Footprints in the Sand

I came across this little story about forty years ago, when I was returning to the Christian faith after a long period of agosticism.  It meant a lot to me then.  It means even more now, looking back across the years.  

There are things you can't really understand until you have lived a long life, travelled a long way, loved much and lost much.  And then you see the footprints.  Thanks be to God.

Click to enlarge.

And in the wilderness (as thou hast seen) the Lord thy God hath carried thee, as a man is wont to carry his little son, all the way that you have come, until you came to this place.

--Deuteronomy 1:31 (Douay)

-----

Poets' Corner: [In Just-]

 e. e. cummings (1894-1962)

[in Just-]

in Just-

spring          when the world is mud-

luscious the little

lame balloonman

whistles          far          and wee

and eddieandbill come

running from marbles and

piracies and it's

spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer

old balloonman whistles

far          and             wee

and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's

spring

and

         the

                  goat-footed

balloonMan          whistles

far

and

wee

1920

----- 

Poets' Corner: I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

The famous flowers of the famous poem by the famous poet in his favorite place.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

I wandered 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 stretched 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.

    1804

-----

Poets' Corner: Jabberwocky

Lewis Carroll (1832 - 1898)

Jabberwocky

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

      And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

      The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

      The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;

      Long time the manxome foe he sought—

So rested he by the Tumtum tree

      And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

      The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

      And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

      The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

      He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

      Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

      He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

      And the mome raths outgrabe.

I memorized this poem in 7th grade; my father used to enjoy hearing me recite it.  I can still recite it today, nearly sixty years later.

-----

Poets' Corner: Wild Nights

Montage from wallpaperflare.com

Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886)

Wild Nights

Wild nights - Wild nights!

Were I with thee

Wild nights should be

Our luxury!

Futile - the winds -

To a Heart in port -

Done with the Compass -

Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden -

Ah - the Sea!

Might I but moor - tonight -

In thee!

1861

-----

Poets' Corner: Trees

A new feature for Tuesdays on the Blue Truck:  random poems I like.  Not necessarily biographical or sociopolitical, just good stuff.

-----

Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)

Trees

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

1913

N. B. -- Joyce Kilmer was a man.  He died fighting in France during World War I.

-----

Poets' Corner: What lips my lips have kissed

Two Men Kiss, Hongtao Huang at Fine Art America

A new feature for Tuesdays on the Blue Truck:  random poems I like.  Not necessarily biographical or sociopolitical, just good stuff.

-----

Edna St. Vincent Millay 

Sonnet XLIII

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,

I have forgotten, and what arms have lain

Under my head till morning; but the rain

Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh

Upon the glass and listen for reply,

And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain

For unremembered lads that not again

Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,

Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,

Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:

I cannot say what loves have come and gone,

I only know that summer sang in me

A little while, that in me sings no more.

Italian sonnet form                                                  1920

-----

Sunday Drive: Crossing the Bar

In memory of HRH the late Duke of Edinburgh at the suggestion of my truckbuddy Tim from England, now resident in Spain:

 

This poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, written in 1889, has long been a great favorite of your Head Trucker's. 

Sunset and evening star,

  And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

  When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

    Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

    Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

    When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

    The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

    When I have crost the bar.

 -----

The Rape of America

Your Head Trucker will make no comments here, leaving it up to you fellas to draw your own conclusions from these six items.

I. "Remember This Date," from the Senate Democrats Twitter account:

II.  Andrew Sullivan, "The Nullification Party," via David Mixner:

I’ve been trying to think of something original to say about the absurdity now transpiring in Washington, DC. I’ve said roughly what I think in short; and I defer to Fallows for an important dose of reality against the predictably moronic coverage of the Washington Post.

But there is something more here. How does one party that has lost two presidential elections and a Supreme Court case – as well as two Senate elections - think it has the right to shut down the entire government and destroy the full faith and credit of the United States Treasury to get its way on universal healthcare now? I see no quid pro quo even. Just pure blackmail, resting on understandable and predictable public concern whenever a major reform is enacted. But what has to be resisted is any idea that this is government or politics as usual. It is an attack on the governance and the constitutional order of the United States.

When ideologies become as calcified, as cocooned and as extremist as those galvanizing the GOP, the American system of government cannot work. But I fear this nullification of the last two elections is a deliberate attempt to ensure that the American system of government as we have known it cannot work. It cannot, must not work, in the mindset of these radicals, because they simply do not accept the legitimacy of a President and Congress of the opposing party. The GOP does not regard the president as merely wrong – but as illegitimate. Not misguided – illegitimate. This is not about ending Obamacare as such (although that is a preliminary scalp); it is about nullifying this presidency, the way the GOP attempted to nullify the last Democratic presidency by impeachment.

Except this time, of course, we cannot deny that race too is an added factor to the fathomless sense of entitlement felt among the GOP far right. You saw it in birtherism; in the Southern GOP’s constant outrageous claims of Obama’s alleged treason and alliance with Islamist enemies; in providing zero votes for a stimulus that was the only thing that prevented a global depression of far worse proportions; in the endless race-baiting from Fox News and the talk radio right. And in this racially-charged atmosphere, providing access to private healthcare insurance to the working poor is obviously the point of no return.

Even though the law is almost identical to that of their last presidential nominee’s in Massachusetts, the GOP is prepared to destroy both the American government and the global economy to stop it. They see it, it seems to me, as both some kind of profound attack on the Constitution (something even Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts viewed as a step too far) and, in some inchoate way, as a racial hand-out, however preposterous that is. And that is at the core of the recklessness behind this attack on the US – or at least my best attempt to understand something that has long since gone beyond reason. This is the point of no return – a black president doing something for black citizens (even though the vast majority of beneficiaries of Obamacare will be non-black).

I regard this development as one of the more insidious and anti-constitutional acts of racist vandalism against the American republic in my adult lifetime. Those who keep talking as if there are two sides to this, when there are not, are as much a part of the vandalism as Ted Cruz. Obama has played punctiliously by the constitutional rules – two elections, one court case – while the GOP has decided that the rules are for dummies and suckers, and throws over the board game as soon as it looks as if it is going to lose by the rules as they have always applied.

The president must therefore hold absolutely firm. This time, there can be no compromise because the GOP isn’t offering any. They’re offering the kind of constitutional surrender that would effectively end any routine operation of the American government. If we cave to their madness, we may unravel our system of government, something one might have thought conservatives would have opposed. Except these people are not conservatives. They’re vandals.

This time, the elephant must go down. And if possible, it must be so wounded it does not get up for a long time to come.

III. David Weigel, Slate, "Why Republicans Have No Problem Taking Us to the Brink":

The gerrymanders of 2011 added to their natural geographic advantage over urban/suburban Democrats and gave them a House they simply don’t think they can lose. In 2012 they proved it, winning 1.36 million fewer votes than Democratic candidates but keeping a 33-seat majority. According to the Cook Political Report, 205 of 435 House districts are solidly Republican, basically impossible to lose without an unexpected bribery or sexting scandal. Only 163 districts are solidly Democratic. If Democrats swept the table and won all the districts currently rated as tossups or “leaning” Republican, they’d win 213 seats, five short of a majority.

That was always the long-term Republican plan. In 2010, when voter anger was already guaranteeing a fantastic party comeback, groups like the Redistricting Majority Project (nicknamed REDMAP) told donors that “the party controlling that effort controls the drawing of the maps—shaping the political landscape for the next 10 years.”

IV. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D.-Mass.) blasts Republicans "who cannot cope with the reality of our democracy":



V.  Robinson Jeffers, "Shine, Perishing Republic," circa 1935:

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire,

And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the mass hardens,  

I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.

Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence; and home to the mother.    

You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly

A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains: shine, perishing republic.    

But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thickening center; corruption

Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster’s feet there are left the mountains.    

And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant, insufferable master.

There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught—they say—God, when he walked on earth.

VI.  Rachel Maddow: "GOP Came to Power Seeking Government Shutdown."

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

Rassurez-vous - Fear Not

On Palm Sunday in Paris, demonstrators of the religious right protesting against the government's same-sex marriage bill give the Fascist salute while singing the Marseillaise; immediately afterwards, they attacked the police, sparking a violent riot.

In the wake of violent protests, gay bashings, and calls from the French rightwing for "blood" and "civil war" if Parliament passes a marriage-equality bill - likely to happen this coming Tuesday - one Frenchman has produced a really beautiful video poem to soothe the fears of the homophobes. He could sure soothe me, anytime - how about you, fellas?

Hint: for English subtitles, click "CC" on the menu bar of the video.



Or read the whole thing, after the jump:

Sunday Drive: The Bridge Builder

Thanks to all my Truckbuddies who responded to my post about Cody. Your kindness touched my heart.

I don't want to dwell on all that - life moves on, you know, and we all just have to take it as it comes, light or dark, rain or shine. But I will share with you one more thing that happened, and I can't explain it. Make of it what you will.

A few weeks before Cody died so unexpectedly, I had emailed him a link to a poem I'd stumbled across and thought interesting. He didn't remark much upon it then, but several days later, he surprised me with a gift: he had printed out the poem in a nice format, and put it in a frame. I thanked him, of course, and hung it on the wall by my desk, though secretly I wasn't sure why he had picked this particular poem to frame, out of all the other things we shared with each other.

Only after he was gone did I begin to get a glimmer of why.

An old man, going a lone highway,
Came, at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm vast and deep and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.

The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
That sullen stream had no fears for him;
But he turned, when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.

"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim near,
"You are wasting strength with building here.
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again will pass this way.
You've crossed the chasm, deep and wide -
Why build you this bridge at the eventide?"

The builder lifted his old gray head:
"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said,
"There followeth after me today,
A youth, whose feet must pass this way.

This chasm, that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him."

At the bottom, Cody had added:

To Russ, January 19, 2005
For no other reason than
I love
you
- Cody

I still keep it right here by my desk, close to me.

(Poem by Will Allen Dromgoole / Painting: Bridge of Faith by Thomas Kinkade)

Sunday Drive: The Spark of Greatness

(Photo: coloroflincoln.com, which has more colorized images of the sixteenth president.)

The past week could hardly have gone better, and the nation's joy could hardly be greater at the commencement of the 44th President's term of office. Although his significance as the first African-American to hold the office cannot be denied, yet from another point of view, Obama seems to me an Everyman figure: the hardworking guy from humble origins whose efforts have been crowned with success in a still-youthful middle age; the husband still very much in love with his wife, the devoted father of two adorable little girls: a man neither arrogant nor subservient, but strong, smart, capable, and confident.

A popular guy, a very likeable sort. Someone everybody wants to know, everyone would like to count as a friend. A guy everyone envies, but nobody is jealous of. The kind of guy we would all like to be, if we could: successful, popular, well-adjusted. Loved - by all but the most narrow-minded and bitter-hearted.

He and his lady made a lovely picture the other night, dancing cheek to cheek at the ball, as they did watching the parade, waving and smiling, their children at their side. Had the circumstances of his life, the accidents of history, been different - had he ended up, instead of at the White House, as simply your neighbor down the street, or one of the middle managers where you work - you might find yourself thinking still: "Now that guy has it made, he has it all." Without grudging him the least bit of happiness.

Some people, so it seems, are just lucky that way. Sometimes all the bits and pieces of life come together in an exceedingly neat pattern, whether by design or accident: just the right amounts and the right kinds of nature, nurture, temperament, ability, and opportunity. For others, perhaps, through no fault of their own, a deficiency here, a defect there, too much of this, too little of that, make a jagged pattern, or an incomplete one. But for some few, at least, the application of the will to a fortunate pattern granted by fate makes a winning combination indeed.

I have wondered, though, what motivates a man like that to put it all on the line, to place himself at great risk of losing all that - which many another man or woman might sincerely wish for and strive all their life to attain, yet never possess - what animates such a man in the depths of his being to move his life out of such a happy orbit, which he might maintain indefinitely without too much effort? Why disrupt, endanger, the pretty pattern for an uncertain achievement?

I don't know, can't say. An ambition of some kind - yes, certainly - though in this particular case it seems to be one that is not merely for the sake of self, but for the betterment of others. A noble aim - though as history has all too often shown, a sometimes thankless, even dangerous one.

And yet, it seems to me upon further reflection, the making of greatness lies in that very course of action: not drawing back to preserve one's own happiness, but reaching out for that greater good of their neighbors.

Most of us do not have that spark of greatness in us - that combination of determination and selflessness. Our highest dreams, if we dared lay them bare for inspection, rise to a much lower height: winning the lottery, building the perfect house, finding the handsome lover. We are too full of ourselves, too preoccupied with me and my. Our vision reaches no higher than our own rooftop. That is our common human nature: to want our own needs met - and if possible, exceeded - before we consider the needs of our neighbors.

And yet, uncommonly, every now and then, some one of us breaks away from the crowd, and reaches out for something higher, something better, not counting the cost, not fearing the risk. A mere mortal, like the rest of us - but one on whom a divine ambition rests, a divine fire burns in the heart. Such women, such men, we call great; for they exceed, transcend, the ordinary limitations of our human race. Within themselves, they bear a glory in this world, which lights the way through the darkness that surrounds our beginning and our end; they walk a shining path of service and of love the rest of us may follow.

Their hearts are restless until they glow in the pure, bright flame of eternity.

. . . How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

--from Robert Browning, "Ulysses"