Saturday, I took a short bike ride downtown and took some pictures. Apparently, later that same afternoon, protests over the murder of George Floyd ensued. And later that evening, there were pockets of rioting and looting.
I missed all that … mostly, I’m focused on the peace and calm that pervades the Universe in all its timelessness. At any rate, here are some pics from my short bike ride. Enjoy!
365 Photo Journey – A Picture a Day for a Year
Apparently, this is a thing. Consider it a challenge, a journal, or a journey (I prefer journey). Take a picture a day and post it to your blog. Here are some reasons why you should try it, too.
Memorial Day 2020! The COVID-19 crisis here in Indianapolis may (I hope) have reached its apex. Phase Two of the Governor’s plan is in effect. I took a bike ride downtown and even stopped at a restaurant and drank a double espresso and lime ice. Lovely!
At any rate, here are some pics from my short bike ride. Enjoy!
365 Photo Journey – A Picture a Day for a Year
Take a picture a day for an entire year. Apparently, this is a thing. Consider it a challenge, a journal, or a journey (I prefer journey). Take a picture a day and post it to your blog. Here are some reasons why you should try it, too.
From whence this sweetness came, I do not know. But sweetness be! Such felicity! No errant word transcribed or heard, or hard-wrought image showed.
From whence this sweetness came, I cannot say. But ’round your eye The rain doves fly And pluck Spring’s lyre’s strings and sing so heavenly.
From whence this sweetness came– from what moonbeam or sunbeam, blushed two children, conjoined, born dancing, hand in curious hand, around the hollyhocks play– from whence this sweetness came, I cannot say.
I must give to you of myself, for these are the dark times. I am a man and a multitude, and within my sea swim the dreams of ages.
I point to the end of time with the tip of my finger, so that you may see it, too. I dig up the buried gods, from lost and forgotten graves— may they whisper to you gold of a world in shadows.
The mind is far-ranging— the world a plain for grazing. In me, there is sunlight and the dust of chaos.
The fathers have taught me patience— I am a pole for seed, and the garden but this one moment to breathe. So, build the walls, and to silence turn the open gate.
For the past couple of months I have been working on a huge new secret project with my painter, Addie Hirshten, of Studio Alchemy
We selected 30 poems (from the public domain) and each day for the next 30 days I will write a poem inspired by it, and Addie will paint a painting.
Expect an outpouring of creative energy! This is the sort of big project that artists live for … where we can say what we yearn to say. Big picture stuff. Heart wrenching stuff. I feel so inspired by the poetry we are working with AND seeing Addie’s process as well. Expect daily surprises with our posts. Expect passion. Expect love. Expect life.
One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts. You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!
We selected 30 poems (from the public domain) and each day for the next 30 days I will write a poem inspired by it, and Addie will paint a painting.
So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired by William Butler Yeats’ poem, The Lake Isle of Innisfree.
To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)
ADDIE’S PAINTING
I Shall Have Peace By Addie Hirschten
MY POEM
WORD OF OLYMPUS
Child of Olympus, you are a word that falls like rain.
Snows melt and rush headlong for the sea, past rock and fallen tree, tumbling from the mountaintop.
In nature we find our tidings. Find your lesson in the river’s tide.
It spills you out to sea, into a buoyant, breathless stillness— under a wine-red sky, you tread water and to turn to look at all the world in miniature.
And the ocean swells like an enraged beast, as if Amphitrite had loosed her husband’s cart.
You drink the briny deep and sink into her slumbering, loving clutches, having spent your patrimony on the broken crags of this awful, delightful, bequeathed world. How will you accounts be settled or will they be settled at all? The market, too, is washed away with the tide.
OUR INSPIRATION
THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE by William Butler Yeats
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee; And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
For the past couple of months I have been working on a huge new secret project with my painter, Addie Hirshten, of Studio Alchemy
We selected 30 poems (from the public domain) and each day for the next 30 days I will write a poem inspired by it, and Addie will paint a painting.
Expect an outpouring of creative energy! This is the sort of big project that artists live for … where we can say what we yearn to say. Big picture stuff. Heart wrenching stuff. I feel so inspired by the poetry we are working with AND seeing Addie’s process as well. Expect daily surprises with our posts. Expect passion. Expect love. Expect life.
The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.
Anton Chekhov
Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts. You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!
For the past couple of months I have been working on a huge new secret project with my painter, Addie Hirshten, of Studio Alchemy
We selected 30 poems (from the public domain) and each day for the next 30 days I will write a poem inspired by it, and Addie will paint a painting.
Expect an outpouring of creative energy! This is the sort of big project that artists live for … where we can say what we yearn to say. Big picture stuff. Heart wrenching stuff. I feel so inspired by the poetry we are working with AND seeing Addie’s process as well. Expect daily surprises with our posts. Expect passion. Expect love. Expect life.
Without the playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.
Carl Jung
Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts. You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!
We selected 30 poems (from the public domain) and each day for the next 30 days I will write a poem inspired by it, and Addie will paint a painting.
So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired by Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem, The Eolian Harp.
To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)
ADDIE’S PAINTING
The Wind ‘Round Honey-Dropping Flowers By Addie Hirshten
MY POEM
A MOMENT WITH YOU
A moment with you, weightless in love, lingers in its own eternity— rooted on your shore, marveling evermore— I, the cypress, and you, the sea.
OUR INSPIRATION
THE EOLIAN HEART by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is To sit beside our Cot, our Cot o’ergrown With white-flowered Jasmin, and the broad-leaved Myrtle, (Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!) And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light, Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve Serenely brilliant (such would Wisdom be) Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents Snatched from yon bean-field! and the world so hushed! The stilly murmur of the distant Sea Tells us of silence.
And that simplest Lute, Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark! How by the desultory breeze caressed, Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover, It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes Over delicious surges sink and rise, Such a soft floating witchery of sound As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land, Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers, Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise, Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing! O! the one Life within us and abroad, Which meets all motion and becomes its soul, A light in sound, a sound-like power in light, Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere— Methinks, it should have been impossible Not to love all things in a world so filled; Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air Is Music slumbering on her instrument.
And thus, my Love! as on the midway slope Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon, Whilst through my half-closed eyelids I behold The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main, And tranquil muse upon tranquility: Full many a thought uncalled and undetained, And many idle flitting phantasies, Traverse my indolent and passive brain, As wild and various as the random gales That swell and flutter on this subject Lute!
And what if all of animated nature Be but organic Harps diversely framed, That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze, At once the Soul of each, and God of all?
But thy more serious eye a mild reproof Darts, O beloved Woman! nor such thoughts Dim and unhallowed dost thou not reject, And biddest me walk humbly with my God. Meek Daughter in the family of Christ! Well hast thou said and holily dispraised These shapings of the unregenerate mind; Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break On vain Philosophy’s aye-babbling spring. For never guiltless may I speak of him, The Incomprehensible! save when with awe I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels; Who with his saving mercies healèd me, A sinful and most miserable man, Wildered and dark, and gave me to possess Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honored Maid!
For the past couple of months I have been working on a huge new secret project with my painter, Addie Hirshten, of Studio Alchemy
We selected 30 poems (from the public domain) and each day for the next 30 days I will write a poem inspired by it, and Addie will paint a painting.
Expect an outpouring of creative energy! This is the sort of big project that artists live for … where we can say what we yearn to say. Big picture stuff. Heart wrenching stuff. I feel so inspired by the poetry we are working with AND seeing Addie’s process as well. Expect daily surprises with our posts. Expect passion. Expect love. Expect life.
Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts. You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!
We selected 30 poems (from the public domain) and each day for the next 30 days I will write a poem inspired by it, and Addie will paint a painting.
So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired by Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 43, How Do I Love Thee?
To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)
ADDIE’S PAINTING
I Love Thee To The Depth By Addie Hirschten
MY POEM
HOW I LOVE YOU
How do I love you? Your smile is a fan of sun rays, curiously light and lingering, spread wide and airy over nested treetops, where dream sparrows for first flight, and sing of Love’s awakening, and when from day’s horizon ends, you arise as goddess of the gypsy moon, what bliss it is to drink from your harvest-giving womb. Your eyes are Consolation’s stars, and in them I’m forgiven— all my mute transgressions, entombed and untold, and transmuted by your glance into jewels and gold.
OUR INSPIRATION
HOW Do I LOVE THEE? (SONNET 43) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day’s Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.
For the past couple of months I have been working on a huge new secret project with my painter, Addie Hirshten, of Studio Alchemy
We selected 30 poems (from the public domain) and each day for the next 30 days I will write a poem inspired by it, and Addie will paint a painting.
Expect an outpouring of creative energy! This is the sort of big project that artists live for … where we can say what we yearn to say. Big picture stuff. Heart wrenching stuff. I feel so inspired by the poetry we are working with AND seeing Addie’s process as well. Expect daily surprises with our posts. Expect passion. Expect love. Expect life.
I don’t think there’s any artist of any value who doesn’t doubt what they’re doing.
Francis Ford Coppola
Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts. You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!
We selected 30 poems (from the public domain) and each day for the next 30 days I will write a poem inspired by it, and Addie will paint a painting.
So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired by The Song of Songs (The Song of Solomon), in the Bible.
To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)
ADDIE’S PAINTING
I Slept But My Heart Was Awake By Addie Hirschten
MY POEM
MY HEART IS AWAKE
When you sleep, my heart is awake. A sound! A train drones like a cathedral organ— freight cars rumble between planets— through the pitch of space as the city sleeps— miles upon miles, from stockyards to farmland vistas, vanishing into darkness, and again I hear the rubber wash of highways, and all is quiet, close, and in focus.
In my heart I walk in the homeland, where true words are written on the wind.
In my heart I climb a cloud-covered mountain, and upon its summit I see the broad world, stretched like an archer’s bow— a fire-tipped arrow for the sun, and I weep for joy to see you winged and soaring in a sky ribbon red and orange.
Your body is warm next to mine. Your body is my hearth, your breast a bellows, the contours of your face the outer walls of my temple.
And your dreams are my home.
OUR INSPIRATION
THE BRIDE SEARCHES FOR HER BELOVED from Song of Songs 5 (The Song of Solomon) The Bible
I slept, but my heart was awake. A sound! My beloved is knocking. “Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one, for my head is wet with dew, my locks with the drops of the night.” I had put off my garment; how could I put it on? I had bathed my feet; how could I soil them? My beloved put his hand to the latch, and my heart was thrilled within me. I arose to open to my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh, on the handles of the bolt. I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned and gone. My soul failed me when he spoke. I sought him, but found him not; I called him, but he gave no answer. The watchmen found me as they went about in the city; they beat me, they bruised me, they took away my veil, those watchmen of the walls. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him I am sick with love.
For the past couple of months I have been working on a huge new secret project with my painter, Addie Hirshten, of Studio Alchemy
We selected 30 poems (from the public domain) and each day for the next 30 days I will write a poem inspired by it, and Addie will paint a painting.
Expect an outpouring of creative energy! This is the sort of big project that artists live for … where we can say what we yearn to say. Big picture stuff. Heart wrenching stuff. I feel so inspired by the poetry we are working with AND seeing Addie’s process as well. Expect daily surprises with our posts. Expect passion. Expect love. Expect life.
Give what you have. To someone else it may be better than you dare to think.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts. You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!
