Song

She sat and sang alway

By the green margin of a stream,

Watching the fishes leap and play

Beneath the glad sunbeam.

I sat and wept alway,

Beneath the moon's most shadowy beam,

Watching the blossoms of the May

Weep leaved into the stream.

I wept for memory;

She sang for hope that is so fair:

My tears were swallowed by the sea;

Her songs died on the air.

-Christina Rosetti

A Valediction

As virtuous men pass mildly away,

And whisper to their souls to go,

Whilst some of their sad friends do say,

"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

So let us melt, and make no noise,

No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;

'Twere profanation of our joys

To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ;

Men reckon what it did, and meant ;

But trepidation of the spheres,

Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love

—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit

Of absence, 'cause it doth remove

The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,

That ourselves know not what it is,

Inter-assurèd of the mind,

Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,

Though I must go, endure not yet

A breach, but an expansion,

Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so

As stiff twin compasses are two ;

Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show

To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,

Yet, when the other far doth roam,

It leans, and hearkens after it,

And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,

Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;

Thy firmness makes my circle just,

And makes me end where I begun.

-John Donne, "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning" 1896

Quaking Aspen

A grove rooted and grounded in love.

Paper Cranes

Many paper cranes are the product of a winter so long. They keep my hands busy and my spirits high.

In Japanese folklore, there is the story of the Crane Wife [it is nice to make a crane while listening to the Crane Wife] - here it is as told by Colin Meloy.

"It's a story about a peasant in rural Japan who finds a wounded crane on an evening walk; there's an arrow in its wing. He revives the crane and the crane flies away. A couple days later, a mysterious woman shows up at his door and he takes her in. Eventually they fall in love and get married. But they're very poor, so she suggests that she start weaving this cloth which he can in turn sell at the market—the condition being that when she's weaving it, she has to do it behind closed doors and he can't look in. So this goes on for a while and they actually become kind of wealthy. But eventually, his curiosity gets the best of him and he looks in at her while she's weaving and it turns out that she's a crane and she's been pulling feathers from her wings and putting it into the cloth, which is what makes it so beautiful. But him having seen her breaks the spell, and she turns back into a crane and flies away. That's the end."

- NPR's Fresh Air: Interview with Colin Meloy of the Decemberists

Noble and fragile. Cranes are wonderful things.

Kodon

I just found out that this photo of mine is going to be published in the student literature and art publication on campus called Kodon! 

This is just a picture of my cousin's son, Emerson, that I snapped one July evening in the backyard of my aunt's house. Good gracious, this made my weekend.

Wovenland

Just look at this tapestry created by Gunta Stölzl circa 1931. It's practically a landscape! Ah it just blows my mind. If I were lucky enough to have it hanging on my very own wall I would waste entire evenings just sitting and staring into it. So in that case it's probably good that I don't have it... I would fall grievously behind here in school. Well, here's to wistfulness. Found via Folk Object.