I chanced upon a favorite poem of mine today while reading and thought I would share it with all my readers (one). This poem kinda wraps up my thoughts and feelings about friends, flowers, funerals and America’s ritual of decorating graves. If decorating graves helps the loved ones accept and cope with their loss; then so be it, it is just not my belief.
Flowers Today
I would rather have one little rose
From the garden of a friend
Than to have the choicest flowers
When my stay on earth must end.
I would rather have one pleasant word
In kindness said to me
Than flattery when my heart is still,
And life has ceased to be.
I would rather have a loving smile
From friends I know are true
Than tears shed ’round my casket,
When this world I bid adieu.
Blossoms bring to me today,
Whether pink or white or red;
I’d rather have one blossom now
Than a truckload when I’m dead.
…………..Anonymous
This poem has a few other names, like “Please Don’t Wait” and “One Little Rose”.
Anyway, I just wanted to share this bit of written wealth. Enjoy!
July 21, 2009
A Red Sunset
I went to my back door late yesterday evening and saw this wonderful sunset. The sun was so red! In my part of the prairie in Oklahoma, grass fires are a part of early Spring. In fact, grass fires is actually part of the prairie ecosystem.
Oklahoma Prairie Ecosytem
God's Art
Red sunsets are sometimes caused by dust and smoke particles in the atomsphere, which is the scientific explanation for the intense red. However, I believe that God’s hand was in this artwork.
What A Wonderful World!
What A Wonderful World
(George Weiss/Bob Thiele)
I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
The colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shakin’ hands, saying: How do you do?”
They’re really saying “I love you”
I hear babies crying, I watch them grow
They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
And, I think to myself, what a wonderful world
Oh, yeah
The great Louis Armstrong
March 19, 2009
Daffodils
(1804)
I wander’d lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They strech’d in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company;
I gazed–and gazed–but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought;
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
By William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
March 23, 2008
