"Autobiographies of great nations are written in three manuscripts – a book of deeds, a book of words, and a book of art. Of the three, I would choose the latter as truest testimony." - Sir Kenneth Smith, Great Civilisations

"I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine." - Leo Tolstoy

I have never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again. - John Updike

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it." - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti


[Note - If any article requires updating or correction please notate this in the comment section. Thank you. - res]


Saturday, September 25, 2021

R.E. Slater - The Song of the Wayfarer


R.E. Slater - The Song of the Wayfarer


The Song of the Wayfarer
by R.E. Slater


We ran through the fields of youth,
gaily springing and jumping,
leaping and bounding, rock and
rile, each day as joyful as the last,
with hearts beating full and fast!

The years rolled by as did we,
neither slowing nor wasting,
built of love through good or bad,
in a restless world of restless duty,
full of mindful passion, full of time.

Long days of school finally passed,
with dating, marriage, family later,
ministries came and went, as did
eager brawls across many sports,
and family grew exploring, gazing.

All too soon, too soon, too soon,
when life was full, filled with love,
with joyful days lasting, passing,
ne'er to end until, at once, they did,
with every child's wandering passage.

Then joyous house grew empty,
with families grown and gone,
and spouse and I began anew,
as we had a few lifetimes back,
filled with parent's blessings.

These elder days were happiest too,
not wanting, nor unfilled, in their way,
perhaps discarded remnants to fey youth,
when we were young and in love,
full of dreams and strength and zest.

In time we too went the way of earth,
thankful, but sadden, a bit regretful,
living dreams as they could be lived,
living life as we had gleaned and grew,
then all passing, passing, one the other.

Our wayfarer song like so many others,
having trodden life from trial to trial,
path upon path, exploring, yearning,
energy cresting, ebbing, waning, waning,
until legs wore out and breath had passed.

Singing lilting tunes like passing minstrels,
joyously heralding fellowships sweet,
marking each hilly clime', each sodden
vex'ion, laid the foot of a rugged cross,
to lay thereto in peaceful repose at last.


R.E. Slater
September 25, 2021
rev. September 26, 2021
rev. September 28, 2021


@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved







“Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glint on snow.”

- Mary Elizabeth Frye 



Departures (Soundtrack)
No. 18 Okuribito (Memory)
by  Joe Hisaishi






And Death Shall
Have No Dominion
by Dylan Thomas


And death shall have no dominion.
Dead man naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan’t crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

- Dylan Thomas





Departures (Soundtrack)
No. 19 Okuribito (Ending)
by  ​Joe Hisaish




“You can shed tears that she is gone
Or you can smile because she has lived.”

- David Harkins



Olafur Arnalds - Happiness Does Not Wait




“Don’t think of me as gone away,
My journey’s just begun.
Life holds so many facets,
This earth is but one.”

- Ellen Brenneman



Max Richter - On The Nature Of Daylight (Entropy)




“Because I have loved life,
I shall have no sorrow to die.
I have sent up my gladness on wings,
To be lost in the blue of the sky.”

- Amelia Josephine Burr



Departures: Cello Solo






Funeral Blues
by W.H. Auden


Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message ‘He is Dead’.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

- W.H. Auden





Four Weddings & A Funeral






The North Ship
by Philip Larkin


I saw three ships go sailing by,
Over the sea, the lifting sea,
And the wind rose in the morning sky,
And one was rigged for a long journey.

The first ship turned towards the west,
Over the sea, the running sea,
And by the wind was all possessed
And carried to a rich country.

The second ship turned towards the east,
Over the sea, the quaking sea,
And the wind hunted it like a beast
To anchor in captivity.

The third ship drove towards the north,
Over the sea, the darkening sea,
But no breath of wind came forth,
And the decks shone frostily.

The northern sky rose high and black
Over the proud unfruitful sea,
East and west the ships came back
Happily or unhappily:

But the third went wide and far
Into an unforgiving sea
Under a fire-spilling star,
And it was rigged for a long journey.

- Philip Larkin








Poetry Of Departures
by Philip Larkin


Sometimes you hear, fifth-hand,
As epitaph:
He chucked up everything
And just cleared off,
And always the voice will sound
Certain you approve
This audacious, purifying,
Elemental move.

And they are right, I think.
We all hate home
And having to be there:
I detest my room,
It's specially-chosen junk,
The good books, the good bed,
And my life, in perfect order:
So to hear it said

He walked out on the whole crowd
Leaves me flushed and stirred,
Like Then she undid her dress
Or Take that you bastard;
Surely I can, if he did?
And that helps me to stay
Sober and industrious.
But I'd go today,

Yes, swagger the nut-strewn roads,
Crouch in the fo'c'sle
Stubbly with goodness, if
It weren't so artificial,
Such a deliberate step backwards
To create an object:
Books; china; a life
Reprehensibly perfect.

- Philip Larkin








My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends
It gives a lovely light!

- Edna St.Vincent Millay






And when the stream that overflows has passed,
A consciousness remains upon the silent shore of memory;
Images and precious thoughts that shall not be
And cannot be destroyed.

- William Wordsworth,
from "The Excursion"






What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now forever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind.

William Wordsworth,
"Intimations of Immortality"



Departure (Okuribito)

Joe Hisaishi, London Symphonic Orchestra Melodyphony





Wednesday, September 22, 2021

R.E. Slater - Untitled






Untitled
by R.E. Slater

In the grey drizzled woods of fall,
When cold damp and lightless days
Fill bitter earth with numbing soul,
Come the long, dreary days of indifference,
Shutting one out, alone, to deep yearning
For a life of wonder; wonders nourishing
Writers of soul and conviction, who
Alone, fixed in mind and thought,
Wrenching emotion, defeat, frustration,
Solitaire hardships in manifest hazard.

What joy abounds are but thorny slivers
To the stabbing pains of wounded heart
When world wonders not, blithely ignoring
Gaping maw of dark crypt stretching forth
Morbid dead hands reaching up to take
Unrepentant and penitent alike, tho' dislike
Each in journey, but not unlike in social ills
Experienced, wrought of consumptive,
Unfetted ignorance of degenerate politick
Murdering soul and spirit of one-and-all.

A brighter redemption thoroughly was meant,
Yet the grave is unatoning, yea unforgiving when
Stealing a people's grey days held in lightless
Mirth, consuming very words of life and breath,
From hope of things yet to pass, sealing off
Very collected imaginations of grace, yet
Yearning fey mansions golden, colored bright,
Bedecked jeweled halls of ladened wealth, but
Wretched enterprises and testament to dying
Woods, songless fields, joyless days, broken heart.


R.E. Slater
September 22, 2021

@ copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved





Rain in the Woods (Nature Sounds Series #2)
Rain Sounds, Woodland Ambiance, Trickling Streams
[set speakers low - re slater]
Dec 6, 2011









Tuesday, September 21, 2021

Wendell Berry - Short Poems





What a Poem Looks Like | Wendell Berry's "Sycamore"
"That We Might Become Native to the Places We Live." - Luke Turpin
Apr 25, 2020





“Whether we and our politicians know it or not,
Nature is party to all our deals and decisions,
and she has more votes, a longer memory,
and a sterner sense of justice than we do.”

- Wendell Berry




Stay Home by Wendell Berry - Poetry Read Aloud
Mar 25, 2020




"A Vision" by Wendell Berry
Jan 14, 2021





“Telling a story is like reaching into a granary
full of wheat and drawing out a handful.
There is always more to tell than can be told.”

- Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow



Theoretical Fragments (6/11):Wendell Berry and the question of place
Aug 22, 2020




How To Be A Poet (To Remind Myself) by Wendell Berry
Sep 30, 2016





“I go among trees and sit still. All my stirring becomes quiet around me like circles on water. My task lie in their places where I left them, asleep like cattle.” - Wendell Berry
 


“The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry,
A Poetry Film by Charlotte Ager & Katy Wang
Oct 26, 2020




The Seer: A Portrait of Wendell Berry - Movie Clip
May 25, 2016


The Seer: A Portrait of Wendell Berry is a cinematic portrait of the changing landscapes and shifting values of rural America in the era of industrial agriculture, as seen through the mind’s eye of one of the most influential writers of the past half-century.



Wendell Berry's Thoughts in the Presence of Fear
Sep 11, 2017





“The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

- Wendell Berry




Wendell Berry on His Hopes for Humanity
No Compromise: A Defense For the Earth
Nov 4, 2013





Suggested Books to Read for Beginners











Wednesday, September 8, 2021

R.E. Slater - Stewards of the Earth


 


Being, Begetting, Becoming
by R.E. Slater

If we consider humanity's being-ness as part-and-parcel with humanity's doing-ness then we bear the charge to "Live Responsibly in an Unfinished World" (e.g., unfinished, in the sense of present-tense processual actualizations which never cease from their activity of prehending the past --> to self-actualizing the present --> to comprehending the future; also known as a process of concrescence).

Humanity's underlining primary burden for planet earth must be that of "caretaker pro tem" continuing all past efforts of earthcare into the present tense of effectuating all future efforts of eco-humanitarianism implying Earth's stewardship and as humanitarian purveyors of social justice.

By this unfinished term of caretaker is meant not only our caretake of earth but also our caretake of one-another, of humanity itself. That we are charged to mend, heal, repair the realm of God drawing both aspects of caretake together as one - by healing and mending both earth and mankind. And when undertaking these tasks, we are also healing and mending God's soul as much as God is empowering us to heal and mend ourselves.

So, humanity does not simply bear a singular task but a dual subset of the singular task to mend, heal, and repair the earth and each other... neither of which we have done very well... if, at all, in many cases.

Finally, in our earthly caretake of nature and people we, as earth's cosmic progeny, are intimately bound and identified with this earth... having been birthed from its "soils, waters, and airs" wherein we are linked, connected to, and are endowed with an infinite affinity, or earthly kinship, with our earthly cosmos. A cosmic cosmos which has birthed us as our cosmic mother to all possible individual human outcomes to its own possible cosmic outcomes, which, taken together, presents a concrescence sense of being and becoming for all entities evolving from novelty to novelty towards forms of completeness and wellbeing.

R.E. Slater
September 8, 2021



Being and Begetting
by R.E. Slater


We each give birth and rebirth,
one to the other; we are the
unfinished sons and daughters,
of this unfinished world...

Each a cosmic entity, providing
life-giving identity,
cosmic fulfillment,
interlocking purpose...

An envisioned divine fellowship,
birthed to one another, as
birthed by our cosmic mother,
begun at the hands of God...

Who cares for all; Is part of all,
Sustaining and thriving with all,
Engulfing and flowing with all,
Co-inheritors of God's eternal Self...

And so, we do the same;
we are to create,
to nourish, to provide room,
for endless thrival...

No war. No destruction.
No hate. No bigotry.
No racism. No Inequality.
We are the Cosmic One...

Called to heal and repair,
to do our tasks well.
yea, more than well!
Gloria Dei!


R.E. Slater
September 8, 2021
Rev. Sept. 15, 2021

@ copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved




The Processual Cycle of Life
by R.E. Slater

From earth's cosmos mankind is birthed,
And to earth's cosmos mankind returns,
That in life or death we nurture that
which bore us, sustaining it as it sustains
ourselves, our mother, our parent, our home.

R.E. Slater
September 8, 2021

@ copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved




Stewards of an Unfinished Earth
by R.E. Slater

We, the fractured servants of this world,
are not it's superiors, but it's guardians
of a world we prepare for God's restless
dwelling; that each part harmonizes with
the other, bring wholeness to field and
stream, flower and beast, man and God.

R.E. Slater
September 8, 2021

@ copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved




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