A Tidings of Magpies

by Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno You can try to strangle light: use your hands and think you've found the throat of it, but you haven't. You could use a rope or a garrote or a telephone cord, but the light, amorphous, implacable, will make a fool of you in the end. You could make it your mission to shut it out forever, to crouch in the dark, the blinds pulled tight— still, in the morning, a gleaming little ray will betray you, poking its optimistic finger through a corner of the blind, and then more light, clever, nervy, impossible, spilling out from the crevices warming the shade. This is the stubborn sun, choosing to rise, like it did yesterday, like it will tomorrow. You have nothing to do with it. The sun makes its own history; light has its way.

It's spring recital time at the CinCity Dance Academy as it is in many other cities throughout the country and HoneyHaired has been wished by many to "break a leg." Recitals, graduations, weddings, baby showers...We in the Distracted household are doing our best to keep the economy stimulated with purchases of flowers, photos, DVD's and meals on wheels. Anyway...one performance last night. Two today. Then the hair freezing glue can go back into the closet to be lost for another year until the challenge of the ballet bun arises anew.

Now see...now that is just wrong !!!! Curiously though, I'm very hungry. uhhmmmm, brains...

by Donald Justice This one was put in a jacket, This one was sent home, This one was given bread and meat But would eat none, And this one cried No No No No All day long. This one looked at the window As though it were a wall, This one saw things that were not there, This one things that were, And this one cried No No No No All day long. This one thought himself a bird, This one a dog, And this one thought himself a man, An ordinary man, And cried and cried No No No No All day long.

My cup runneth over... THANK YOU'S all 'round:>) A quite hung-over WATERCAT from across the pond has tagged me in a selfless effort to spread the joy and love internationally. I could barely work over the past few days for worry of it all and pondering the answers needed to complete this masterpiece. But, blogger etiquette and duty calls. I shan't break this sacred trust. The rules are as follows: respond and rework answer questions on your blog replace one question tag eight other people. TAGGED BLOGS 1. georgie k. buttons 2. a knitting nurse 3. erin davis 4. from skilled hands 5. cheshire cat 6. cause for concern 7. easy for me to say 8. the heART of words If you have recently been memed, or have done this meme before, please forgive my tagging you. If you haven't had this one placed in your In Box and are chopping at the bit to add your particular styling to it, you just go on with your bad self and do it. (And if you read your name anywhere along this posti...

Evening by Jo McDougall From a wood beyond the fields, something dark has not yet advanced toward the yellow light of the kitchen. A woman puts away the dishes. A man goes through the mail. A child leans over the table, saying her homework. The dog looks up once and growls as if not meaning to, a sound almost inaudible. He clicks across the floor, nosing for crumbs.

Soldier rest! thy warfare o'er, Sleep the sleep thast knows not breaking, Dream of battled fields no more, Days of danger, nights of waking... Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done; While our slumbrous spells assail ye, Dream not, with the rising sun, Bugles here shall sound reveille. Sleep! the deer is in his den; Sleep! thy hounds are by thee lying; Sleep! nor dream in yonder glen How thy gallant steed lay dying. Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done, Think not of the rising sun, For at dawning to assail ye, Here no bugles sound reveille. --Sir Walter Scott