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"As my sufferings mounted, I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation — either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force; I decided to follow the latter course."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
"If I said — remembering in summer,
The cardinal's sudden smudge of red
In the bare gray winter woods —
If I said, red ribbon on the cocked
straw hat
Of the girl with pooched-out lips
Dangling a wiry lapdog
In the painting by Renoir —
If I said fire, if I said blood welling
from a cut —
Or flecks of poppy in the tar-grass
scented summer air
On a wind-struck hillside outside
Fano —
If I said, her one red earring tugging
at her silky lobe,
If she tells fortunes with a deck of
fallen leaves
Until it comes out right —
Rouged nipple, mouth —
(How could you not love a woman
Who cheats at the Tarot?)
Red, I said. Sudden, red."
— Robert Hass
From Time and Materials:
Poems 1997-2005
A FLASHBACK — Hesitate, and I may miss it, as day melts gently into dusk, that peaceful interlude when the sky glows in quiet splendor, crystallizing into the palest, faintest, purple, long before the first stars are out. What one of the best gifts mom ever gave me wasn't wrapped in paper, or tied in a bow. It was her appreciation for beauty. Her awareness that art isn't always framed.
Once again, I've lost myself in the endless wonder of nature. Today, I found a stone every bit as spellbinding as that first faint glimmer of sunshine. What's least expected is often most beautiful...
I can almost smell the rich, brown, rain-soaked earth now.
