"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]
*Below are select my videos from the WinterJam 2023 Concert held in GRR, MI. Those few vids which are not I've so marked as "official vids" from the artists themselves. I found all the bands quite enjoyable and were best experienced together with the teens and college kids which we were very happy to be a part of. For a fuller selection of the artist's works go to the links provided below in their pictures. Special shout outs to the band Disciple, Andy Mineo, and Jeremy Camp! Awesome! - RE Slater
Line-up features Jeremy Camp, We The Kingdom, Andy Mineo, Anne Wilson, Austin French, Disciple, & more. Hosted by Newsong.
We The Kingdom will join Winter Jam following their Fall 2022 tour and the release of their new namesake album We The Kingdom. The band received the awards for Contemporary Christian Artist of the Year and Pop/Contemporary Album of the Year for Holy Water at the 2021 GMA Dove Awards and is known for #1 songs like “Holy Water” and “God So Loved.”
Jeremy Camp is a chart-topping, Grammy-nominated artist with 40 number one hits. He is known for songs like “I Still Believe,” “Walk By Faith” and current hit “Keep Me In The Moment” and is the subject of the 2020 inspirational biopic I Still Believe. Jeremy joins the tour following the release of his 2021 album When You Speak and his Fall 2022 tour.
No tickets needed. $15 donation accepted at the door.
There once was a lit'rary miss; And all that she needed for bliss Was some ink and a pen, Reams of paper, and then Thirty days to describe half a kiss.
The World's Way
by Anonymous
He wrote his soul into a book.
The world refused to turn and look.
He made his faith into a rhyme,
And still the world could spare no time.
But on the day when, dumb and dazed,
Despair-condemned, and blind and crazed,
By means most weird his life he took,
Behold, the world brought out his book!
The Letter
by Emily Dickinson
"Going to him! Happy letter! Tell him —
Tell him the page I didn't write;
Tell him I only said the syntax,
And left the verb and the pronoun out.
Tell him just how the fingers hurried,
Then how they waded, slow, slow, slow;
And then you wished you had eyes in your pages,
So you could see what moved them so.
"Tell him it wasn't a practised writer,
You guessed, from the way the sentence toiled;
You could hear the bodice tug, behind you,
As if it held but the might of a child;
You almost pitied it, you, it worked so.
Tell him — No, you may quibble there,
For it would split his heart to know it,
And then you and I were silenter.
"Tell him night finished before we finished,
And the old clock kept neighing 'day!'
And you got sleepy and begged to be ended —
What could it hinder so, to say?
Tell him just how she sealed you, cautious,
But if he ask where you are hid
Until to-morrow, — happy letter!
Gesture, coquette, and shake your head!"
Free Verses
by Sarah Kirsch
Last night I awoke knew
That I should say goodbye now
To these verses. That's how it always goes
After a few years. They have to get out
Into the world. It's not possible to keep them
Forever! here under the roof.
Poor things. They must set out for town.
A few will be allowed to return later.
But most of them are still hanging around out there.
Who knows what will become of them. Before they
Find their peace.
Introduction to Poetry
by Billy Collins
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author's name on the shore.
But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means.
The Art of Poetry
by Jorge Luis Borges
To gaze at a river made of time and water
and remember Time is another river.
To know we stray like a river
and our faces vanish like water.
To feel that waking is another dream
that dreams of not dreaming and that the death
we fear in our bones is the death
that every night we call a dream.
To see in every day and year a symbol
of all the days of man and his years,
and convert the outrage of the years
into a music, a sound, and a symbol.
To see in death a dream, in the sunset
a golden sadnesssuch is poetry,
humble and immortal, poetry,
returning, like dawn and the sunset.
Sometimes at evening there's a face
that sees us from the deeps of a mirror.
Art must be that sort of mirror,
disclosing to each of us his face.
They say Ulysses, wearied of wonders,
wept with love on seeing Ithaca,
humble and green. Art is that Ithaca,
a green eternity, not wonders.
Art is endless like a river flowing,
passing, yet remaining, a mirror to the same
inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
and yet another, like the river flowing.
The Author to Her Book
by Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)
THOU ill-form'd offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth did'st by my side remain,
Till snatcht from thence by friends, less wise than true
Who thee abroad, expos'd to publick view,
Made thee in raggs, halting to th' press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened (all may judg).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call,
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
Thy Visage was so irksome in my sight;
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, of so I could:
I wash'd thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.
I stretcht thy joynts to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run'st more hobling then is meet;
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save home-spun Cloth, i'th' house I find.
(intended to be played when reading all that is set below)
3 hours
Being the last day of 2022 I wish to remember the poems and songs of JRR Tolkien speaking of love and lost, wander and thrall. Within the sad tales of Middle Earth comes bred upon the human breast a wistfulness for better days when fellowship no longer strives with ruin and evil. Where the grand majesties set deep upon the hearts of all beings cannot undo themselves by heavy lost but finds within a deeper courage and longing to aright wrongs done and all be redeemed by torn atoning struggles for peace and justice founded upon the shattered halls of love unremitting its trials and longings.
"Under the fading trees the land was silent." - Elven Lady Arwen
Lady Arwen, upon leaving the side of her Thrane and husband, Aragorn, and the whiten fortresses of Gondolin - where lay his tomb in the Hallows of Minas Tirith - thence journeyed onwards across Middle Earth to Lady Galadriel's remembered forest realms of Lothlorien. Then onwards to her Elven father Elrond's hidden realms founded upon the rocky chasms of Rivendale. And therefrom her father's lands Arwen thence turned westward towards the greensward troves of the misty Grey Havens once abounding it's vast inland and coastal realms under the tendering care of Elvish hands. Yet thereto did Arwen behold the fey wastelands conscripted in deeper losts than its lores and legends. For all she surveyed leaned upon her heavy heart the fast retreats of man's fourth age whose rule and imagination languished before her renown predecessor's gifted domains once wrapped in light and life within the deep and purposeful care of their Elven lord's faded dominions. - R.E. Slater
For Tolkien, as for his magical realms of lore and wisdom, time may be slowed but never stopped. Vast realms and traditions, cherished friendships and places, may for a time be preserved and protected yet all will eventually succumb to death and soulful reprocessing into the unknown realms beyond death's fast holds where new life and purpose may be rebourne, long journeys emended and renewed, and perhaps bound to brighter promises and hopes thought lost to time and eternity at death's hands.
R.E. Slater
December 31, 2022
@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved
The White Towers of Minas Tirith of Gondolin
Faithful Arwen beside beloved Aragorn's side in his State of Rest
Aragon's Tomb in the Hallows before the Citadel of Minas Tirith
Enya - Arwen's Song of Aragorn
* * * * * * * * *
A Tolkien Ensemble - The Song of Beren and Lúthien
Eärendil was a mariner that tarried in Arvernien; he built a boat of timber felled in Nimbrethil to journey in; her sails he wove of silver fair, of silver were her lanterns made, her prow was fashioned like a swan, and light upon her banners laid.
Beneath the Moon and under star he wandered far from northern strands, bewildered on enchanted ways beyond the days of mortal lands. From gnashing of the Narrow Ice where shadow lies on frozen hills, from nether heats and burning waste he turned in haste, and roving still on starless waters far astray at last he came to Night of Naught, and passed, and never sight he saw of shining shore nor light he sought. The winds of wrath came driving him, and blindly in the foam he fled from west to east and errandless, unheralded he homeward sped.
There flying Elwing came to him, and flame was in the darkness lit; more bright than light of diamond the fire upon her carcanet. The Silmaril she bound on him and crowned him with the living light and dauntless then with burning brow he turned his prow; and in the night from Otherworld beyond the Sea there strong and free a storm arose, a wind of power in Tarmenel; by paths that seldom mortal goes his boat it bore with biting breath as might of death across the grey and long forsaken seas distressed; from east to west he passed away.
Through Evernight he back was borne on black and roaring waves that ran o'er leagues unlit and foundered shores that drowned before the Days began, until he heard on strands of pearl where ends the world the music long, where ever-foaming billows roll the yellow gold and jewels wan. He saw the Mountain silent rise where twilight lies upon the knees of Valinor, and Eldamar beheld afar beyond the seas. A wanderer escaped from night to haven white he came at last, to Elvenhome the green and fair where keen the air, where pale as glass beneath the Hill of Ilmarin a-glimmer in a valley sheer the lamplit towers of Tirion are mirrored on the Shadowmere.
He tarried there from errantry, and melodies they taught to him, and sages old him marvels told, and harps of gold they brought to him. They clothed him then in elven-white, and seven lights before him sent, as through the Calacirian to hidden land forlorn he went. He came unto the timeless halls where shining fall the countless years, and endless reigns the Elder King in Ilmarin on Mountain sheer; and words unheard were spoken then of folk of Men and Elven-kin, beyond the world were visions showed forbid to those that dwell therein.
A ship then new they built for him of mithril and of elven-glass with shining prow; no shaven oar nor sail she bore on silver mast: the Silmaril as lantern light and banner bright with living flame to gleam thereon by Elbereth herself was set, who thither came and wings immortal made for him, and laid on him undying doom, to sail the shoreless skies and come behind the Sun and light of Moon.
From Evereven's lofty hills where softly silver fountains fall his wings him bore, a wandering light, beyond the mighty Mountain Wall. From World's End there he turned away, and yearned again to find afar his home through shadows journeying, and burning as an island star on high above the mists he came, a distant flame before the Sun, a wonder ere the waking dawn where grey the Norland waters run.
An Elven-maid there was of old, A shining star by day: Her mantle white was hemmed with gold, Her shoes of silver-grey.
A star was bound upon her brows, A light was on her hair As sun upon the golden boughs In Lórien the fair.
Her hair was long, her limbs were white, And fair she was and free; And in the wind she went as light As leaf of linden-tree.
Beside the falls of Nimrodel, By water clear and cool, Her voice as falling silver fell Into the shining pool.
Where now she wanders none can tell, In sunlight or in shade; For lost of yore was Nimrodel And in the mountains strayed.
The elven-ship in haven grey Beneath the mountain-lee Awaited her for many a day Beside the roaring sea.
A wind by night in Northern lands Arose, and loud it cried, And drove the ship from elven-strands Across the streaming tide.
When dawn came dim the land was lost, The mountains sinking grey Beyond the heaving waves that tossed Their plumes of blinding spray.
Amroth beheld the fading shore Now low beyond the swell, And cursed the faithless ship that bore Him far from Nimrodel.
Of old he was an Elven-king, A lord of tree and glen, When golden were the boughs in spring In fair Lothlórien.
From helm to sea they saw him leap, As arrow from the string, And dive into the water deep, As mew upon the wing.
The wind was in his flowing hair, The foam about him shone; Afar they saw him strong and fair Go riding like a swan.
But from the West has come no word, And on the Hither Shore No tidings Elven-folk have heard Of Amroth evermore.
Galadriel's Song of Eldamar
(Sung by Galadriel to the Fellowship of the Ring)
I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew: Of wind I sang, a wind there came and in the branches blew. Beyond the Sun, beyond the Moon, the foam was on the Sea, And by the strand of Ilmarin there grew a golden Tree. Beneath the stars of Ever-eve in Eldamar it shone, In Eldamar beside the walls of Elven Tirion. There long the golden leaves have grown upon the branching years, While here beyond the Sundering Seas now fall the Elven-tears. O Lórien! The Winter comes, the bare and leafless Day; The leaves are falling in the stream, the river flows away. O Lórien! Too long I have dwelt upon this Hither Shore And in a fading crown have twined the golden elanor. But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me, What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?
Actual Verse *Or there maybe 'tis cloudless night and swaying beeches bear the Elven-stars as jewels white amid their branching hair.
Stephen Oliver - Bilbo's Last Song
(from the BBC Radio Adaptation of the LOTRs)
Bilbo's Last Song
(At the Grey Havens)
Day is ended, dim my eyes, but journey long before me lies. Farewell, friends! I hear the call. The ship's beside the stony wall. Foam is white and waves are grey; beyond the sunset leads my way. Foam is salt, the wind is free; I hear the rising of the Sea.
Farewell, friends! The sails are set, the wind is east, the moorings fret. Shadows long before me lie, beneath the ever-bending sky, but islands lie behind the Sun that I shall raise ere all is done; lands there are to west of West, where night is quiet and sleep is rest.
Guided by the Lonely Star, beyond the utmost harbour-bar I'll find the havens fair and free, and beaches of the Starlit Sea. Ship, my ship! I seek the West, and fields and mountains ever blest. Farewell to Middle-Earth at last.
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