A canary sang of strange fruit . . .
Thursday, August 28, 2025. It's Thor's day . . . and parts of TulseyTown are likely to hear his hammer as forecasts indicate Easterlies bringing thunderstorms for everyone. Low 70's
“Do not try to save the whole world or do anything grandiose. Instead, create a clearing in the dense forest of your life and wait there patiently until the song that is your life falls into your cupped hands and you recognize and greet it.”
—Martha Postlewaite
Rita Dove turns 73 today. The poet, essayist, university professor, Pulitzer Prize winner and U.S.Poet Laureat was born in 1952, Akron, Ohio.
And, It's the birthdate of Robertson Davies. The novelist,playwright, essayist, humorist (The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks),and another major influencer of Yers Trooley was born in 1913 Thamesville, Ontario.
ICE actions bring back memories of America's dark history. – Joyce Vance, in Civil Discourse.
Today in 1963, 250,000 people gathered for a “March on Washington, and heard the now famous “I Have a Dream” speech by Martin Luther King, Jr.
After the tragic assassinations of both Martin Luther King, Jr. and US Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-MA) earlier in the year, America was on a powder keg. At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in July 1968, the powder keg erupted.
Canary
Billie Holiday’s burned voice
had as many shadows as lights,
a mournful candelabra against a sleek piano,
the gardenia her signature under that ruined face...
Fact is, the invention of women under siege
has been to sharpen love in the service of myth.
If you can’t be free, be a mystery.
– Rita Dove
An ocean of ripples . . .
Wednesday, August 27, 2025. It's Odin's day … Forecasts indicate cool, rains for TulseyTown today and tomorrow. Moderate Southeasterlies and low 70's.
"Art is the stored honey of the human soul, gathered on wings of misery and travail," that's according to Theodore Dreiser whose birth was today in 1871 Terre Haute, Indiana.
The Osage Nation and ecologist author of “Blue Highways,” William Least Heat-Moon turns 86 today. He was born in 1939 Kansas City, Missouri.
And its the birthdate of our 36th President, Lyndon B. Johnson. LBJ, as he was called, was born today in 1908, Gillespie county, Texas,
No Bill! and that's good news from Joyce Vance in today's Civil Discourse.
This week: Celebrating 60 years of The Grateful Dead. They left an ocean of ripples.
The Well of Stars
… it takes a little while to get there,
… step by step,
the way
the poets through time
generously gave themselves
to us,
walking like pilgrims
through doubt,
combining their fear,
their fierceness and their faith...
– David Whyte, “The Well of Stars,” in The House of Belonging, Many Rivers Press, 1997.
Cribbing from Rilke . . .
Tuesday, August 26, 2025. It's Tiw's day . . . The weatherfeather indicates a cloudy day for TulseyTown. Moderate Easterlies, low 80's and a slight rain chance. More rain indicated tomorrow and Thursday. The Fall transition continues.
Have patience with everything that is unsolved in your heart and try to cherish the questions themselves. – Rilke
More than 70 years of struggle by the suffragist movement ended today in 1920 as the 19th Amendment was formally incorporated into the U.S. Constitution. It proclaims "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."
Today is the birth date of Peggy Guggenheim. The modern art collector and memoirist was born in 1898 New York City. “Fight all day, sex all night...” – attributed (anon.) to Peggy Guggenheim.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? – Mary Oliver
… no one cares or bothers
to read anymore those soto voce
below-radar flights from the empirical.
“So why do you write poems?”
the stewardess asked. “I guess
it's because every angel is terrible,
still though, alas, I daily invoke these
almost deadly birds of the soul.”
And I cribbed that from Rilke.
— Jim Harrison, from The Theory and Practice of Rivers, first ed. Winn Books, 1985; reissued by Copper Canyon Press, 2025. This selection from “The Essential Poems,” Copper Canyon Press, 2019.