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peace, love & happiness newsletter 4/2/20 – 4/8/20
April 2, 2020 - April 8, 2020
THE OPEN ROAD
peace, love & happiness newsletter
April 2, 2020
Did you guess the celestial laws are yet to be work’d over and rectified?….
This minute that comes to me over the past decillions,
There is no better than it and now.
—Walt Whitman, from “Song of Myself”
*
Dear Friends of The Open Road
Here’s a link to a song from Mexico that should perk you up, “Mexico Lindo y Querido”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvDdtEVAo-U.
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Out breath
and in breath—
know that they are
proof that the world
is inexhaustible.
—Ryokan (1758-1831)
(translated by Kazuaki Tanahashi)
*
sweet spring is your
time is my time is our
time for springtime is lovetime
and viva sweet love
(all the merry little birds are
flying in the floating in the
very spirits singing in
are winging in the blossoming)
lovers go and lovers come
awandering awondering
but any two are perfectly
alone there’s nobody else alive
(such a sky and such a sun
i never knew and neither did you
and everybody never breathed
quite so many kinds of yes)
not a tree can count his leaves
each herself by opening
but shining who by thousands mean
only one amazing thing
(secretly adoring shyly
tiny winging darting floating
merry in the blossoming
always joyful selves are singing)
sweet spring is your
time is my time is our
time for springtime is lovetime
and viva sweet love
e. e. cummings
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In 1952 and 1953, E. E. Cummings gave six nonlectures at Harvard University. They are collected in a wonderful book called i: six nonlectures. At the end of each nonlecture he recited some of his favorite poems by other poets. After the second, the theme was “Spring,” including this song from Shakespeare’s “As You Like It”:
It was a lover and his lass,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
That o’er the green cornfield did pass,
In springtime, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
Sweet lovers love the spring.
Between the acres of the rye,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
Those pretty country folks would lie,
In springtime, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
Sweet lovers love the spring.
This carol they began that hour,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
How that a life was but a flower
In springtime, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
Sweet lovers love the spring.
And therefore take the present time,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
For love is crownèd with the prime
In springtime, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
Sweet lovers love the spring.
(word note: in the last verse, the word “prime” means “Spring”)
Dennis Wiancko sent me a link to a short film featuring Time Person of the Year for 2019, Greta Thunberg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q0xUXo2zEY.
There are ideas about how to nurtures culture and community without gathering together at The Open Road website (openroadpdx.org). Have a look!
That’s it from me (Johnny) for this issue.
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Here are two poems from Kim Stafford:
From the Train
Below the tracks, beyond
the chain-link fence topped
with rusted barbwire, out
on the floodplain where
like my battered spirit
every forsaken surface
of shattered wall or car
carcass is festooned with
graffiti in a riot swirl
of color code, and brambles
swarm over heaps of debris —
purple flowers are falling
from the smoldering jacaranda
surging beauty from earth,
billowing blossoms,
utterly failing to take
a realistic view.
Dennis Takes Us to the Old Trees
Sometimes it takes a miracle of misfortunes
to make a beautiful life — earthquake, hurricane,
war. Sometimes the story, told right, can turn
hardship inside out, and show tough beauty
yet. When the fire came roaring up the ridge,
Dennis said, as we stepped the path down
into the ravine that saved the old ones,
it crested and swept west, taking the tops
of these few ancient firs, and left them
in austere majesty, their proof of pluck
a candelabra of tangled limbs high
in silhouette, looming where we lean back
to gaze up and wonder how we might
be marked by hurt but still stand like that,
last of our kind, telling the children:
If you must live through fire, be with
your own grove of sturdy companions
gazing up, after, at the far stars.
—Kim Stafford
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Ken Margolis reminded me of this great Neruda poem.
I ask for silence
Now, let’s count to twelve
and all be quiet.
For one time on this earth
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be a fragrant moment,
without haste, without locomotives;
we would all be together
in an awkward instant.
Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his raw hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars of gas, wars of fire,
victories without survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk along in the shade
with their brothers,
doing nothing.
What I want shouldn’t be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what’s happening!
I want nothing to do with death.
If we weren’t so unanimous
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
maybe a vast silence
would interrupt this sadness,
this never understanding ourselves
and threatening ourselves with death.
Maybe the earth is teaching us—
when everything seems dead
and later everything is alive.
Now I will count to twelve
and you be quiet, and I will go.
—Pablo Neruda
Details
- Start:
- April 2, 2020
- End:
- April 8, 2020