THE CARPENTER'S SON by SARA TEASDALE

THE CARPENTER'S SON by Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)

The summer sun came over soon, the earth was like hot iron at noon. In Nazareth.There fell no rain to ease the heat. And dusk drew on with tired feet and stifled breath.

The shop was low and hot and square, and fresh-cut wood made sharp the air...while all day long the saw went tearing thru the oak that moaned as tho' the trees heart broke. Beneath its wrong.The narrow street was full of cries, of bickering and snarling lies in many keys...the tongues of Egypt and of Rome and lands beyond the shifting foam of windy seas.

Sometimes a ruler riding fast scattered the dark crowds as he passed, and drove them close in doorways, drawing broken breath lest they be trampled to their death where the dust rose

There in the gathering night and noise a group of Galilean boys crowding to see Gray Joseph toiling with his son...saw Jesus, when the task was done, turn wearily.

He passed them by with hurried tread....drinking all beauty from his birth out of the heaven and the earth as from a cup.

And Mary, who was growing old, knew that the pottage would be cold when he returned, He hungered only for the night, and westward, bending sharp and bright, the thin moon burned.

He  reached the open western gate, where whining halt and leper wait. And came at last to the blue desert, where the deep Great seas of twilight lay asleep, windless and vast.

With shining eyes the stars awoke, the dew lay heavy on his cloak the world was dim.

And in the stillness he could hear his secret thoughts draw very near and call to him

Voices that  called with ceaseless crying. The broken and the blind, the dying and those grown dumb..

Beneath oppression, and he heard upon their lips a single word: 'Come!"

The cries engulfed him like the night, the moon put out her placid light, and black and low nearer the heavy thunder drew....

Hushing the voices.....yet he knew that he would go.

A quick-spun thread of lightning burns and for a flash the day returns He only hears

Joseph , an old man, bent and white toiling alone from morn till night

Through all the years......

Swift clouds make all the heavens blind a storm in 

running on the wind

He only sees how Mary will stretch out her hands

Sobbing,  who never understands, Voices like these.

Photographs 2020     "The Carpenter's Son is in the Public Domain"
 

 

A SEA OF BLUE WINGS

"The deeper blue becomes, the more strongly it calls one to the infinite.The brighter it becomes it turns into silent stillness..." -Wassily Kandinsky

I couldn't resist showing you the Stellar Jays. Back  for winter. Back to  screech and call.

They scavenge in the garden. Have conversations that border on the  Jerry Springer show.

They are smart. And blue. Blue. Beyond sky blue.

"The soft blue sky did never melt. Never felt the witchery of the soft blue sky..." -Wordsworth

Sometimes they come in groups. Not that often.Usually they come in pairs. Like dinosaurs. They call about the peanut horde.

"Sheck! Sheck! Sheck!" they scream to each other.  Sometimes copying raptors. Sometimes sounding like squirrels and even chickens. Yes, chickens.......cluck.

"Blue was never so beautiful blue..." -Petra Hermans

They're everywhere. It's not fall without them.

They wait. For peanuts. 

So smart. I think they know me. They recognize the peanut bucket when I bring it outside......

Little hum hum hummer dive bombs the Jays every chance he gets. 

The Jays just laugh. And laugh. And shriek.....

"This great world of ours is but a house of leaves,....moments before the wind.." -Mark Z. Danielewski

Photographs 2020

                                         ( Spencer and his new winter bowl......)

SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES......

"The clouds bellied out in the sultry heat, the sky cracked open with a crimson gush,and the bloodied sun was barely visible.." 

            -Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884-1937)( The Dragon: Fifteen stories) 

                                     Quoted from Goodreads

Spewed flame and the ancient fire began to smoke

Fiery tongues, a hissing, crashing, howling all around

And what can men do with their spades, ditches, and pails?

The forest is no more, it was devoured

Perhaps fields will be plowed here one day

Or perhaps a city will grow up alive with ringing sound and motion

All stone and crystal and iron and winged men will come here flying over seas and mountains from all ends of the world.

.....the blue winter silence and the golden silence of summer.

Only the tellers of tales will speak in many patterned words.....

About what had been.......

And stately green coated century old grandfathers

They will speak about all this to us who have 

                                         seen it with our own eyes.

And to those, the winged ones, who will come 

                                         in a hundred years to listen

And to marvel at it all as at a  fairy tale. ("In Old Russia")

"There may be a great fire in our soul, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers by see only a wisp of smoke...." -Vincent van Gogh

Photographs 2020

*Yevgeny Zamyatin ( 1884-1937) , author of sci fi and political satire. "The Dragon" is a collection of stories published between 1918 and 1935

                                              Very famous for his 1921 novel "We"