Through a Darkened Pane

by compound complex 730 Replies latest social entertainment

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  snowbird

  http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/j/u/justasam.htm

  Used to rush home from KH meetings to catch this signature at the end of each Billy Graham's sermon.

  Syl
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  compound complex

  Thanks, Syl:

  One of the many reasons to rush home after meeting!

  CoCo
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  snowbird

  Lay Dis Body Down

  "I know moon-rise, I know star-rise,
  Lay dis body down.
  I walk in de moonlight, I walk in de starlight,
  To lay dis body down.
  I 'll walk in de graveyard, I 'll walk through de graveyard,
  To lay dis body down.
  I 'll lie in de grave and stretch out my arms ;
  Lay dis body down.
  I go to de judgment in de evenin' of de day,
  When I lay dis body down ;
  And my soul and your soul will meet in de day
  When I lay dis body down."

  "I 'll lie in de grave and stretch out my arms." Never, it seems to me, since man first lived and suffered, was his infinite longing for peace uttered more plaintively than in that line.

  Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Atlantic Monthly, 1867.

  Syl
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  compound complex

  I know that sleep will come, perhaps not today,
  But soon, an eternal, blessed slumber that bids
  
  Farewell to a suffering that even the likes of true
  Love in no measure, great or small, can assuage.

  What is this anguish that must be borne upon my
  Lone shoulders that once were broad and able to

  Withstand the weight of both our worlds without the
  Least of pain or downward sloping of brawny frame?
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  snowbird
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  compound complex

  Good morning, dear Sylvia!

  ... thanks for your lovely posts.

  CoCo
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  compound complex

  The garden path of decaying brick winds in serpentine fashion through a bed of roses so colorfully vibrant that I am incredulous to discover that these fashion plates have no smell. This incongruity of beauty minus the expected trait of floral fragrance puts me off. I am in a zone of altered reality by so simple yet unexpected an unnatural phenomenon. Maybe the old olfactory is out of sorts and my sniffer's simply out of joint.

  No, my senses - all of them - remain keen. Something is terribly wrong in the secret garden of this old house so very far off the beaten path. I wandered over here while performing my daily, nocturnal amble from the family home on Hernandez Terrace to what has become the discovery of a property somehow earlier missed. How missed I can't say. I know every boulevard and avenue and street and back alley in town. So I thought.

  Perhaps not. Something's missing here. I don't know what it is, but I have a prickly feeling I'm about to find out. Walking so late at night has never before caused me the slightest unease. Suddenly it occurs to me that, despite a near total darkness, I have been perceiving all along a rich tapestry of deeply hued flora.

  Tonight ... this night is singular for the strangely still mood of a neighborhood once so familiar to me. There's a dense atmosphere, a palpable heaviness that wafts gently around me, then cuts like a dull knife down my center. I raise my eyes toward a sky that goes from velvety smooth, deep purple to undulating waves of a steadily blackening expanse that is dominated by the staring eyes of a dark moon ...
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  BabaYaga

  Beautiful!
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  snowbird

  Beautiful indeed!

  Reminds me of Van Gogh's paintings, Night Cafe and Starry Night.

  Syl
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  snowbird

  Octagon Soap

  It's made from mostly lye and has a pleasing lemongrass aroma.

  In my childhood, it was used to clean everything - appliances, children, dishes, floors, laundry. cats, dogs, chicken, etc!

  During the week, we would haul in the tin #2 tub (called a foot tub), fill it with hot water, and give ourselves a good scrubbing with the long-lasting tan bar.

  On Saturday nights, however, we had to take the #3 tub (bath tub) from its resting place on a hook outside, fill it with extra hot water, and scrub or be scrubbed from head to toe with the rich-lathering bar.

  On Sunday mornings, we would once again turn to the lowly foot tub, but this time with a bar of "sweet"soap - either Cashmere Bouquet, or, if finances were less strained, Camay.

  Then, it was off to Sunday school, smelling like freshly-picked flowers ...

  My oldest daughter ran into a little out-of-the-way store this weekend and found, to my delight, a goodly supply of Octagon soap.

  Guess I'll be stopping in to buy some in the near future. Nothing like indulging in a little nostalgia, is there?

  Syl