Unparaphrasable

It's Thor's day and our roller-coaster weather is to bring rain to the Tulsa area . . .

Today is the 188th anniversary of Mark Twain's birth. He was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens on this date in 1835 Florida, Missouri.

It's the birthdate of Gordon Parks. Considered among the best photographers of the 20th Century, Parks was born on this day in 1912 Fort Scott, Kansas.

Two creative icons of film direction were both born on today's date. Ridley Scott turns 86 today. He was born in 1937 South Shields, County Durham. And, turning 80 today, Terrence Malick was born in 1943, Ottawa, Illinois. He grew up in Oklahoma and Texas.

And David Mamet is 76 today. The playwright was born in 1947 Chicago, Illinois.

One can't help but notice that our particular cultural moment is obsessed with choosing sides, proclaiming who is right and who is wrong, and cancelling anyone who makes a misstep in word or deed. Poems, though, poems accommodate the muddiness and ambiguity that is the real substance of our actual lives. My favorite poems (and poets) elude boxes. Are shapeshifters. Unparaphrasable. – Holly Wren Spaulding

Nothing lasts.

There is a graveyard where

everything I am talking about is, now.

I stood there once, on the green grass,

scattering flowers. – Mary Oliver, in The Leaf and the Cloud. Da Capo Press, 2001.