Dr. King
Artist Jess Regelson with MLK Elementary School Students
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only Light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only Love can do that. –Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dr. King mosaic in the lobby of MLK Elementary School in Providence, Rhode Island
View more art by Jess Regelson at Indian Moon Mosaics
Smashing Ice
Janine Debaise
Photo by Nicholas A. Tonelli
He grinned and began throwing the chunks of ice. They smashed against the rock with a satisfying sound that echoed throughout the valley. After a few minutes, I took a second pair of gloves out of my camera bag and joined him…
“Maybe you can help him look at this,” Biker Boy’s foster mother said, handing me a photo album. “It’s making him anxious.”
Biker Boy, who had gone running off to find his sneakers, stopped in his tracks. He didn’t say anything, just turned and looked at me. I knew right away what the book was, and I tucked it into my bag.
“We’ll take a look,” I promised her. Then I looked up at Biker Boy. “But first, let’s go run around outside somewhere. Get your coat.”
Read the rest at Writing as Jo(e) Blog
More about writer and poet Janine Debaise
Healing Quote of the Day
Photo by Ben Klocek
The universe is made of stories, not atoms. –Muriel Rukeyser
More about Muriel Rukeyser
The Shipping News
Annie Proulx
For if Jack Buggit could escape from the pickle jar, if a bird with a broken neck could fly away, what else might be possible? Water may be older than light, diamonds crack in hot goat’s blood, mountaintops give off cold fire, forests appear in mid-ocean, it may happen that a crab is caught with the shadow of a hand on its back, and that the wind be imprisoned in a bit of knotted string. And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery.
Read The Shipping News
Orphans
Beck
Think I’m stranded but I don’t know where
I got this diamond I don’t know how to shine…
If we can learn how to freeze ourselves alive
We can learn to leave these burdens to burn
Find Orphans
A Farm Style Fairy Tale
Aisling
Photo by Juan Torres
Before she moved to the farm,
She did not know whether she was made more of
Daisies and dreams
Or mystery and moss…
Or perhaps mostly of midnight and memories.
She came to the farm so that she could sprinkle radish seeds on cool soil
And then pull them up a few weeks later with the joy of a child opening a gift,
And then roast them slowly and stir them into a soup to feed to her loved ones.
She came to the farm so that she could sing native water songs
To friendly chickens as she fed them.
She came so that, when the world became too tangled and complex,
She could walk through the quiet forest and slowly unravel
Then sit un-moving on a sun-dappled slope
And listen as the wind whispered endearments to the Earth.
After a while, she realized that she was made of
Much more than just daisies and dreams;
She was an elemental,
Undefinable,
Sweetness
In the song that Life sings.
Aisling blogs and writes poetry at The Quiet Country House
Listening to My Own Counsel
Carmen R. Sonnes
When we reach a difficult crossroad in life, we often go looking for answers outside ourselves. In fact, the answers are almost always within us. The four black birds represent the voices and advise of others. She turns her gaze and ears inward. The blue feather in the woman’s hair symbolizes traditional wisdom. – Carmen R. Sonnes
Visit the website of artist Carmen R. Sonnes
Zoe
Jeanine Stewart
Photo by Anoldent
I sat there in that corner and watched her and how seamless her process was and how there was an air of play about it and how she didn’t seem to be thinking at all. She was just doing without worrying about the end result. She was loving the process itself.
You meet so many people in a lifetime. Crossing paths for anything from a split second to a few months to eons. If you were to connect the dots, you’d make a thousand constellations– a lifetime of connections. And whether you know it or not, each of these beings of light impart something. A gift, a thought, an inspiration, a lesson (even if it’s a painful one).
Read the full post at Wonderings and Wanderings
Bud, Not Buddy
Christopher Paul Curtis
A bud is a flower-to-be. A flower in waiting. Waiting for just the right warmth and care to open up. It’s a little fist of love waiting to unfold and be seen by the world. And that’s you.
Find Bud, Not Buddy
New Year’s Quote
Matunduzi School, Girl Education Support Initiative, Malawi
Photo by Erik Törner
For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice. –T. S. Eliot