I asked her, "Is Aladdin's lamp
Hidden anywhere?"
"Look into your heart," she said,
"Aladdin's lamp is there."
She took my heart with glowing hands.
It burned to dust and air
And smoke and rolling thistledown
Blowing everywhere.
Follow the thistledown," she said,
"Till doomsday, if you dare,
Over the hills and far away.
Aladdin's lamp is there." Vachel Lindsay
Children born of fairy stock Never need for shirt or frock, Never want for food or fire, Always get their heart's desire: Jingle pockets full of gold, Marry when they're seven years old. Every child may keep Two strong ponies and ten sheep; All have houses, each his own, Built of brick or granite stone; They live on cherries, they run wild - I'd love to be a fairy's child. Robert Graves
My wild Pacific was silky and languid today. Sparkling in the sun, smooth greener than blue waves spanking the shore. Aye, but she can't be tamed. She'll be sleet gray and whipping tall stinging washes of water at us in no time at all. So you better run down to the beach now because summer is short, life is short and a calm wind can heal many things. Love love love it.
Oh, yeah - somebody tell me not to leave my camera behind..
PANCHO & LEFTY
Living on the road my friend
Was gonna keep you free and clean
Now you wear your skin like iron
Your breath's as hard as kerosene
You weren't your mama's only boy
But her favorite one it seems
She began to cry when you said goodbye
And sank into your dreams
Pancho was a bandit boys
His horse was fast as polished steel
Wore his gun outside his pants
For all the honest world to feel
Pancho met his match you know
On the deserts down in Mexico
Nobody heard his dying words
That's the way it goes
All the federales say
They could have had him any day
They only let him hang around
Out of kindness I suppose
Lefty he can't sing the blues
All night long like he used to
The dust that Pancho bit down south
Ended up in Lefty's mouth
The day they laid poor Pancho low
Lefty split for Ohio
Where he got the bread to go
There ain't nobody knows
All the federales say
They could have had him any day
They only let him slip away
Out of kindness I suppose
The poets tell how Pancho fell
Lefty's livin' in a cheap hotel
The desert's quiet and Cleveland's cold
So the story ends we're told
Pancho needs your prayers it's true,
But save a few for Lefty too
He just did what he had to do
Now he's growing old
A few gray federales say
They could have had him any day
They only let him go so wrong
Out of kindness I suppose
by Townes Van Zandt
Video - Emmylou Harris 1977.
What makes summer so special? The feeling of fewer clothes, less binding of one's tender flesh. The sky so big and open you can see all the way to the Pleiades where the angels live. The time seeming to linger and draw loops of memory, like a sparkler's trail of light. The way a fruit or tea tastes in the sun. The sound of a train whistle in the night, connecting dots of distance. The way a concern or worry can be put in the bottom of one's knapsack, to be brushed off of sand and crumbs at the end of the long weekend. The knowledge that love may be only a handshake, a wave, a whisper away, if one wants to dare. The tear forming at the far corners of the eye, the corner that sees the fleeting nature of summer, the summer that will change and move on even when we drag our heels and try to linger.
This little ditty is off season and a bit off topic in my life but it resonates to my heart all the same.
STAY
Fall's first gold is green.
It falls somewhere between
a joy and a concern,
but soon the leaves will turn
flamboyant with that doubt,
like people falling out
of love, becoming all
the lovlier as they fall. Eric McHenry
When I was a little girl I was always fascinated by the story of the little match girl by Hans Christian Anderson. She sold wooden stick matches out in the freezing snow at the holidays and looked in the windows of the wealthy and saw the laden tables of food and gifts and warm fire crackling in the hearth. Sad, cold and hungry, she sat in the snow in the alleyway and burned her matches one by one stealing what little warmth and light she could from them, each one of course burning out very quickly. Soon she had used up all the matches. She fell into a cold slumber, dreaming of her grandmother and days of happiness before she died and left her all alone. So the story ends with the little girl dying in the snow and being led away into the light by her grandmother's spirit. Sad. Poignant.
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