Time. Time. Time..

Passing Time

During these past almost three months, time seems to stretch from breakfast to dinner. Not that those two meals are just fine in themselves, but something to stimulate the sleepy, food-numbed mind would be nice.

Time. Time. Time.  That has a good rhythm and rhyme. Rhyme.

Robert Frost, e.e. cummings, WB Yeats, Maya Angelou, Carl Sandburg....and many other poets can provide creative thought during anything.

A poet's words can capture time and hold onto it just a bit. 

“Time is the coin of your Life.

It is the only coin you have,
and only you can determine
how it will be spent.
Be careful
lest you let other people spend it for you. And when you spend it, spend it wisely so that you get the most for your expenditure.”

Carl Sandburg

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. 

Confucius

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen. 

Mark Twain

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment. 

Buddha

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death. 

Leonardo da Vinci

The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

I've got a magic charm
That I keep up my sleeve
I can walk the ocean floor
And never have to breathe.

Life doesn't frighten me at all
Not at all
Not at all.

Life doesn't frighten me at all.

Maya Angelou

Do not think that I am so brilliant and creative enough to hunt for all these and compile them. Heck, no. I just happened on to this site. Good thing to pass on.

Brainy Quote

Great Minds, great words

...But I have promises to keep...

To keep or not to keep

Promises.  How many promises do you make?  How many do you keep?

Without doubt or hesitation, I know that God keeps His Promises.  Mercy and love, impartial judgment and grace, integrity and unchanging character, compassion to the weak crushed by life, forgiveness and salvation...endless list.

In many blog posts, one will express pain and suffering or depression over losses, or heartbreak.  In the comment section, so many sincere followers give comfort and sympathy.  And then, there is "I'll be praying for you" somewhere in the comments, or "Prayers and blessings".  

But, I wonder are these phrases are actually followed?  Once the words are written and the cursor goes to publish, will these word be acted upon?

This is not a criticism, for I write these words myself, but simply a question.

Robert Frost wrote in "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening" this last quatrain, 

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.

But I have promises to keep.  Any type of promise?  Yes, it would seem so.  A promise to bring a salad to a potluck is an easy promise--CostCo.  A promise to meet at 2:00 can vary from 1:55 to 2:05 (we are obsessive about this.) is still an easy promise to keep for most people. My in-laws are lax on this.

But to say "I'll be praying for you" is vague.  Perhaps this sentence should be followed by "I promise". This is one promise that requires commitment and sincerity. It needs to be kept. 

Can you do this?  Do you keep your promises? Why, or why not?

D is for Diverge

Robert Frost is a poet who influenced my generation, and certainly many generations.  He was the poet who introduced me to poetry, when he recited a poem at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy.  I was in fourth grade, a voracious reader, but not a reader of poetry.

Grandma Peck had a book case of very old books on all topics.  She had been a pharmacist, in 1916; she was the only female in a class of 100 men.  Her books were heavy, and with very dry content in my nine-year old opinion.  But, she pulled out some well worn books of poetry:  Kipling, Wordsworth, Dickinson, and of course, Frost.  It was as if she had lighted a fire under me, and I devoured the poetry.

Unfortunately, time and short-circuits have prevented my brain from pulling the words out of my brain on command.  I can only remember bits, but they are flavorful bits. Thankfully, the computer can do the recalling for me, most of the time.

Frost wrote about walking in the woods on a fall day:

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;        5  

Then took the other, as just as fair,

 And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,        10  

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

 I doubted if I should ever come back.        15

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and

I— I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.        20  

Whatever my age, and no matter how the next few years evolve, I will continue to thank Mr. Frost for the value of paths that “…diverge in a yellow wood…” and taking a path less traveled by.  It has made all the difference.
 Please check out the blogspot below; Arlee Bird and his crazy crew are hosting this A-Z blog, and you will want to see other entries.  They are awesome!
http://tossingitout.blogspot.com