,
Ducks are a-dabbling,
Up tails all!

Ducks' tails, drakes' tails,
Yellow feet a-quiver,
Yellow bills all out of sight,
Busy in the river!

Slushy green undergrowth
Where the roach swim –
Here we keep our larder,
Cool and full and dim.

Every one for what he likes!
We like to be
Heads down, tails up,
Dabbling free!

High in the blue above
Swifts whirl and call –
We are down a-dabbling
Up tails all!

Photos © 2015 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Roads

Two of my favorite poems about roads, illustrated with pictures taken on a leisurely stroll on the Cumberland Valley Rail Trail this morning. Enjoy!

"Roads Go Ever On" - J.R.R. Tolkien 

Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.

Roads go ever ever on,
Under cloud and under star.
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen,
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green,
And trees and hills they long have known.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

The Road goes ever on and on
Out from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone.
Let others follow, if they can!
Let them a journey new begin.
But I at last with weary feet
Will turn towards the lighted inn,
My evening-rest and sleep to meet.

Still 'round the corner there may wait
A new road or secret gate;
And though I oft have passed them by,
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.

 "The Road Not Taken" - Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Photos © 2013 by A. Roy Hilbinger

November

How silently they tumble down
And come to rest upon the ground
To lay a carpet, rich and rare,
Beneath the trees without a care,
Content to sleep, their work well done,
Colors gleaming in the sun.

At other times, they wildly fly
Until they nearly reach the sky.
Twisting, turning through the air
Till all the trees stand stark and bare.
Exhausted, drop to earth below
To wait, like children, for the snow."
- Elsie N. Brady, Leaves

Photo © 2011 by A. Roy Hilbinger

Come In from the Cold and Wet

Coming in from tramping in the snow and warming up by the fire reminds me of this poem from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. This is Bilbo's song in Rivendell at the end of the story.

I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen,
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
In summers that have been;

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.

I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall ever see.

For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.

I sit beside the fire and think
of people long ago,
and people who will see a world
that I shall never know.

But all the while I sit and think
of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
and voices at the door.

Photo © 2011 by A. Roy Hilbinger

Already...

Maple leaf in the snow, Dykeman Walking Trail

Music: "Already Song" - performed by Dadáwa (Zhu Zheqin), composed by He Xuntian - from Dadáwa's 2008 CD Seven Days.

Already Song
Lyrics, music and composition by He Xuntian

Awareness of Living:
In this present life, when everyone else has gone, the stars and the tree leaves will not have gone before you.

Sun already sunk behind the hills
Companions already gone home

Evening breeze already blown away
No one left to play

Stars up there, come out
And I will play with you

Sun already sunk behind the hills
Companions already gone home

Evening breeze already blown away
No one left to play

Leaves up there, flutter over here
And I will play with you

Photo © 2011 by A. Roy Hilbinger; "Already Song" words & music © 2006 by Wind Music International Corporation

Autumnal Equinox

Miantonomi Park, 11/21/2007

For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together.
For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad.
- Edwin Way Teale

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns." - George Eliot

"Autumn is the eternal corrective. It is ripeness and color and a time of maturity; but it is also breadth, and depth, and distance. What man can stand with autumn on a hilltop and fail to see the span of his world and the meaning of the rolling hills that reach to the far horizon?" - Hal Borland

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof; there thou may'st rest,
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe;
And all the daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now the lusty song of fruit and flowers.
- William Blake, To Autumn, 1783

Photo © 2010 by A. Roy Hilbinger

A Cure for Wingnuts, Conspiracy Theorists, and Other Chronic Grouches

Nature is the perfect cure for a sour, contentious, negative outlook on life. You guys really need to get outdoors and away from the TV more often!

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. ~John Muir

Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.
~Rachel Carson

I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.
~Henry David Thoreau

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more.

~George Gordon, Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

Photos and slideshow © 2009 & 2010 by A. Roy Hilbinger

Theme Thursday - Snow

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.












My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.













He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.












The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

– Robert Frost, 1953

And now to the videos! It isn't Winter up here in New England until the Boston Pops Orchestra plays Leroy Anderson's "Sleigh Ride". Here's the previous maestro, conductor and composer John Williams, doing the honors, accompanying shots of horses and sleighs in snow.

And of course there's always the "Winter" suite from Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, here accompanied by a slideshow (not mine) of snow photos.

Photos & non-poetic text © 2008 & 2009 by A. Roy Hilbinger
[Note: The photos are from last year's "Solstice Storm" here in Newport, taken on December 20, 2008, the day after the storm (although as you can see from some of the shots there was still some light snow happening). All shots were taken in Ballard Park.]

Theme Thursday - Kiss

A little over 20 years ago I created my own Tarot deck, mostly as a way to express my own ideas about what the whole thing was about, which were decidedly more earth- and human-based and firmly rooted in Jungian symbolism than the commercial decks available at the time. This is my version of the traditional The Lovers card. To me this card symbolizes far more than just "love" as it is normally seen, but rather as the force that holds together everything in the universe. whether you want to call it "gravity" or "magnestism" or "attraction" or "harmony" or anything else. In the classic Christian theological sense, this card covers all three forms of love - agape, eros, and philia. Whatever it is that brings us together - personal or communal - is reflected in this card. I even used lovers of different skin coloring to represent bringing diverse elements into harmony. And of course the kiss is essential - the flowing together, the blending, the essential breath of each flowing into the other and creating a deep, binding unity.

One of the more famous love poems in Western culture is Paul's paean to love in 1 Corinthians 13. He uses the word αγάπη (agape) in this, which basically means complete, unconditional love. I couldn't think of a better quote for this week's theme:

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

"Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

"Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

"So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

The music video I chose for this week's theme is more proof that at heart I'm a sappy romantic. Heh, heh! I couldn't help myself; I fed the word "kiss" into YouTube's search engine, and hidden in the mass of videos by the rock group Kiss was this little gem I remembered from the '90s. Yup, Seal singing "Kiss From a Rose". I love that song! This is a live version from 2004 in Wembley Stadium, part of a tribute to Trevor Horn, who was Seal's producer. Enjoy!

Artwork, photo, and text © 2009 by A, Roy Hilbinger

Theme Thursday - Ghost

I don't really have an opinion on ghosts. I know people who swear they've seen them, but I've also heard plausible explanations for what they saw. Personally, I've never seen a ghost. However... I do believe all living things leave something of an "energy signature" behind when they leave. So who knows? In any case, I have a poem I wrote in 1981 about Newport's primary colonial-era residential neighborhood, combined with some shots of the area.

The Point - Newport

Such a pretty street,
all gas lamps, brick walks,
and old, old houses.
What happens here at night,
after we've gone to bed
and the last, long peal
of the midnight bell has been
swallowed by the dark?

Then rockers rock
and stairs creak
with remembered weight.
Teacups clatter
and clink in their saucers
in memory of long-past parties.
Books float from shelf to table,
opening to a well-worn page,
or to the flyleaf inscribed
in a long outdated hand.









Do those who live here awaken
and tremble
at the sounds
of midnight movement?
Or do they turn and sigh,
comforted,
in the atmosphere of peaceful security?











Old houses aren't haunted;
they're just nostalgic.

-A. Roy Hilbinger, November, 1981

Speaking of haunted houses... This week's video for the theme concerns English literature's most famous haunted house, and the couple who haunt it. The novel is Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, and the video uses probably the most haunting piece of music ever written about that book: Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights". And the video also uses scenes from the best movie of the novel, the 1939 movie starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon. Enjoy!

Photos, poem, and text © 1981, 2007, & 2009 by A. Roy Hilbinger

Theme Thursday - Wind

I live by the ocean in a Summer resort. Oceans generate wind, and wind has several recreational uses, but the most important recreational use here in Newport is - sailing. So my post this week for the "wind" theme is sails filled with wind and speeding the boats through the water. Aren't these just lovely ladies?

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,

And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,

And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

– John Masefield, Sea Fever

This week's video takes us back a way. Since the theme this week is "wind", I immediately thought of Ian and Sylvia Tyson and Ian's classic, lovely song "Four Strong Winds". Here they are singing it on a Canadian television special, and joined by some special friends on the last verse.

Photographs © 2008 & 2009 by A. Roy Hilbinger

Thought for the Day - The Sea

Sea Fever

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

– John Masefield

I call this shot "Coming In for a Landing." It was taken about a year ago on Easton's Beach. This should hold you all while I go putting together tomorrow's Theme Thursday post.

Photograph © 2008 by A. Roy Hilbinger

Thought for the Day - Snow

Our snow has mostly melted away, and I miss it already! So this is to satisfy my snow jones.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know,
His house is in the village though.
He will not see me stopping here,
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer,
To stop without a farmhouse near,
Between the woods and frozen lake,
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake,
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep,
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

– Robert Frost

Photograph © 2008 by A. Roy Hilbinger
Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1923, �© 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, Inc., renewed 1951, by Robert Frost.

Scenes from the Macro-World – Husks

(This article was originally posted on Gather.com on 11/04/08.)

Summer's wildflower
shed its rainbow-colored robe
for a Winter shroud.

© 2008 by A. Roy Hilbinger