Poem For Sunday

Blessed Are They Who Sow and Do Not Reap...
By Avraham Ben Yitzhak
Translated by Peter Cole

Blessed are they who sow and do not reap --
they shall wander in extremity.

Blessed are the generous
whose glory in youth has enhanced the extravagant
            brightness of days --
who shed their accoutrements at the crossroads.

Blessed are the proud whose pride overflows
            the banks of their souls
to become the modesty of whiteness
in the wake of a rainbow's ascent through a cloud.

Blessed are they who know
their hearts will cry out from the wilderness and that quiet will blossom from their lips.

Blessed are these
for they will be gathered to the heart of the world,
            wrapped in the mantle of oblivion
-- their destiny's offering unuttered to the end.

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From Poet's Choice by Edward Hirsch in today's Washington Post Book World: "Avraham Ben Yitzhak (1883-1950) was one of the most enigmatic, reticent and solitary figures in modern Hebrew poetry. He was an aristocrat of the spirit who cultivated silence and published a total of 11 poems during his lifetime. All of them are astonishing. His output may have been meager -- he never published a book and stopped writing poems by the age of 45 -- but his accomplishment is unquestionable." He memorized the entire Bible and quoted it in Hebrew, which revealed to his intimates that he was a poet, but his friends considered him a man of "lethal silences"; Dan Pagis, a Hebrew poet and translator, said that the poem above "affirms the poet's conviction and confidence in silence as the only true mode of self-expression."














And gacked from , whom it turns out I know from the Ghost of Fandom Past...this is really not true but of the choices it's as good as any. Voyeurism is SO my kink!

Take the quiz: "What Is Your Kink?"

Exhibitionism
The world is your stage, and everyone in it is your audience, whether they like it or not. Your favorite place to have sex is the pitcher's mound of a ball stadium, under the arena lights. You are extremely loud when having sex. You don't mind people watching, taking pictures or videotaping you no matter what you're doing. Your motto is It's all about ME!

Today we are going to the Folklife Festival at the Smithsonian, and hopefully into the National Gallery of Art to see the Hudson River School exhibit. It is absolutely gorgeous out and both my horoscope and my tarot card reading for the day say things like, "You can't go wrong by expressing your needs and how they fit in with the collective agenda. Feel free to focus on yourself today and be selfish about your passions."

Hope everyone else has a lovely Sunday! And, Marylanders, we must all be home at 9 p.m. tonight, because Snakehead Terror is on the Sci-Fi Channel. "Mutant, amphibious snakehead fish feast on humans as they close in on a Maryland village where the only obstacle is the local sheriff (Bruce Boxleitner)." I figured he was hard up for work after Babylon 5 went off the air but I had no idea things had gotten this bad. Carol Alt's his co-star. Whee!