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Photograph by Bob Gentry 8/5/99

A Thought for Today

We crawl from childhood into youth, bounding into manhood and finally slump to age. But we are not alone, the same cycle exists for everyone.

 

The regular daily Flight Plan will be suspended for a few weeks while I'm away helping Webmaster Ken Blackie work out the design and content of our upcoming STANYAN HOUSE web site. I hope you'll continue landing here ever day though because Jay Hagan and Melinda Smith have chosen two poems from a different one of my books for every day that I'm gone.

So, something new will be here every morning. The Thought for Today and the Notable Birthdays will continue. See you soon.

Love, Rod

Yesterday Melinda and I chose poetry from the 1954 First Edition of "And Autumn Came" and today we're exploring the 1969 republication of the book. JH

Two Poems from "And Autumn Came" by Rod McKuen

july 8


i remember you last year
so timid
when i wanted you.
so trusting
so tender
so unsure

it's different now
when the lights go out
hands find their way
lips know where
hands know how

love is a funny shape
at least mine is
it lies next to you at night
and when it wants you
it signals ever so silently

if this is love... then i love you
if it is not... then i am glad
for there are so many other reasons
to love you

                              
- Chosen by JH                              

notable birthdays Adam Ant o John Barry o Vincenzo Bellini o Ken Berry o Charles Bronson o William Cullen Bryant o Kate Capshaw o Bob Feller o Dorian Gossy o Larry Holmes o Lulu o Dolph Lundgren o Andre Malraux o Terrence McNally o Dennis Miller o James Reston o Roseanne o Shadoe Stevens o Monica Vitti

december 10

alone in the busy station I waited
but you never arrived
people came and went
little family pageants were enacted over and over again
and still you didn't come

I watched the wall clock
picked out the dispatchers every scrambled word
I waited and the hour grew late
still no you

and so very weary I left the station
and went home

                            
- Chosen by MS
© 1954, 1969, 1999 by Stanyan Music Group & Rod McKuen. All Rights Reserved
Birthday research by Wade Alexander o Poetry chosen by Jay Hagan and Melinda Smith
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