Handwriting Analysis
On the first day of fourth grade, Mrs. Hunter
collected our penmanship samples to save
until June; by then, she said, we'd write
in the handwriting we would have all our lives.
Though she probably read that in a book
on child development, I was so excited
I could hardly stand it. In nine months
my adult self would be born, she would
send me a letter; in the ways she swooped,
careened, and crossed her t's, I could
read everything I would need to know.
We were writing ourselves into the future.
We came closer each time we turned
the silver gears in the sharpener near the door,
the wood shavings tumbling inside,
smelling as if a house were being built.
-Katrina Vandenberg
Sorrow
Sometimes it's so large
we begin to be pulled under,
so large we believe we will drown
unless the plug is pulled
and it begins to drain away
through unseen pipes that usher it
out of the sad house
and below the neglected lawn
beneath the wide street and traffic,
beyond the traffic light
and the elementary school on the other side.
Underground it slowly, steadily dissipates
into the neighborhood beyond the playground
with its innocents at recess.
For so many years I was one of them.
From the top of the slide
I could spot our beige split-level
and even its flagstone walkway.
I could sometimes make out the silhouette
of my mother retrieving letters
from our mailbox
or out on the front lawn positioning
the oscillating sprinkler.
How good her timing was then,
not leaving it in one place too long
or letting the water wet the sidewalk,
never allowing it to drown
the things she planted.
-Andrea Hollander Budy
Originally posted by Pianoman1He also said:
The playwright George Bernard Shaw once said “If you eliminate smoking and gambling, you will be amazed to find that almost all an Englishman's pleasures can be, and mostly are, shared by his dog”.
"Virtue is insufficient temptation."
Originally posted by Great Big Steesand this ...
He also said (postmortem, according to a soothsayer from Torornto) "Exactly where is Niagara-on-the lake anyway?"
“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend ... if you have one."
— George Bernard Shaw, playwright (to Winston Churchill)
"Cannot possibly attend first night; will attend second, if there is one."
— Churchill's response
Wheelchairs
Arrayed as if this ward were some bright deck
scrubbed for a long, romantic, costly cruise,
they wait for passengers, steel arm and neck
gleaming with welcome. Three, exchanging views,
huddle like cronies glad to be aboard
together among strangers; here and there
a loner muses; two lean close to hoard
some gossip much too scandalous to share.
Nurses in soft pastels chatter and smile;
light music tinkles somewhere overhead,
and floral paintings in a sprightly style
conjure the ghost of summer, long since dead.
But wheelchairs, glinting, wink as if to say,
Not now, not yet, but you and I, someday..."
~ Rhina P. Espaillat
>sfat
