When Mr. Z walks, he takes his camera.....these are from the Santa Monica bluffs, 3 miles from Z Haus. I want to thank Mr. Z, officially, for having taken the picture at the top of my blog!
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32 comments:
I will take you on a walk
through days that burn our grass path brown
and nights that trip us on long shadow feet,
nights darker than under an old wooden porch
The walk is long
and we will squint till our foreheads ache
against the sunlight
that ties knots in our eyes
It will be dark and light many times,
but worth the walk
for days which hold us tight
in shawls of gossamer
and nights so sweet and cool
Z
I'm not letting the old poems stay filed anymore. You guys are in for it! Blame it on Farmer John/Just Some Guy.......(who's probably got his head in his hands along 'bout now!)
My tears poured out of his hands
like pebbles finely sanded
from years in a stream
He gave them back
I don’t need them
You do
So I scooped them up
from beneath us
He didn’t help
He just kept pouring
until my hands couldn’t carry more
and I knew it was time to stop
I had enough
of everything
So I threw them at him
and the smooth little rocks
did nothing for his face
but plenty for me
This is a favorite of mine, so be careful!! z
Good and bad memories in those pictures. Even from here on the high desert I can almost smell the sea air. I remember as a kid riding in the family car into Santa Monica, how just as we got into Sepulveda Canyon the air would grow cool and damp and salty. And that night we would sleep in cool damp salty beds.
I enjoy your poems, Z. Keep posting them.
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking.
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.
- John Masefield
Beautiful pictures, Z! What a privilege to live so near the Pacific bluffs! And so good to have a husband who is also a good photographer.
Your poetry is truly fine. It's heartfelt, fresh and modern, but still comprehensible with just that touch of mystery that stops "verse" from being prosaic.
~ FreeThinke
Another gem from Emily Dickinson (1830-86):
I never saw a Moor–––
I never saw the Sea–––
Yet know I how the Heather looks
And what a Billow be.
I never spoke with God
Nor visited in Heaven–––
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the Chart were given–––
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Other editions use "And what a wave must be" at the end of the first stanza. I believe this version may be the most authentic.
FT
I love Mr Z's pictures! What great shots, it looks so peaceful and calm!!!
Poetry is wonderful I enjoyed the first oone the most.
A refreshing break for the day for me!! I really enjoyed reading this and looking at the pictures, was able to relax.
FT..I prefer "wave" and love that poem.
ME! So glad you liked them!!
Elbro...so nice......
CJ, I thank you very much.
Z, lovely pics...I'm more than a tad jealous that you can see this regularly.
Your poetry is so peaceful. I enjoyed it so much! Please do post more. This is a talent I wish I had. Maybe I can learn.
Thanks for this Z.
The photos are wonderful. We hear us referred to as the left coast, but this is simply, a California sunset. Just one reason why we love it here.
Thanks for sharing your poetry. Keep it coming. Great.
Pris
A sanity break in an insane world. Thanks, Z!
Good morning, G*D bless and Maranatha!
tmw
who's elbro?
KEVIN! STOP!!
I won't give you any poetry, but I will tell you those pics are lovely!
Very nice pics z, thanks for sharing and the poems are good too...
what?
Hmmm. Haven't been to Santa Monica in ages. The last time I was there, "Braveheart" was playing in the theaters, and there was a great little restaurant up from the pier called the Pirana... served great Sushi...
I think Pirana's still there, but I"ve not been there. Boy, if you ever get back here, I sure do hope you let me know, jsg!
You'd hate the poetry I enjoy most. It's a "man thing".
...I don't get to Santa Barbara Research Center (or whatever they call it these days) much anymore. They make great gear, but it takes 'em FOREVER to get it to work.
...and thanks for the invite, but it's highly unlikely I'll be to the left coast anytime soon... I AVOID travel like the plague. In my younger days I spent WAY to much of my time in airplanes.
But if you're ever in the capitol beltway region, let me know. ;-)
jsg,you've been to Santa Barbara? we LOVE it and take long weekends there quite often. It's so beautiful and peaceful.
As for that poem you linked? That man thing?
you were absolutely right. :-)
Ah, Farmer John! You may enjoy Tennyson's account of historic slaughter and conquest–––'tis a decorous romantic way to portray violent aggression, rather like Delacroix's "Liberty Storming the Barricades" with bare breasts and head held high–––but I rather doubt you would have enjoyed taking part in the carnival of carnage Tennyson evokes in words of mythic splendor.
As for me:
I'd rather dine on Havilland-Limoges
Than hurl a javelin for a Doges.
Delicate viands decorously consumed
Beat being slashed, then crushed and doomed.
Why is it "manly" to yearn to die
In blood soaked mud 'neath a pitiless sky?
FreeThinke
FT: would you die for anything? I wish I had the courage to die for my country or my faith. And I hope I don't get tested any time soon. I'm trying to think if there is ANY act I admire more than offering your life to protecting this country.
Very good comment, thanks!
Good morning, Z!
Forgive my whimsy. Dying is inevitable, but it's natural and right to want to postpone it as long as possible, unless one becomes a "living corpse," of course.
"Greater love hath no man than that he lay down his life for his friend."
That said, I have no taste for martyrdom–––think it ignoble in fact. Christ intended to be The Last Martyr–––the ONLY martyr–––so that none of us who believe in Him should ever have to suffer as He did.
I hate aggression.
Even if it meant giving away all we have developed, I'd gladly make the sacrifice if it would end aggression and oppression once and for all.
There is nothing "glorious" about war. Sometimes it's a necessary evil, but we should never lose sight that it IS evil.
I think it takes more courage to live through harsh times a well as one can, and dedicate one's energies to helping those less fortunate and more troubled than oneself–––to the last breath–––than it does to face an early and appallingly violent death in the mud.
War is like surgery. It should only be used as a last resort.
FreeThinke
I think you missed the point of the poem, FT...
Theirs was a greatness
Got from their Grandsires--
Theirs that so often in
Strife with their enemies
Struck for their hoards and their hearths and their homes.
I'd rather die than live on my knees. I spit on THAT kind of peace. *spit*
ps - Your "use it only as a last resort" philosophy is cr*p, forgive me for saying so. Unless you're prepared to strike BEFORE your sworn enemy has ALL the advantages, you'll perish. Ask the Israeli's in '67.
Now THAT action was truely a merciful act on behalf of ALL parties to the conflict. Had Israel "waited" to be attacked, the bodycounts would have increased at least x10 fold.
Hamlet, Act IV Scene IV...
How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event,
A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward, I do not know
Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;'
Sith I have cause and will and strength and means
To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me:
Witness this army of such mass and charge
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death and danger dare,
Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!
–but I rather doubt you would have enjoyed taking part in the carnival of carnage Tennyson evokes in words of mythic splendor.
There your wrong. As a beast, it is the MOST satsifying of all "instincts"... PURE UNADULTERATED NIETZSCHEAN WILL TO POWER.
You don't "know yourself", FT. Gnothi Seauton. Like most modern "civilized" men, you're a PTSD case waiting to happen.
btw - You counsel Achilles as would Thetis (his mother). But for all her efforts, she could not make him an "immortal". It was only through death on the plains of Ilium that Achilles achieved his destiny as a MAN, immortality.
My father-in-law (USMC) had a tatoo on his arm. It read "Death before Dishonor." He lived it, and so has become an immortal in my mind (he died from cancer many years ago). Had he not lived as he did, I would have long ago forgotten him.
Nietzsche, "Will to Power"
966 (1884)
In contrast to the animals, man has cultivated an abundance of contrary drives and impulses within himself: thanks to this synthesis, he is master of the earth.-- Moralities are the expression of locally limited orders of rank in his multifarious world of drives, so man should not perish through their contradictions. Thus a drive as master, its opposite weakened, refined, as the impulse that provides the stimulus for the activity of the chief drive.
The highest man would have the greatest multiplicity of drives, in the relatively greatest strength that can be endured. Indeed, where the plant "man" shows himself strongest one finds instincts that conflict powerfully (e.g., in Shakespeare), but are controlled.
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