it has its seasons

The Ivy Crown

by William Carlos Williams

The whole process is a lie,
unless,
crowned by excess,
It break forcefully,
one way or another,
from its confinement—
or find a deeper well.
Antony and Cleopatra
were right;
they have shown
the way. I love you
or I do not live
at all.

Daffodil time
is past. This is
summer, summer!
the heart says,
and not even the full of it.
No doubts
are permitted—
though they will come
and may
before our time
overwhelm us.
We are only mortal
but being mortal
can defy our fate.
We may
by an outside chance
even win! We do not
look to see
jonquils and violets
come again
but there are,
still,
the roses!

Romance has no part in it.
The business of love is
cruelty which,
by our wills,
we transform
to live together.
It has its seasons,
for and against,
whatever the heart
fumbles in the dark
to assert
toward the end of May.
Just as the nature of briars
is to tear flesh,
I have proceeded
through them.
Keep
the briars out,
they say.
You cannot live
and keep free of
briars.

Children pick flowers.
Let them.
Though having them
in hand
they have no further use for them
but leave them crumpled
at the curb’s edge.

At our age the imagination
across the sorry facts
lifts us
to make roses
stand before thorns.
Sure
love is cruel
and selfish
and totally obtuse—
at least, blinded by the light,
young love is.
But we are older,
I to love
and you to be loved,
we have,
no matter how,
by our wills survived
to keep
the jeweled prize
always
at our finger tips.
We will it so
and so it is
past all accident.

*

I had to post this one.

Until now, I thought only Neruda or ee cummings could make me feel so heady and giddy and caught up in the moment.

WCW was good for refridgerator poems - so I thought. But this is is a different league altogether.

Oh I am such a romantic fool. But I can't help it. My life's just brimful of roses at the moment :)

GE

All of Singapore's caught up in election fever.

Odd but most of the FB crowd seem to support the opposition. I guess the last election I experienced first hand was so long ago that I sort of thought that everyone was still more or less in the ruling party's camp.

I'm sceptical of all political parties and rhetoric (especially campaign promises) so I tend not to get as caught up. It's only in the last day or two - when I realized that I'd probably get to, no make that have to(!) vote -that I started following the news a little more closely.

When I did I realized several things:

1 - I actually know some of the candidates. This is a first and I'm more than a little taken aback. While I do like current affairs and keeping abreast of general socio-economic issues, I'm not terribly political and my roster of friends tend to reflect these leanings.

2 - The resentment that people feel toward immigrants seems to have reached sky high levels. Is this justified? Very possibly.

3 - The opposition has upped their game considerably. This is a good development, partly because it'll keep the ruling party on its toes and mostly because a rational and well reasoned alternative view point is always useful.

4 - Social media is going to be pretty critical.

Main question though:

I've never had to vote before and the main thing that concerns me is how to vote as a Christian.

I already know from 1 Tim 2 that I should pray for the future leaders and very probably for the electorate as well - that they may choose wisely.

But then what else? What should one consider? And why?

Well reasoned/written and moderate view points here and here.

The truth is that not so very long ago, I'd have said: Pick the ruling party - the opposition just isn't credible.

But the people at the top have been fumbling up so badly and in so many ways that I just cannot maintain any kind of sympathy or support for them.Add to that the fact that morally, I believe they have lost their compass. I could not and still cannot believe they let in the casinos knowing that so many ethnic chinese singaporeans already had gambling problems.

April showers

*

I do like the world of the internet but sometimes it's lovely just to take a break from it and go out into the real world.

April's been busy! In no particular order there's been

- a lovely trip to Universal Studios with Mr Grey

- a huuuuge dinner with my lovely fluffy aunts (all 6 of them in the same room! That hasn't happened for ages and ages)

- MG got baptized on Easter Sunday; my heart almost burst I was so joyful and then after that went out for scrumptious Jap lunch so my stomach almost did burst :)

- Little Miss E had a baby shower. It's so exciting to see how big she's got and to think that baby Faith will be here in another 4 weeks

- And finally there was a gorgeous brunch at the Plains with Mr Grey and a very relaxing walk at the Southern Ridges finished off with a bak kut teh dinner at Alexandra. (I am SO happy that the stall I like is baaaack! Was so afraid it would disappear when the food centre was renovated but it came BACK ~greedy smile~)

Oh and I've borrowed some books from the church and NLB and polished off almost the whole lot. April, I love you so - if only all months could have two long weekends in a row. I've so needed this time off.

detail orientation

Today is a really bad day.

Sometimes I feel so terrible about being a careless person - being careless with your own stuff is one thing - but being careless and slack at work is terrible.

I make this resolution ALL the time. Be more careful. Be more meticulous.

But when i get tired, its hard to care about the minor details. Sometimes I just want a job where the details don't matter.

joy of man's desiring

The most elegant advert EVER. Gorgeous.

And of course. It had to be Bach :)

*



*

Movement

The Sartorialist always takes beautiful shots but this one is especially lovely - those birds captured mid-flight - just arresting.

Diana Wynne Jones

'Only thin, weak thinkers despise fairy stories. Each one has a true, strange fact hidden in it, which you can find if you look.” - Fire and Hemlock

Diana Wynne Jones died on 26 March 2011.

I would be poorer without her books and to this day, they're my favourite rainy day read. (Actually, they're among my favourite reads in any kind of weather.)

The best authors are like friends. I read Howl's Moving castle when I was 18 and laughed non-stop. I marvelled at how some English lady knew all puzzles and insecurities of being an eldest sister - until I found out she was - like me - the eldest of three.

After Howl's, I bought everything I could of hers. I got through Dogsbody which I loved, all of the Chrestomanci series, the Dalemark Quartet... almost everything. And I loved almost all of it. They were funny, wise, sharp as nails, rich with mythology and replete with common sense. She wrote the kind of books I had always longed to read. Plus, her first book came out in 1981, a good 2 years before Pratchett's first so really, she was the original funny British fantasy writer. AND not to mention she was taught by Tolkien and CS Lewis - with a pedigree like that - how could she be anything but fantastic? (pardon the pun)

I don't know what else to say except that she was my favourite author - bar none - and the reading public won't be seeing the likes of her again.