Quote of the Week - Buchanan

Something Beautiful
by Shonda Buchanan

Our lives are the alters.
The shelf we intend to put good things on.
Candle, rock, bone.
Soft kiss, tight hug. Sisters. Smell of a newborn's neck.
A car's wheels on freeway across a country,
the traveler's lonely song a fast forgotten whisper on
ghost darkened roads.
Sunsets I've swallowed and those that swallowed me.
Bare-breasted moons over a DC power out sky.
Salt in my aging body. Sacrifice of four days and nights
without food or water.
The pale loss of mothers and land. Shelterness nights.
Hot memory of hunger and want. Then, regaining of ground.
The waking up. Starting over again.
It is every step, this life thing. Books we read, cry into and pass on.
Our children, men, wives.
Oceans and marches and graduations on Facebook.
A Indian grandmother's face and fists against Canadian embassy door.
Malaysian sister curled into her kids. Wolf pups howling for the right
to be unhunted. Guns being traded back in. Guns leaving our hands.
Our lives are like the leaves we turn over to see the other side of---new.
A possibility to save the one we didn't save. To undo and make right.
Burn old angers and rise above.
Be braver; share what we can.
Kiss the broken pieces up to God.
Every moment is that chance we secretly want someone to offer us back.
When someone comes to you, give over to the sincerity in each other's eyes.
Find the something beautiful,
put it where you can see it every day and hold on.
Follow our first instinct
and do no harm.

If your life is the altar, best keep it swept and sacred.  

It's Monday - have a new start!  

Thanks to Shonda for her words - as always!

Quote of the Week - Walton

A Warning 

by Mark Walton

There are vampires my love.
They move amongst us
like the walking dead.

And those like you
who take a joy in life
whose very presence lights up a room
who blaze a trail across both night and day
who flare and spark like comet tails
with energy to spare,
it is such as you who should beware
for it is such as you who are their prey.

Please, my love, don’t be misled.
They are not like the characters
in films or songs or books.
They don’t have Boris Karloff looks
or Michael Jackson’s killer hooks.
They don’t require a full lit moon
to lead you like a lamb to slaughter.
In fact they look like me and you,
like anybody’s sons or daughters.

They may even thrill you too.

But hold them close and you will feel
it’s by the lack of inner fire
that burns within the living heart
that they may be distinguished.
Perhaps they never felt the spark of visceral combustion
or perhaps, for some infernal reason,
the internal flame has been extinguished.

And there are many myths my love.
They will not live a life eternal.
They inhabit light as well as dark.
You may gaze at their reflection
in the restaurant table glass
and garlic dough-ball starters
will offer no protection.

It’s not your blood they’re after either.

It’s the mesmerizing way
your eyes bring sparkle to the gloom,
your easy untamed laughter
that attracts them.

They believe the flame that
burns so bright within your heart
may be captured like a firefly in a jar,
tamed and made to serve them too.

But they are husks, the walking dead,
whose fires cannot be reignited.
Their need and jealousy are not
the loving deeds required to feed
the flames of fires such as yours.

So be warned my love.

For hard though it may be to believe it
your flame will dim and gutter out,
that burning light behind your eyes expire.

That sacred fire will die.

But you will carry on in their damned company
and together you will trawl these halls
seeking out the flames of strangers
who still illuminate the gathering dark.

So when I see
your spark
your fire
your flaming eyes
your burning heart
I want you to know
that there are vampires.

They are near and far
and they are here and there.

They are everywhere.
So please, my love, beware.

I tried for a teaser quote, but Mark's poem is too delicate and well-written to be pulled apart.  It's worth the read, and the re-read.  It's a lesson I have to keep learning.  Thanks to Mark for allowing me to post it.

And beware.  Share your light, but don't let it get snuffed out.

  

Quote of the Week - Koyczan

"Happiness isn't a fixed point that you can simply run toward... it's a constantly moving force that we will lose sight of from time to time. In those long stretches between sightings we are forced to practice patience. When we aren't practicing it's because we're already in it. I'm not practicing today."

- Shane Koyczan

So.....having been quote-less last week, I thought...you know...I know some pretty quotable folks - why'm I trolling around for "famous people's" quotes when I know some of the best writers, thinkers, speakers there are in the universe today?

And then I found this on FB - thus confirming my new theory that these quotes should be from real live, flesh and blood people you could touch if you wanted to.  Cause they know. 

And to be honest, I am wrestling this one to the ground right now.  I'm always long on will and courage and short on patience and strength.

The picture?  Well, it's cause I think nautical is the new black.  And cause I want that cute notebook from Etsy! (And cause anchors have been "godwinking" at me lately.)

Happy week!  And I mean that - let happiness be your practice!