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Showing posts from January, 2009

Lessons on Life from Inanimate Objects

It is a kind of love, is it not? How the cup holds the tea, How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare, How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes Or toes. How soles of feet know Where they're supposed to be. I've been thinking about the patience Of ordinary things, how clothes Wait respectfully in closets And soap dries quietly in the dish, And towels drink the wet From the skin of the back. And the lovely repetition of stairs. And what is more generous than a window? -"The Patience of Ordinary Things" by Pat Schneider from Another River: New and Selected Poems

Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Ass

I've oft been told by learned friars, That wishing and the crime are one. And Heaven punishes desires, As much as if the deed were done.  If wishing damns us, you and I  Are damned to all our heart's content;  Come then, at least we may enjoy  Some pleasure for our punishment! Thomas Moore (1779 – 1852)

I Have a Dream

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be a