Oh Sweetest Song

Sapa, Vietnam © 2011 Alfred Pleyer

Song
How can I keep my soul in me, so that
it doesn't touch your soul? How can I raise
it high enough, past you, to other things?
I would like to shelter it, among remote
lost objects, in some dark and silent place
that doesn't resonate when your depths resound.
Yet everything that touches us, me and you,
takes us together like a violin's bow,
which draws *one* voice out of two separate strings.
Upon what instrument are we two spanned?
And what musician holds us in his hand?
Oh sweetest song.

~ Rilke ~

 

Vietnamese Lullaby

About the Photographer:

Alfred Pleyer

Alfred loves to travel and photograph.

He hails from Austria.

You may find more of his amazing photographic captures on

http://500px.com/niklens

According to Alfred the following is true:

Citizen of the World

Living without a cat...

I Belong to group.as

I am involved in
Public Circles Project

Chop Wood, Carry Water

Smiling Worker in Udaipur © 2011 Alfred Pleyer

WORKING TOGETHER

We shape our self
to fit this world

and by the world
are shaped again.

Vegetable Seller in Kathmandu, Nepal © 2011 Alfred Pleyer

The visible
and the invisible

working together
in common cause,

to produce
the miraculous.

Heavy Load © 2011 Alfred Pleyer  Taken in Kathmandu, Nepal

I am thinking of the way
the intangible air

passed at speed
round a shaped wing

easily
holds our weight.

A Leg Up © 2011 Alfred Pleyer

So may we, in this life
trust

to those elements
we have yet to see

or imagine,

Vegetable Seller in Kathmandu, Nepal (redux color) ©2011 Alfred Pleyer

and look for the true

shape of our own self
by forming it well

to the great
intangibles about us.

~David Whyte ~

© The House of Belonging

 

About the Photographer:

Alfred Pleyer

Alfred loves to travel and photograph.

He hails from Austria.

You may find more of his amazing photographic captures on

http://500px.com/niklens

According to Alfred the following is true:

Citizen of the World

Living without a cat...

I Belong to group.as

I am involved in
Public Circles Project

Yellow Glove

Automat © 1927 Edward Hopper

Yellow Glove

BY NAOMI SHIHAB NYE
What can a yellow glove mean in a world of motorcars and governments?
I was small, like everyone. Life was a string of precautions: Don’t kiss the squirrel before you bury him, don’t suck candy, pop balloons, drop watermelons, watch TV. When the new gloves appeared one Christmas, tucked in soft tissue, I heard it trailing me: Don’t lose the yellow gloves.
I was small, there was too much to remember. One day, waving at a stream—the ice had cracked, winter chipping down, soon we would sail boats and roll into ditches—I let a glove go. Into the stream, sucked under the street. Since when did streets have mouths? I walked home on a desperate road. Gloves cost money. We didn’t have much. I would tell no one. I would wear the yellow glove that was left and keep the other hand in a pocket. I knew my mother’s eyes had tears they had not cried yet, I didn’t want to be the one to make them flow. It was the prayer I spoke secretly, folding socks, lining up donkeys in windowsills. To be good, a promise made to the roaches who scouted my closet at night. If you don’t get in my bed, I will be good. And they listened. I had a lot to fulfill.
The months rolled down like towels out of a machine. I sang and drew and fattened the cat. Don’t scream, don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t fight—you could hear it anywhere. A pebble could show you how to be smooth, tell the truth. A field could show how to sleep without walls. A stream could remember how to drift and change—next June I was stirring the stream like a soup, telling my brother dinner would be ready if he’d only hurry up with the bread, when I saw it. The yellow glove draped on a twig. A muddy survivor. A quiet flag.


Where had it been in the three gone months? I could wash it, fold it in my winter drawer with its sister, no one in that world would ever know. There were miracles on Harvey Street. Children walked home in yellow light. Trees were reborn and gloves traveled far, but returned. A thousand miles later, what can a yellow glove mean in a world of bankbooks and stereos?


Part of the difference between floating and going down.

~~~

Naomi Shihab Nye, “Yellow Glove” from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Portland, Oregon: Far Corner Books, 1995). Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Reprinted with the permission of the author.
Source: Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Far Corner Books, 1995)
Linked to Share the Joy Thursdays with
 Meri’s Musings

Haiku My Heart ~ Just Like Me

Bali © 2011 Alfred Pleyer

You are my soul’s twin ~

nose, eyes, smile so familiar,

My heart’s guiding light.

~noelle renee 9.29.11

 

About the Photographer:

Alfred Pleyer

Alfred loves to travel and photograph.

He hails from Austria.

You may find more of his amazing photographic captures on

http://500px.com/niklens

According to Alfred the following is true:

Citizen of the World

Living without a cat...

I Belong to group.as

I am involved in
Public Circles Project

 

For More Wonderful Haiku

Please visit Recuerda mi Corazon

A Sense of Belonging

Kjerreveg © 2011 Arnestad

A good old-fashioned cart track that takes us back in time, which is also enhanced by the black / white term. The subject is taken from Hvaler. The picture is signed by art photographer Thomas Russ Arnestad.

Everyday

You've left the big storms
behind you now.
You didn't ask then
why you were born,
where you came from, where you were going to,
you were just there in the storm,
in the fire.
But it's possible to live
in the everyday as well,
in the grey quiet day,
set potatoes, rake leaves,
carry brushwood.

Black Oak © 2011 Arnestad

An old and classic oak tree on a field right besides the Norwegian University of Agriculture in Aas, Norway. This is a well known landmark in the region.

There's so much to think about here in the world,
one life is not enough for it all.
After work you can fry bacon
and read Chinese poems.
Old Laertes cut briars,
dug round his fig trees,
and let the heroes fight on at Troy.

~Olav H. Hauge

Drops in the East Wind, 1966

 

*Olav H. Hauge (1908–1994) lived all his life in Ulvik, a village in the west of Norway on the Hardangerfjord. He translated many English and American writers into Norwegian.

About The Photographer:

Thomas Russ Arnestad

About Arnestad Photography

Arnestad Photography (NO 990 983 267 MVA) presents the photographic work of Thomas Russ Arnestad (b.1979, Oslo).
He works as the Head of Photography at Inviso AS, the largest real estate photography company in Norway. During low season he performs ad-hoc photographic work for numerous clients. Besides interior photography he also shoots a lot of landscape, architecture, cars, products and travel images to name a few.
His interest began, as for many others, with the fascination of light and the beautiful impact it has on the nature surrounding us. From there on, it´s been a long journey to get where he´s at now. His nature and landscape photography, is today as then, a form for recreation and an excuse to spend some time alone.
Recent photos have been targeted into more specific projects and series than before. This is the way to go for getting more thought and substance into the photography for Arnestad.

~Linked to Meri’s Musings Share the Joy Thursdays~

Haiku My Heart: A Waggly Tail

The Big Trick © Andre du Plessis

 

Wild Waggly-Tailed Dog

 

Mom's All Mine: Donna & Dalina © Andre du Plessis

The View from Mom’s Sweet Shoulders

All

in

A

Day’s Bliss

 

~Noelle Renee 9.15.11

 

For more haiku my heart visit rebecca’s blog at recuerda mi corazon.

About the Photographer

Andre du Plessis

"To me, photography is an art of observation. It's about finding something interesting in an ordinary place... I've found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them." -Elliott Erwitt.

I wish that I had more time to devote to photography. However, when I get that chance, the sheer enjoyment of it always makes up for those weeks of waiting.  My preference has evolved from experimental to street, and finally to people.

In people photography I have found what I need, and so far it has been a very interesting journey.  My preference for B&W derives from my days in the dark room, which started when I was about twelve. I once won a Jobo colour kit in a photography competition at school, but asked for the money instead in order to buy a new monochrome enlarger and lens.

When it comes to photography I see in shades of grey, and I cannot see this changing soon. I am sure that my choice of subject matter has evolved in parallel with this realisation.

I am passionate about the various peoples of that continent that I belong to, and in bringing pictures of ordinary folk in their ordinary houses to this forum (1x.com) I have started to appreciate how powerful a medium photography actually is, and the responsibility that accompanies this.

*Andre du Plessis hails from South Africa and currently lives in London where he has a medical practice. You may find more of his phenomenal pictures on 1x.com

*The Photos posted here was published with the kind permission of the photographer. All Rights are Reserved ©. Thank you.

Act Great ~ FDNY Battalion 9 Memorial ~ 9/11/2011

FDNY BATTALION 9 MEMORIAL 9/11/2001

ACT GREAT

What is the key
To untie the knot of your mind’s suffering?

What
Is the esoteric secret
To slay the crazed one whom each of us
Did wed

And who can ruin
Our heart’s and eye’s exquisite tender
Landscape?

Hafiz has found
Two emerald words that
Restored
Me

That I now cling to as I would sacred
Tresses of my Beloved’s
Hair:

Act great.
My dear, always act great.

What is the key
To untie the knot of the mind’s suffering?

Benevolent thought, sound
And movement.

~ Hafiz ~

(The Gift – versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)

Photograph taken at a candlelight vigil outside the firehouse of Squad 18, NYFD, September 11, 2001.

Linked to Postcards from Paradise at Recuerda mi Corazon.