FLIGHT PLAN |
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Photograph by Bob Gentry 8/5/99
A Thought for Today
Heroes aren't heroes, until they are tested.
The regular daily Flight Plan will be
suspended for a few weeks while I'm away helping Webmaster Ken Blackie work out the design
and content of our upcoming STANYAN HOUSE web site. I hope you'll continue landing here
ever day though because Jay Hagan and Melinda Smith have chosen two poems from a different
one of my books for every day that I'm gone.
So, something new will be here every morning. The Thought for Today and the Notable
Birthdays will continue. See you soon.
Love, Rod
Today's selections are from "The Sea
Cycle" and "Suspension Bridge," by Rod McKuen
The Truthful Lover - from Suspension Bridge
For Chen Sam
How fragile are the dreams
that
cross and meet
and make up love.
As need is but a plain name for desire
so too the lies that lovers use in conquest
should be held to light,
cost and consequence not pushed aside.
Whenever love comes calling in the night
truth bends a little.
That is to be expected.
Love is a non-exclusive instrument.
It is a savings bank,
interest computed and compounded
high above the principal.
It is a place to gather
where lover and beloved
never come as equals.
And yet the body at its widest
is no wider than the brain that drives it.
Who is the truthful lover,
how can we know?
Supposing we pass over that one
who seems like all the rest,
but only comes by once?
In doing so we forfeit life
and its best feature, laughter.
How is Aphrodite now and where is she?
And if she called us each by name
would we discern her voice
in crowded room and reverie?
The question pile.
The answers run down through the distance
like a world unwinding.
In love there is no training ground,
only happy accidents.
- Chosen by J.H.
Ten - from "Sea Cycle"
Beach bar lingo being all the same
we have left to make
whole conversations with our eyes.
Add to this
that glances must be tentative
for none should know our business
but ourselves.
I wonder then
that we met at all.
Perhaps the language of the desperate
is the strongest one yet made.
How else could you explain
an understanding without words ?
A moving out the door
with no pre-arrangement.
- Chosen by
M.S. |
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Lefty Gomez o
Robert Goulet o Eugene Ionesco o Eugene Istomin o Scott Jacoby o Rich Little o Lorene Lortie o Marian Mercer o Eric Sevareid o Tina Turner o Emlyn Williams And a very
special Birthday wish to a man who has brought so much joy, smiles and inspiration to the
world; Charlie Brown's dad, Charles Shultz. Our prayers, love and good wishes are with you
for a speedy recovery. |
Letter Never Sent
- from Suspension Bridge
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Some nights your sighs
do not tear up the blackness
on other nights they boil it down
to nothing.
It comes and goes.
A quarrel over lovers,
a dare not taken up.
Love, a cup half full,
not filling up again.
By what divining light
does heat turn into mildew?
Where does the blurring start
between providence and progress?
Ever up ahead
another river road.
Another blank page to be filled
and one more beating heart,
someone would like to stop,
that won't be
stilled.
And this is but another letter
that I never sent
and never meant to.
-Chosen by M. S."The
Sea Cycle" was published by Warner Bros. Records, by special permission from
Cheval-Stanyan, as part of the boxed set of recordings "The Complete Sea," in
1969. Harper & Row first published "Suspension Bridge" in 1984. |
