Category Archives: Life

PROMPT: First Day

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Tell us about your first day at something — school, work, as a parent, etc.

I can’t say I have strong recollections of any of them. I have a vague recollection of the flight to basic training (first time flying, but mostly I remember there was a drunk dude sitting next to me,) but I don’t recall anything from my first day in the military proper. No first days of school or on any job have stuck.

I guess my clearest memory is for the most recent major first — first day living in Bangalore, India (a little over eleven years ago.) I must say, however, I just remember snippets of being lost in a walk around the neighborhood. One might expect a first day in urban India to be daunting / overwhelming- even for a reasonably well-traveled Westerner, but if it was I don’t remember that bit.

“Beggar to Beggar Cried” by William Butler Yeats [w/ Audio]

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"Time to put off the world and go somewhere
 And find my health again in the sea air,"
 Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
 "And make my soul before my pate is bare;
 
"And get a comfortable wife and house
 To rid me of the devil in my shoes,"
 Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
 "And the worse devil that is between my thighs.
 
"And though I'd marry with a comely lass,
 She need not be too comely -- let it pass,"
 Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
 "But there's a devil in a looking glass.

"Nor should she be too rich, because the rich
 Are driven by wealth as beggars by the itch,"
 Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
 "And cannot have a humorous happy speech.

"And there I'll grow respected at my ease,
 And hear amid the garden's nightly peace,"
 Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
 "The wind-blown clamor of the barnacle-geese."

PROMPT: Positive Events

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Daily writing prompt
What positive events have taken place in your life over the past year?
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Just, oh so many of them. Virtually all of them. I’ve succeeded in every breath I took (so far, fingers crossed.)

“Mezzo Cammin” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [w/ Audio]

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Half of my life is gone, and I have let
   The years slip from me and have not
      fulfilled
   The aspiration of my youth, to build
   Some tower of song with lofty parapet.
 Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret
   Of restless passions that would not be
      stilled,
   But sorrow, and a care that almost killed,
   Kept me from what I may accomplish yet;
 Though, half-way up the hill, I see the Past
   Lying beneath me with its sounds and
      sights, --
   A city in the twilight dim and vast,
 With smoking roofs, soft bells, and
      gleaming lights, --
   And hear above me on the autumnal blast
   The cataract of Death far thundering 
      from the heights.

PROMPT: Hardest Decision

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What’s the hardest decision you’ve ever had to make? Why?

Probably to leave a job. Because it was a move from stability, security, and respectability to… not.

The End [Free Verse]

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My death days --
   Strange and wondrous --
   Will come soon enough.

I can feel their thrum 
   At the edge of my mind,
   A slow and rumbling pulsation
   That signals
      The END is nigh.

I don't fear them.
   Like a rumbling freight train,
   I assume they won't plow 
   Through my front door --
   But, rather, will wait for me
   To become freight.

“The Human Seasons” by John Keats [w/ Audio]

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Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
   There are four seasons in the mind of man:
 He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
   Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
 He has his Summer, when luxuriously 
   Spring's honied cud of youthful thought
     he loves
 To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
   Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
 His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
   He furleth close; contented so to look
 On mists in idleness -- to let fair things
   Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
 He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
 Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

“O Me! O Life!” by Walt Whitman [w/ Audio]

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Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these
     recurring,
 Of the endless trains of the faithless,
     of cities fill'd with the foolish,
 Of myself forever reproaching myself, 
    (for who more foolish than I, and who
    more faithless?)
 Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the
    objects mean, of the struggle ever 
    renew'd,
 Of the poor results of all, of the plodding
    and sordid crowds I see around me,
 Of the empty and useless years of the 
    rest, with the rest me intertwined,
 The question, O me! so sad, recurring --
    What good amid these, O me, O life?

                                           Answer.
 That you are here--that life exists and
    identity,
 That the powerful play goes on, and you
    may contribute a verse.

“Nature” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [w/ Audio]

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As a fond mother, when the day is o'er,
  Leads by the hand her little child to bed,
  Half willing, half reluctant to be led,
  And leave his broken playthings on the floor,
 Still gazing at them through the open door,
  Nor wholly reassured and comforted
  By promises of others in their stead,
  Which, though more splendid, may not
     please him more;
 So Nature deals with us, and takes away
  Our playthings one by one, and by the hand
  Leads us to rest so gently, that we go
  Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay,
 Being too full of sleep to understand
 How far the unknown transcends the 
     what we know.

“The Debt” by Paul Laurence Dunbar [w/ Audio]

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This is the debt I pay
  Just for one riotous day,
  Years of regret and grief,
  Sorrow without relief.

Pay it I will to the end --
  Until the grave, my friend,
  Gives me a true release --
  Gives me the clasp of peace.

Slight was the thing I bought,
  Small was the debt I thought,
  Poor was the loan at best --
  God! but the interest!