My friend, I've loss

I am more and more enjoying Langston Hughes.  This poem touched a nerve about a recent loss in my life.

To a Dead Friend
by Langston Hughes
[first published in the May 1922 issue of Crisis]


The moon still sends its mellow light
Through the purple blackness of the night;
The morning star is palely bright
        Before the dawn.

The sun still shines just as before;
The rose still grows beside my door,
       But you have gone.

The sky is blue and the robin sings;
The butterflies dance on rainbow wings
       Though I am sad.

In all the earth no joy can be;
Happiness comes no more to me,
       For you are dead.

My friend, I've loss

Spark in the cool night

Your tones shined golden and brown--

I still need telling

Is life a cycle, or continuous juxtaposition of memory and hope?

1940s songs

Service cuts into life's fall--

War and life bloody

I visited my aging parents last weekend at their assisted living facility home.  They held a little celebration for veterans, most of whom served during the 1940s, including, of course, WW II.  Afterward, someone played some popular songs from the 1930s and 40s, and most in attendance sang along.  One of the vets sang quite nicely. 

Later, I tried to use the restroom in the dining room, but couldn't.  It was covered in blood.  It seems the sweet-singing vet had fallen, which he apparently does routinely.  An awkwardly jarring scene was this...wistful recollections of youth, honor of service, and the violence of the infirmities that come with old age.

Rains fall so gray begins--

Dim days in a long school year

Keep faith with the plan

The Joyful Reality of Fatherhood

An old friend introduced me to this poem, and it reminded me that (nearly) every son has his struggles with his father.  And every father worth his salt makes the sacrifices he must for his children.

THOSE WINTER SUNDAYS

Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

Furnace blows heat now

Wages earned in warm darkness--

Lonesome bright future

Modern Life?

Cherries bloom humbly--

Now organized expertise 

Ever failing us

Frederick Taylor

An Organization Man?

How could this be a Zero?

2b)  Does the object continue to move after it comes to rest?

Maths are essential--
Ask nonsense but degrade play
Words matter really

or should it be

Maths are essential?
Ask nonsense but degrade play--
Words matter really

They're still locust-eaten years, even if redeemed

Munch's Scream redrawn as Despair

All that man builds dies
Son sent in love never fades--

Man's son loves but leaves

More technology is always better

Roll laptops to class

Technology for learning--

Four students watch one

Come on people now, see how we don't smile on our brother?

Construct differences

Peace in our time...doubtful--

Re-render Caesar

Call it Israel or Palestine,  The Occupied West Bank or Jewish Settlement,
relations among the varying groups is strained, to say the least.

Play the Man

Maintain Dignity--
Walk miles in hot dust alone

Be comfortable rock

Elegy for a Brother

Grief burns cold in heart

Mother limper than dead sun--

Son rises to spring

A little bonus...a poem by that brother.

RUMINATIONS NO. 1

I have taken to the streets and filled our house with mysteries;

Is God not the first and last of all mysteries?

Then I have filled our house with pieces of God,

How better can the House of Man be furnished?

REDemption: The best laid plans....

I asked my students to do a Haiku on some place in the world they have visited.  We have a lot of military students, so some of them have been to unusual places.

First, I wanted them to look at a picture from their time in the place and free write about it.

My picture(s) and my pre-write--

It seems like everybody who comes to China gets his picture taken with Mao. There were tourists—Chinese and foreign—all around us taking this same photo. It was hot that day, and we had walked several miles to get there. How does Mao stay looking so good through all the heat? Well, a ways inside this wall—the gate to the Forbidden City—I visited Starbucks. After that refreshment I bet I look even better than Mao.

I wonder how Mao does it—looks so pleasant after sending so many people to their deaths. It’s funny, too, that his picture guards the entrance to the Forbidden City. “Foreign Capitalist Devil and Chinese Citizen, alike, watch out when entering here…unless you want an iced mocha.”

Next, I asked my students to ponder their free writing and then do a Haiku on the subject.

My Mao Haiku

Forbidding man comes;

Pink petal of redemption

Wilts in the cauldron

How much do relationships matter?

Good divorce, you say

Are you ignoring wreckage--

Chick unrealized 

The Problem with Education?

We had parent conferences last night.  It gets tiresome to think about all the organizational gobbledygook that is supposed to make everything so much better but matters little to parents, students or worthwhile learning.  This idea--notion?--called EDUCATION gets puffed, but little more.

Don't overheat the Core

Crank up to Power Standards--

Real learning go hang

Turn the handle and all the cogs will grind out a college-ready reader. The steps to making great art!

A Rainy Day in Palanga



A carving a of V. I. Lenin set in a big chunk of amber     



A biography of Lenin, in an amber mosaic cover

The Blessing Christ, a statue of Jesus

outside the Amber Museum in Palanga, Lithuania, 
which houses Lenin memorabilia, cast in amber 

Amber Communist

Rain washes but can't redeem--

God bless Lenin…NO

A Dahlia by any other Name

It was 5 years ago yesterday--October 16--that we picked up our son.  He was 14 days old.  We met him in a hotel parking lot....It's a lot better than it sounds.

Flowers bloom for eyes

The heart's garden blooms anew--

Atlanta baby