Recipe For Friends, Author Unknown

Two cups of understanding
A tablespoon of wit,
A dash of real compassion,
A pinch or two of grit,
A jigger full of loyalty
On which you can depend,
Mix them all together
And you have a friend.

Memorial Day

Poem by Joyce Kilmer . . .

The bugle echoes shrill and sweet,
But not of war it sings to-day.
The road is rhythmic with the feet
Of men-at-arms who come to pray.

The roses blossom white and red
On tombs where weary soldiers lie;
Flags wave above the honored dead
And martial music cleaves the sky.

Above their wreath-strewn graves we kneel,
They kept the faith and fought the fight.
Through flying lead and crimson steel
They plunged for Freedom and the Right.

May we, their grateful children, learn
Their strength, who lie beneath this sod,
Who went through fire and death to earn
At last the accolade of God.

In shining rank on rank arrayed
They march, the legions of the Lord;
He is their Captain unafraid,
The Prince of Peace…Who brought a sword.

Kitty Cat Feet and Fog

Fog
by Carl Sandburg

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

This has always been a favorite poem of mine from the time we read it in my Fifth Grade class until now. I do take some exception to comparing fog to our cat’s feet because when she stomps through the house, she is competition for Godzilla!

Memories!

Every year of life adds memories for us. This poem beautifully points out how poignant these personal histories and how deep they twine into our very being.

Piano
by D. H. Lawrence

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.
In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cozy parlor, the tinkling piano our guide.
So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamor
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.