Friday, October 28, 2011

The Chances of Rhyme

The Chances of Rhyme
by Charles Tomlinson

[opening couplet]

The chances of rhyme are like the chances of meeting.
In the finding fortuitous, but once found, binding.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

On Having A Sense of Place

One wants to have formed one’s value system not just in a place but partly because of it.  One wants to have engaged in romantic play in a landscape that is so essential that it is virtually a character in the drama.  One wants one’s religion to be centered not merely in a text, a doctrine, a creed, or a chapel, but in a locale, a sacred precinct, a circle of land and sky, a place where the wind bloweth where it listeth.  One wants one’s firstborn beloved child to have been born not merely in a hospital in Reno or on an air force base near Munich or Stuttgart, but in the place that matters most of all the places that mean something in one’s life.  One wants a true, deep, rooted home, a refuge to return to – to seek clarity and unconditional love.  One wants landscape in one’s soul, and one’s soul to dwell in a landscape somewhere.

Where would you go if you were diagnosed with cancer or the AIDS virus, if your whole world collapsed around you and only one point on the planet could help to heal? Where would you take the significant other who was hopelessly, boundlessly, endlessly, head-over-heels in love with you and she asked, take me to the place that means more to you than any other place in the cosmos?  There, if anywhere, you will find spirit of place.

from Message on the Wind: A Spiritual Odyssey on the Northern Plains
by Clay Straus Jenkinson

A Good Fine Wine


 Seghesio Old Vine Zinfandel perfectly embodies our familys goal of Sharing Uncommon Ground as only the finest lots from our oldest vineyards are selected for this composite blend. These vineyards are rare treasures we have farmed over the course of our familys century as grape growers. Although Old Vine is often loosely interpreted in the wine industry, our benchmark is fifty years. The average age of the vines producing this wine nears 90 years


Saturday, October 22, 2011

A Better Tomorrow

Author: Yvonne Warren

I never knew there would be a better tomorrow
But you've come into my life and taken away all my sorrow

My days of sadness are a thing of the past
Because I have found true love at last

My days of emptiness are gone for good
Because you fill a void in my heart that you should

You've opened a window
You've shown me the light
And my love for you will continue to burn bright.