Photograph by Bob Gentry 8/5/99
A Thought for Today
Thank You isn't good enough, but it's a start.
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
11/25/99
Good Morning Rod & Ken,
Happy Thanksgiving Day to everyone.
Today we, Melinda and I and the people who read the daily Flight Plan, offer thanksgiving
to you for everything that you have given us for the past year and a half. We hope that
all you want from life comes true for you and that great things happen for us as a result
of your good fortune.
Today we offer you poems from The Power Bright and Shining and your first best seller...
Stanyan Street and Other Sorrows.
- J.H.
Author's Note from The Power Bright and Shining
I refuse to apologize for my country. Though I can smell corruption and there is some, in
August I can smell the wheat and it is stronger. Our gains in the most unusual of all
countries still outnumber by leaps our losses.
Because we are told the country is sick, even by a man elected to take charge, does not
mean we are... though with enough repetition the rumor takes on proportions and the guise
of fact. But as Americans we must speak with one voice and say NO. No to even bigger
government. No to violence and mischief - makers. No to those we gave a nod to only
yesterday who by now have proven their inadequacy, inability, and lack of responsibility
as leaders of this nation.
The country has some headaches, but a probe for cancer would find the lumps benign. This
nation has no wound so deep that it cannot be covered by a single strip of gauze, wrapped
round and round. And what if the wounded have the power of healing too ? I believe all
people here are so empowered. The rhyme is in the rowing of the boat - straight ahead, not
veering, except to take on passengers. Steady hands that circle sturdy paddles propelling
us forever forward.
I am alarmed at any arm not getting on with it, lifting its own weight or writing words so
fast they scorch the paper. I admit I am dangerous. Defile my country with ill attention
or an ax and you slander me. I am my country as I am myself. Though I may travel down a
thousand shores and wave at many thousand more, I intend to live and die on this my own
ground.
A nation great? The best. A power bright and shining ? Beyond - far beyond the edges or
circumstances of the Earth.
Please do not misunderstand. I will complain as long as wrongs need righting. But
apologize ? I am too busy trying to give back my share to offer an apology of any kind for
a country that doesn't need one.
R. M., February 1980
- Chosen by J.H.
Child - from Stanyan Street and Other
Sorrows
They fall from your hips quietly
starting down around your hips, then gone.
You step out of them
and become a naked little girl.
Then into bed
and for a long moment nothing happens
then the sighs start it
the legs let go.
Girls have little hollows in their back
and hold the whole of Autumn in their arms
their smiles are warm valley smiles.
When you sit
or stand
or talk
or walk
or look around
or smile
you look like a little girl
but you feel like a woman.
- Chosen by J. H. |
