Love vs. Thought

Bond and Free

by Robert Frost

Love has earth to which she clings
With hills and circling arms about--Wall within wall to shut fear out.
But Thought has need of no such things,
For Thought has a pair of dauntless wings.

On snow and sand and turn, I see
Where Love has left a printed trace
With straining in the world's embrace.
And such is Love and glad to beBut Thought has shaken his ankles free.

Thought cleaves the interstellar gloom
And sits in Sirius' disc all night,
Till day makes him retrace his flight
With smell of burning on every plume,
Back past the sun to an earthly room.

His gains in heaven are what they are.
Yet some say Love by being thrallAnd simply staying possesses all
In several beauty that Thought fares far
To find fused in another star

A little cheer for this election season. . .

Here is a song to bring a smile to the politically and non-politically inclined. Enjoy JibJab's It's time for some campaigning.

You only fail if you stop trying. . .

Fireflies in the Garden

by Robert Frost

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,

And here on earth come emulating flies,

That though they never equal stars in size,

(And they were never really stars at heart)

Achieve at times a very star-like start.

Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.

Nate Note

For me this poem is about striving to emulate the stars. At moments we have a brilliant start, then all too often we fall short. Though we struggle to sustain the part, this should not keep us from trying again. As someone dear to me always says, "You only fail if you stop trying."

Happy Birthday J-Bo

Happy Birthday son!

J-Bo is six years old and all six years he has been a terrific boy. He is a good older brother and sweet to his sisters (at least half the time). He is great with his younger brother Gid. He loves swords, trucks, and cowboys. . . I wonder if he will grow up to be a Mack truck driving, cowboy samurai? Anyway, he also has a terrific sense of humor. He is capable of making you laugh at the most inappropriate times or if he is in trouble.

I love you son. . . and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Fakin' it. . .

I was sick for a couple of days last week. Fortunately, I was able to work remotely from home. As I was coughing and working feverishly I got thinking about my dramatic shift in attitude toward being sick.


When I was a child, being sick meant I could skip school, lay around, eat Popsicles, and drink ginger ale. Not a bad deal and certainly worth the improvised cough and sniffles if I just wanted a break from it all. What is more, I actually got some rest.


As an adult, no such luck. Each day away from work due to illness usually means three times as much work when you get back. Rest is reduced by a factor of ten for each child at home. (This has to be really hard on a stay at home parent, especially when the other is gone to work) There is very little pay off in faking sick as it usually causes more problems rather than give a much need break or an extra party day. In the end, I usually get more sick contemplating a day out ill than I do actually being ill so I end up working anyway. There is something to be said for working from an easy chair in pajamas though.

Now it is your turn. . . vote on my poll and send me a comment. How often do you fake sick? What have you done on a day out sick? Have you ever been caught?

Cheers to a 1,000 milestone!

If you have not checked out Ki's new blog zip pip, be sure to click on the hyperlink. She is a talented and witty writer. Thought provoking and laugh out loud funny, she will become an addiction. She has written 1,000 posts! Thinks about that for a minute, that is roughly a post a day for three years. So give her a read, give her some comments, and props for the consistent posts we all enjoy.

Walls to break down

Mending Wall

by Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun,

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me~

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Nate Notes

The new wisdom of breaking down walls challenges the conventional wisdom of "good fences make good neighbors." True wisdom lies in discerning which boundaries to respect and which boundaries to reach across to bridge a divide.