Charles Rennie Mackintosh

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Art is the Flower. Life is the Green Leaf.
Let every artist strive to make his flower a beautiful living thing, something that will convince the world that there may be, there are, things more precious more beautiful - more lasting than life itself.

~ Charles Rennie Mackintosh

and more of his work here.

۝ Spring Has Sprung ۝

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A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King.

~ Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

۝ ______________________ ۝


Spring, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant king;
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing.
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

~ Thomas Nashe (1567–1601)

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___________________________________________________ ____________________________________________Painting By Galatea

۝ Spring Is In The Air ۝

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Spring is cold and warm
Men speak of lion and lamb
Borders are like that

Changes come in March
That brings The Spring to all men
Soon the buds will burst

All men love The Spring
And flowers will be hungry
Fertile ground will thrust

© 2006 Galatea

Selected Emily Dickinson

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Part One: Life
....LXXXII....
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MUSICIANS wrestle everywhere:
All day, among the crowded air,
… I hear the silver strife;
And—waking long before the dawn—
Such transport breaks upon the town
… I think it that "new life!"

It is not bird, it has no nest;
Nor band, in brass and scarlet dressed,
… Nor tambourine, nor man;
It is not hymn from pulpit read,—
The morning stars the treble led
… On time's first afternoon!

Some say it is the spheres at play!
Some say that bright majority
… Of vanished dames and men!
Some think it service in the place
Where we, with late, celestial face,
… Please God, shall ascertain!

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Part Two: Nature
.......LXXXV.......
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A LIGHT exists in spring
… Not present on the year
At any other period.
… When March is scarcely here

A color stands abroad
… On solitary hills
That silence cannot overtake,
… But human nature feels.

It waits upon the lawn;
… It shows the furthest tree
Upon the furthest slope we know;
… It almost speaks to me.

Then, as horizons step,
… Or noons report away,
Without the formula of sound,
… It passes, and we stay:

A quality of loss
… Affecting our content,
As trade had suddenly encroached
… Upon a sacrament.

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Part Three: Love
.......XXXVII......
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LOVE is anterior to life,
… Posterior to death,
Initial of creation, and
… The exponent of breath.

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Attention! Forward March!

I’m used to the weather shifts in March…
But starting Daylight Savings Time in the winter!
What the fuck?!?

Spring forward no longer has the meaning it used to. And I do love a pun!
At least we still get to Fall Back...

What do you think we should we call it now???

Time on my blog stood still, so to speak, and is still on Standard Time :-)

Mysterious March

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Looking out my window this morning I noticed it is still winter after all…They call it March Madness. It was 70 degrees a couple of days ago and now it’s snowing.
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I checked out back too...yes, it's snow! ۞~۞~۞~۞~۞~۞~۞~۞~۞~۞~۞~۞~۞~۞~۞~۞~۞~۞~۞

Then I went to the park...after coffee of course.
All Snow Photos © Galatea

The Shield of Achilles ~ By W.H. Auden

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......... ۝ The Shield of Achilles ۝ ........
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…….She looked over his shoulder
……….For vines and olive trees,
…….Marble well-governed cities
……….And ships upon untamed seas,
…….But there on the shining metal
……….His hands had put instead
…….An artificial wilderness
……….And a sky like lead.

A plain without a feature, bare and brown,
…No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood,
Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down,
…Yet, congregated on its blankness, stood
…An unintelligible multitude,
A million eyes, a million boots in line,
Without expression, waiting for a sign.

Out of the air a voice without a face
…Proved by statistics that some cause was just
In tones as dry and level as the place:
…No one was cheered and nothing was discussed;
…Column by column in a cloud of dust
They marched away enduring a belief
Whose logic brought them, somewhere else, to grief.

.......She looked over his shoulder
..........For ritual pieties,
.......White flower-garlanded heifers,
..........Libation and sacrifice,
.......But there on the shining metal
..........Where the alter should have been,
.......She saw by his flickering forge-light
..........Quite another scene.

Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot
…Where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke)
And sentries sweated for the day was hot:
…A crowd of ordinary decent folk
…Watched from without and neither moved nor spoke
As three pale figures were led forth and bound
To three posts driven upright in the ground.

The mass and majesty of this world, all
…That carries weight and always weighs the same
Lay in the hands of others; they were small
…And could not hope for help and so no help came:
…What their foes liked to do was done, their shame
Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride
And died as men before their bodies died.

.......She looked over his shoulder
..........For athletes at their games,
.......Men and women in a dance
..........Moving their sweet limbs
.......Quick, quick, to music,
..........But there on the shining shield
.......His hands had set no dancing floor
..........But a weed-choked field.

A ragged urchin, aimless and alone,
…Loitered about that vacancy; a bird
Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone:
…That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
…Were axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept.

.......The thin-lipped armorer,
..........Hephaestos, hobbled away,
.......Thetis of the shining breasts
..........Cried out in dismay
.......At what the god had wrought
..........To please her son, the strong
.......Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles
..........Who would not live long.

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