The Great Pumpkin

In the comic strip "Peanuts" by American cartoonist Charles M. Schulz, Linus believes that each year on Halloween night, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch that he thinks is the most sincere and flies through the air with a bag of toys for all the children. Everyone tells Linus the Great Pumpkin is a fake, but Linus believes in him.

Listen now to Vince Guaraldi playing "The Great Pumpkin Waltz" from the original soundtrack of the animated "Peanuts" television special "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."

Brainteaser: Dial-A-Poem

Here is a brainteaser, a puzzle, for you to try to solve.

I met a traveller from an antique land . . . That is the first line of a sonnet (composed in 1817) by Percy Bysshe Shelley, a sonnet the title of which can be dialed on a cell phone as 699-626-3427. What is that sonnet's title?

To read the answer to this puzzle, and to read Shelley's sonnet, click on the following phone number: 699-626-3427.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

English poet

(Portrait by Alfred Clint, 1819)

A Puzzle! "Let's Do It"

Here is a brainteaser, a puzzle, for you to solve, if you can.

"My sole inspiration is a telephone call from a director." So said the American composer, a famous songwriter, whose name can be dialed on a telephone as 265-376-7837. What is that famous songwriter's name?

To read the answer to this puzzle, click here.

Listen now to Lady Gaga singing "Let's Do It," a song that the composer whom I quoted above wrote.

I Just Called to Say I Love You

"I Just Called to Say I Love You" by Stevie Wonder was one of my mother Evelyn's favorite songs. Listen to it now.

A Face Devoid of Love

A face devoid of love or grace,

A hateful, hard, successful face,

A face with which a stone

Would feel as thoroughly at ease

As were they old acquaintances --

First time together thrown.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

(This poem is in the public domain.)

The face of my hateful younger brother Roger:

"A face devoid of love . . . "

Friend

Don't walk in front of me -- I may not follow.

Don't walk behind me -- I may not lead.

Walk beside me --

And just be my friend.

Albert Camus

Bread Upon the Waters

 THE FINAL SAY

Quotations (from the Bible and James Baldwin)

in a pair for comparison

Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.

     --The Bible: Ecclesiastes 11:1 (King James Version)

In other words:

People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes back to them, poisoned.

     --James Baldwin (1924-1987)

Read more about James Baldwin.

The Great Stone Face

One afternoon, when the sun was going down, a mother and her little boy sat at the door of their cottage, talking about the Great Stone Face. They had but to lift their eyes, and there it was plainly to be seen, though miles away, with the sunshine brightening all its features.

And what was the Great Stone Face?

So begins Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic short story "The Great Stone Face." To read the answer to the question above and to read the story in its entirety, click here.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

(Photo by Mathew Brady)

The Butterfly Magnet

In my small bathroom

I allow

no silverfish, no

pests, just one

butterfly.

The butterfly in the photo above

is a magnet that once belonged

to my dear departed Aunt Mildred

and that now belongs to me. 

Concerning Anger and Murder: A Found Poem

A Poem of Jesus Christ

from The New English Bible (1970):

Matthew 5:21-22

You have learned that our forefathers were told,

"Do not commit murder;

anyone who commits murder

must be brought to judgement."

But what I tell you is this:

Anyone who nurses anger

against his brother

must be brought to judgement.

If he abuses his brother

he must answer for it to the court;

if he sneers at him

he will have to answer for it

in the fires of hell.

Cover of The New English Bible

Silence of Fools

Those who are sure of themselves do not talk all the time. People who stay calm have real insight. After all, even fools may be thought wise and intelligent if they stay quiet and keep their mouths shut.

     --The Bible: Proverbs 17:27-28 (Good News Translation)

It's better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.

     --Mark Twain

     

Emily Dickinson on Asking Forgiveness of God

Here is an untitled poem by American poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) on asking forgiveness of God. This poem is in the public domain.

Of God we ask one favor,

That we may be forgiven --

For what, he is presumed to know --

The Crime, from us, is hidden --

Immured the whole of Life

Within a magic Prison

We reprimand the Happiness

That too competes with Heaven.

Emily Dickinson

An Amazing Cover of Toto's "Africa"

A choir called Angel City Chorale performed an amazing cover of Toto's song "Africa" -- complete with rain and thunder. It is a cover every bit as magical as the original. Read the story about this cover here, where you can watch a YouTube video of the choir's performance.

Quotation from Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)

"On Stupidity" -- Letters and Papers from Prison

The Wayfaring Stranger

THE WAYFARING STRANGER

Anonymous

I am a poor wayfaring stranger,

While traveling through this world below;

There is no sickness, toil, nor danger

In that bright world to which I go.

I'm going there to meet my father,

I'm going there no more to roam;

I am just going over Jordan,

I am just going over home.

I know dark clouds will gather o'er me,

I know my pathway's rough and steep;

But golden fields lie out before me,

Where weary eyes no more shall weep.

I'm going there to see my mother,

She said she'd meet me when I come;

I am just going over Jordan,

I am just going over home.

I want to sing salvation's story

In concert with the blood-washed hand;

I want to wear a crown of glory,

When I get home to that good land.

I'm going there to see my classmates,

Who passed before me one by one;

I am just going over Jordan,

I am just going over home.

I'll soon be free from every trial,

This form will rest beneath the sod;

I'll drop the cross of self-denial,

And enter in my home with God.

I'm going there to see my Saviour,

Who shed for me His precious blood;

I am just going over Jordan,

I am just going over home.

Source: The Broadman Hymnal (Copyright 1940 Broadman Press)

Here is a music video of Angel City Chorale singing an arrangement of the American spiritual "The Wayfaring Stranger."

Bees Were Better

In 2017 in his introduction to Column 661 of American Life in Poetry, Ted Kooser, who served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006, wrote in part, "The University of Minnesota Press has published a fine collection of bee poems, If Bees Are Few. Here's one by one of my favorite poets, Naomi Shihab Nye, who lives in San Antonio. . . . "

"In college, people were always breaking up." So begins Naomi Shihab Nye's poem "Bees Were Better" (2008). To read that poem in its entirety, click here.

Image above by Neha Singh from Pixabay

Look

In "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" (1986), the essay of his that became a classic, Robert Fulghum wrote in part, "And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned -- the biggest word of all -- LOOK." In his poem "The Starlight Night" (reprinted below) Gerard Manley Hopkins used the word look seven times.

THE STARLIGHT NIGHT

by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!

    O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!

    The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!

Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves'-eyes!

The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies!

    Wind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare!

    Flake-doves sent floating forth at a farmyard scare! --

Ah well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize.

Buy then! bid then! -- What? -- Prayer, patience, alms, vows.

Look, look: a May-mess, like on orchard boughs!

    Look! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows!

These are indeed the barn; withindoors house

The shocks. This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse

    Christ home, Christ and his mother and all his hallows.

The First Dandelion

THE FIRST DANDELION

from Leaves of Grass (1892) by Walt Whitman

Simple and fresh and fair from winter's close emerging,

As if no artifice of fashion, business, politics, had ever been,

Forth from its sunny nook of shelter'd grass -- innocent, golden, calm as the dawn,

The spring's first dandelion shows its trustful face.

Image by Markus Koch from Pixabay

A Haiku for Leap Day

A lonely pond in age-old stillness sleeps . . .

    Apart, unstirred by sound or motion . . . till

Suddenly into it a lithe frog leaps.

    --Basho (1644-1694)

      (Translated, from the Japanese, by Curtis Hidden Page, 1923)

Portrait of Basho by Hokusai, late 18th century

A Chip on His Shoulder

A CHIP ON HIS SHOULDER

Author Unknown

He always has something to grumble about,

    Has the man with a chip on his shoulder;

The world to the dogs is going, no doubt,

    To the man with a chip on his shoulder;

The clouds are too dark, the sun is too bright.

No matter what happens, it is never right;

When peace is prevailing he is spoiling to fight,

    The man with a chip on his shoulder.

A portrait of R. (which could stand for rogue),

a man with a chip on his shoulder

(and "The Devil's Idiot")

Photo copyright 2005 Evelyn M. Gilmer

February All Dripping Wet

If the clouds be full of rain,

they empty themselves upon the earth.

--from Ecclesiastes 11:3

(King James Version)

The title of this post is a line from an untitled poem in Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book by English poet Christina Rossetti.

Melanie (1947-2024): Requiescat in Pace

Melanie sang "Peace

Will Come." Melanie is gone.

May she rest in peace.

Melanie -- "Peace Will Come" (video)

The Final Say: "An Eye for an Eye"

Read "'Turn the Other Cheek': A Poem of Jesus Christ."

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind. --Mahatma Gandhi

That old law about "an eye for an eye" leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing. --Martin Luther King, Jr.

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