Documenting the Oral Traditions

Hypocrisy Knows No Bounds!

Stand for Democracy

A FELON married to an immigrant is telling us the problem is immigrants and FELONS

So True!

"King Liar, Liar"

"What Happened to the March Lion?"

IN LIKE A LION

Click to read the whole blog

Spring has sprung...

but the tress are still bare!

the1209gallery

A Smith Garden Art piece shot with an old Nikon D50

A Poem by Edgar Albert Guest

"Myself"

(This is the poet who also wrote the poem, "Don't Quit". One of my favorite pieces of poetry...and now I can include this one.

FEATURING: Living History

What our Elders can teach us.

The values, the morals, the lessons. The vital knowledge and oral traditions

Edgar Albert Guest wrote some very inspirational poetry. Amongst those were "Don't Quit", "It couldn't Be Done," and by the way, my mother would say this poem to me over and over, until I wanted to memorize it, and so I did! He also wrote, "See It Through" and Keep Going". His poetry is so inspiring. You will want to print a few of them and stick 'em on your bedroom wall, because when you wake in the morning, you will have something positive to start your day! What a great poet.

Myself

A Poem by Edgar Albert Guest

I have to live with myself and so

I want to be fit for myself to know.

I want to be able as days go by,

always to look myself straight in the eye;

I don't want to stand with the setting sun

and hate myself for the things I have done.

I don't want to keep on a closet shelf

a lot of secrets about myself

and fool myself as I come and go

into thinking no one else will ever know

the kind of person I really am,

I don't want to dress up myself in sham.

I want to go out with my head erect

I want to deserve all men's respect;

but here in the struggle for fame and wealth

I want to be able to like myself.

I don't want to look at myself and know that

I am bluster and bluff and empty show.

I never can hide myself from me;

I see what others may never see;

I know what others may never know,

I never can fool myself and so,

whatever happens I want to be

self respecting and conscience free.

WARS

A POEM BY SUSAN DOWNS

What next, the bloody handprints and footprints

Of another unholy war

How many lives do we need to settle a score?

Where will the justice stand

When there is death, shame, and no marching band?

How long will we endure this passing gate

To let freedom lie in state?

How many funerals will we slate:

And what shall his stone say?

Sonnet 18 ~ William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

There are more lovely and more temperate

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.

And summer’s lease has all too short a date:.

Sometime too hot the eye of Heaven shines

And often is his golden complexion dimm’d

And every fair from fair sometimes declines

By chance on nature’s changing course on trimmed.

This same piece was well read by a Creative on YouTube. She read it very beautifully. Click play and read along.

Linda Ellis has given *Free License* to share her work. You can access her website here, if you would like to read the story behind the poem.

"The Dash"

by Linda Ellis

I read of a man who stood to speak

at the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on the tombstone

from the beginning to the end.

He noted first came the date of the birth

and spoke the following date with tears.
But he said what mattered most of all

was the dash between the years.

For that dash represents all the time

that they spent life on Earth.
And now only those who loved them

know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not how much we own,

the cars, the house, the cash.
What matters is how we live and love,

and how we spend our dash.

So, think about this long and hard.

Are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left

that can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough

to consider what’s true and real,
and always try to understand

the way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger,

and show appreciation more,
and love the people in our lives

like we’ve never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect

and more often wear a smile,
remembering that this special dash

might only last a little while.

So, when your eulogy is being read

with your life’s actions to rehash,
would you be proud of the things they say

about how you spent your dash?

I was an English major in college, and one of my required classes was Women's Voices Through Time. We were required to read Susan Sontag, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde Hanan al-Shaykh, Virginia Woolf and so many more.

The lives of these female writer's were depressing. I only found delight and humor in one read where I was able to laugh out loud, from Perkins-Gilman ("The Yellow Wallpaper"), and it was a relief, but the sad under-breath was that the main female character she wrote about eventually went mad. I didn't know whether to thank my teacher for a bit of comic relief or ask her if there were any women writers in the 19th or 20th century that lived well while they wrote. Then she dropped the ultimate bomb.

Our next critical essay was on an autobiography by Maya Angelou, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings". We were given three days to read and write our essay. Twenty-four hours later, I was devastated. It was a book I couldn't put down. It was pasted to my hands.

~~~~~~

Except from Chapter 12~

I wasn't sick, but the pit of my stomach was on fire--how could I tell her that? Bailey came in later and asked me what the matter was. There was nothing to tell him. When mother called us to eat, and I said I wasn't hungry, she laid her cool hand on my forehead and cheeks. "Maybe it's the measles. They say they're going around the neighborhood."

Maya Angelou

PREACHER, DON'T SEND ME (From, I Shall Not Be Moved)

Preacher, don't send me

when I die

to some big ghetto

in the sky

where the rats eat cats

of the leopard type

and Sunday brunch

is grits and tripe.

I've known those rats

I've seen them kill

and grits I've had

would make a hill,

or maybe a mountain,

so what I need

from you on Sunday

is a different creed.

Preacher, please don't

promise me

streets of gold

and milk for free.

I stopped all milk

at four years old

and once I'm dead

I won't need gold.

I'd call a place

pure paradise

where families are loyal

and strangers are nice,

where the music is jazz

and the season is fall.

Promise me that

or nothing at all.

ARE WE AT WAR?

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America"

~~~

The Preamble to the Constitution

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