THE PASSING OF
FRIENDS Click
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Photo by Bob Gentry ©2001
Stanyan Entertainment
A Thought for Today
God makes giants not just because he can
but as examples for all of to emulate.
Let us pause today to reflect
on the third anniversary of the passing of Frank Sinatra, the inventor of
popular singing. The voice in a hundred million.
And on Saturday the loss of the irreplaceable Perry Como.
Hello Rod, just thought you might be interested in
knowing you were mentioned on the radio today. This Sunday morning, as
with all Sunday mornings in my house, I was listening to The Sounds Of
Sinatra with Sid Mark. He commented that this weekend marks the third
passing of Frank, and perhaps it was Rod McKuen who said it best: "He who
made all of us, only made one of him". Well said.
Also, the world will have a little less Christmas with the passing of
Perry Como. I still hear your song ,"I Think Of You", every day at 11:45
AM, on WHLI out here on Long Island. Take Care. John Olsen.
Dear John, and you said it best about Perry, “The world will have a little
less Christmas with the passing of Perry Como.” Yes, John it isn’t
beginning to look a lot like Christmas any time soon. We can ill afford
the loss of yet one more champion and practitioner of the great American
popular song.
I was fortunate enough to spend all of yesterday with someone I care about
very much. It helped make an otherwise unbearable day memorable for all
the right reasons. Love, friendship, the warmth of one to another and a
better trust in time making all things right than I have ever had. I am in
love and in love with life.
The passing of friends is difficult but I am determined more than ever to
remember those who have gone ahead for the lessons they taught me and the
pleasure they gave to so many while they were here and not for my loss
when they left. Luv, Rod
RM 5/14/01 Previously
unpublished
Booking for "An Evening with
Rod McKuen" at the Riverton Rendezvous opens today! Click below for
more details:
Riverton Concert Details
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Cate Blanchett o
Jack Bruce o
David Byrne o
Jose Da Silveira o
Bobby Darin o
Richard Deacon o
Billy Dove o
Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit o
Thomas Gainsborough o
Otto Klemperer o
Laszlo Kovacs o
Norman Luboff o
George Lucas o
Patrice Munsel o
Sian Phillips o
Tim Roth o
Danny Wood o
Robert Zemeckis And a special Happy
Birthday to Sister Mark Sandy. |
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Passion makes its own perspective.
Love finds beauty in the plainest smile.
Better to discover a soul than a continent.
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THREE POETS |
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Muriel Rukeyser
She is there still
fighting for roses,
pruning the suckers
that battle new shoots
for what energy
the taproot offers
the way she pruned
unnecessary words
from sentences that strangle
poems in their crib.
She continues lurking,
where language hides
and night winds listen.
The two of us joined end to end
with Charles Ives crowded
in between us.
Death did not carry her
anywhere but everywhere.
She springs with spring
and causes all of us
to fight for roses.
Folio No.28 - Fall, 1980
Picture Postcard
She stands beneath a tree
that blossoms,
apple blossoms, I suppose.
A smile, that on first viewing
doesn’t seem correct -
but then you look again
an inner smile is somewhere there
a laugh half opening, then gone.
So thin and shy she seems,
so in her own world
out of ours.
But she only waits
to lead you in,
that is if you dare or care
or want to come -
and who would not come running,
sneaking past the gate
and down into this orchard
she’s made richer
by her dallying this day ?
If I am passing by
or find some good excuse
to do so
I never miss the chance
to pause or stop within
the doorway leading to
Meg’s office,
just to reassure myself
that it’s still there.
It always is.
A picture postcard
of the shy Edna Millay
reaching up,
or is it my imagination still,
to touch an overhanging bough
of plum or apple blossoms.
No drenched and dripping apple tree
not in this tinted photograph
only the bough that sunshine
bursts from bud to blossom.
The figure of a girl
slight and of no certain age
standing still before the camera
of a friend
and not some lover, I suppose.
For had it been a lover
who cocked and clicked the shutter shut
the smile that was imprisoned
down these years
for me to see
would have been much wider.
My appreciation
of the camera’s blink
has never been so strong,
nor have I marveled more -
even standing in an orchard
my own self -
at the beauty of a tree
so filled with blossoms
it might lean and fall.
Meg bent over piles of words
that crowd her desk
like double anthills
and on the bookcase just in sight
a picture postcard.
Now softly in the whisper
of a whisper
you can almost hear
the girl inside the postcard say,
I will be the gladdest thing
under the sun !
I will touch a hundred flowers
and not pick one.
Folio No.28 - Fall, 1980
James Wright, 1927
- 1980
He heard the earth
grumbling and rejoicing
because his inner ear
was fine tuned to a fraction.
Plain or fancy he always saw the sky
because he could not be induced
to wear a set of blinders
no matter who came forward
with the bit and harness.
Given the choice to set his sights
far off on posterity
or near and now on people.
For him it was no choice,
people won the day
and his attention.
And the ground became richer
and the sky grew wider
and those people he trapped in a pose
gained posterity by being trapped
inside the poet’s eye.
He promised us
the branch would never break
and even at his death
the strongest wind does not start
the tree to swaying.
Why? Because not even God
would aid in breaking
an honest poet’s promise.
- from Folio No.57 -
Winter 1987 |
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