Today in my high school ELA class, we did a lesson on the nocturne, using Van Gogh’s painting “Starry Night,” Yasmine Hamdan’s Tiny Desk Concert for NPR, and Ameen Rihani’s poem “Reflections.” The students then asked me to play Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” The contemplative mood of painting and music, and in the poetry in both Rihani’s poem and the Green Day song. Today’s prompt from Write Better Poetry is to write a poem about taste.
The Taste of Darkness, Silent and Alone
by Beth Weaver-Kreider, Mockingbird Chronicles
In the night, you can
taste the flavor of darkness,
savor loneliness.
In the city streets
at night, music drifts faintly
through the quiet dark.
In the countryside,
the train whistle can be heard
from ten miles away.
Loneliness is not
always lonely. Silence is
often filled with sound.
Gratitude List:
1. A kind police officer who knew who to call to take the baby raccoons that fell in the creek when the tree came down.
2. It looks like the electricity folks are going to try to get the power on tonight
3. Crank-powered flashlight that charges a phone
4. Such wonderful colleagues
5. Country silence
May we walk in Beauty!
“It is possible to become discouraged about the injustice we see everywhere. But God did not promise us that the world would be humane and just. He gives us the gift of life and allows us to choose the way we will use our limited time on earth. It is an awesome opportunity.” —Cesar Chavez
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“Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.” ―Frederick Buechner
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“The words you speak become the house you live in.” ―Hafiz (translated by Ladinsky)
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“Humans are the most intellectually advanced animal on the planet and yet, we are destroying our only home. The window of time is very small, but I refuse to believe that we cannot solve this problem.” ―Dr. Jane Goodall
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“Memory makes the now fully inhabitable.” ―David Whyte
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“Things which have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance even after the physical contact has been severed.” ―James Frazer
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“Which world are we trying to sustain: a resource to fulfill our desires of material prosperity, or an Earth of wonder, beauty, and sacred meaning?” — Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
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“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.” —John Steinbeck
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“Crystals are living beings at the beginning of creation. All things have a frequency and a vibration.” —Nikola Tesla
Mockingbird Chronicles 