18th & 19th December, 2004
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Rod in “The Best is Yet to Come” 11/6/04
Photo by Shira Greenburg ©2004 by Broadway.com. Used by Permission
A Thought for Today
You get a lot more if you’re willing to
settle for a lot less.
FROM the¨BOOKS
Two Poems from The Sound of Solitude
La Ronde / December 18
Call out to a passing stranger.
Say hello, bon soir.
The no-more stranger
in return
will give like greeting to another
who will keep it going
until the circle comes
full circle.
Hoist up a flag of gold and green
Spring
and Autumn intertwined,
and you will find each season
waving to the others
until all four join hands,
their borders blurring.
Take child and second child
to your side
so close that walking
is a single act
and you will find one shadow only.
Take anything that takes you
from yourself
and less will have less time
to build
self-sympathy in ample store.
More than taking, plant and give –
the harvest will be bountiful.
I leave off writing
and begin to read.
Crickets / December 19
Somewhere in the attic
or within a hollow wall
a cricket and his kin and lesser kin
are moving in, unpacking bags,
inspecting their new residence.
Nikki’s eyes roll upward
when what was meant to be
a cheerful chirp
disturbs his noontime nap.
I caught him one day stretching up
to paw a point where two walls meet,
sure that he had found
the nesting place of his new nemesis.
In sly perversity, the cricket family
and some friends
began to chant in unison,
from somewhere in another wall.
Interludes are badly named–
even purgatory is a prelude.
-from The Sound of Solitude, 1983
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Saturday 18 December
Christina Aguilera o
"Stone Cold" Steve Austin o
Abe Burrows o Ty
Cobb o
Ossie Davis o
Robert Fryer o
Betty Grable o
Robson Green o
Katie Holmes o
Celia Johnson o
Ray Liotta o
Leonard Maltin o
Anita O'Day o
Brad Pitt o
Keith Richards o
Saki o
Steven Spielberg o
Roger Smith o
Antonio Stradivarius o
Casper Van Dien
Sunday
19 December
Jennifer Beals o
Marianne Faithful o
Janie Fricke o
Jean Genet o
Daryl Hannah o
Elaine Joyce o Al
Kaline o
Richard Leakey o
Alvin Lee o
Amy Locane o
Albert A. Marks o
Alyssa Milano o
Edith Piaf o
Tim Reid o
Fritz Reiner o
Sir Ralph Richardson o
Jessica Steen o
David Susskind o
Nan Talese o
Cicely Tyson o
Robert Urich |
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Let's get real. Don't expect too much from holiday celebrations and
you'll never be disappointed. By the same token if your mood is somewhat
grim don't let it ruin someone else's holiday.
Joy is contagious, spread a little of it
every chance you get.
Kind words are never forgotten, they
reverberate down a lifetime.
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GARDEN SONG / DECEMBER 26 |
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The rain’s in
recess.
I go into the garden
to check on orchid spikes
or roses planted by my mother,
long enough ago to be long gone
or stopped from blooming,
yet not so far back
I
cannot recall
the circumstance of every bush.
They bloom on...
Not one has withered,
dried by sun or flattened down
by frost.
And she still buds each day
blooming at odd hours.
Photographs look out at me
from mantelpiece and dresser drawer,
they tumble from a half-read book.
Inside my brother’s eyes
I catch her
waving–
she, too, the hermit.
Even as her hand is raised,
it comes up with timidity.
Only lately has this family business
of hermits in our solitary rooms
begun
to haunt me.
I wish to break the mold
and enter life again
arms open, unafraid.
However deep this strain of self
may run,
it must be stopped.
-from The Sound of Solitude, 1983 |
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