A Place for “that Old Devil Moon”

Super Snow Moon 2019

I look at you and suddenly, something in your eyes I see;
Soon begins bewitching me.
It's that old devil moon that you stole from the skies.
It's that old devil moon in your eyes.
You and you glance make this romance too hot to handle.
Stars in the night, blazing their light can't hold a candle;
To your razzle-dazzle.
You've got me flyin' high and wide, on a magic carpet ride;
Full of butterflies inside.
Wanna cry, wanna croon, wanna laugh like a loon.
It's that old devil moon in your eyes.
Just when I think, I'm free as a dove.
Old devil moon, deep in your eyes, blinds me with love.

Songwriters: E. Y. Harburg / Burton Lane

Sometime within the next 24 hours the February Super Snow Moon may be visible at Merry Mount.  If so, it “will be fittin", for I will be able to glance into the eyes of the lady that “blinds me with Love”.

On February 15^th, we celebrated our 43^rd wedding anniversary.  How wonderful it is to look back on forty-three years! 

Memory, hither come,

And tune your merry notes;

And, while upon the wind,

Your music floats,

I'll pore upon the stream,

Where sighing lovers dream,

And fish for fancies as they pass

Within the watery glass.

-William Blake (1757-1827)

Wanna cry, wanna croon, wanna laugh like a loon.
It's that old devil moon in your eyes.
Just when I think, I'm free as a dove.
Old devil moon, deep in your eyes, blinds me with love.

Love you, Rett

CPW

An Opinion for President’s Day 2019

Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city, part of a vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of Europe. From the Baltic, south, those barriers cut across Germany in a gash of barbed wire, concrete, dog runs, and guard towers. Farther south, there may be no visible, no obvious wall. But there remain armed guards and checkpoints all the same--still a restriction on the right to travel, still an instrument to impose upon ordinary men and women the will of a totalitarian state. Yet it is here in Berlin where the wall emerges most clearly; here, cutting across your city, where the news photo and the television screen have imprinted this brutal division of a continent upon the mind of the world. Standing before the Brandenburg Gate, every man is a German, separated from his fellow men. Every man is a Berliner, forced to look upon a scar.

General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

-Excerpt from a speech by President Ronald Reagan to the people of West Berlin that contains one of the most memorable lines spoken during his presidency. The Berlin Wall, referred to by the President, was built by Communists in August 1961 to keep Germans from escaping Communist-dominated East Berlin into Democratic West Berlin. The twelve-foot concrete wall extended for a hundred miles, surrounding West Berlin, and included electrified fences and guard posts. The wall stood as a stark symbol of the decades-old Cold War between the United States and Soviet Russia in which the two politically opposed superpowers continually wrestled for dominance, stopping just short of actual warfare.

"I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great great wall on our southern border and I’ll have Mexico pay for that wall."  -Trump

Our Tweetie in Chief has declared a national emergency in order to circumvent the decision of Congress because they did not fund a wall in the amount to his liking.  This is an abuse of presidential power and Congress is empowered by the Constitution to override his decision.  The crisis that exists is Trump himself.  Impeachment proceedings are long overdue.

CPW

A Place of Repose

Woods at the creek on Junk Road

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

            -Robert Frost (1874-1963)

What a wonderful place Frost has created for us!  He pulls us into the poem by using the pronoun “I” two times in the first line.  When I pull myself away from Frost’s lovely place, I return to the warmth of a fireplace inside a yellow farmhouse.  

Merry Mount 2/2/19

It is here that I can contemplate the promises I have to keep, and wonder about how many more miles I have before I can sleep.

Sonnet

O soft embalmer of the still midnight,

Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,
Our gloom‑pleas’d eyes, embower’d from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine:
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
In midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes.
Or wait the “Amen” ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities.
Then save me, or the passèd day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes,
Save me from curious conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oilèd wards,

And seal the hushèd casket of my Soul.

-John Keats (1795–1821)

CPW