Roy Jeffords's Blog

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Death, be not proud Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwel...

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A grown-up sees the dandelion and groan, anticipating swollen, itchy eyes and a nose turned red and stuffy from sneezing. She reaches for Zyrtec, Claritin, or Flonase and wishes the hateful spores dead.

A gardener sees the dandelion and grimaces at the boorish weed invading his oh-so-proper lawn. Plants that don’t know to stay off the grass don’t deserve life. The yard warrior reaches for a hoe or a bottle of Roundup, meeting the advancing horde of misfit flora with lethal, overwhelming forc...

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The Flower

Once in a golden hour
I cast to earth a seed.
Up there came a flower,
The people said, a weed.

To and fro they went
Thro’ my garden bower,
And muttering discontent
Cursed me and my flower.

Then it grew so tall
It wore a crown of light,
But thieves from o’er the wall
Stole the seed by night.

Sow’d it far and wide
By every town and tower,
Till all the people cried,
‘Splendid is the flower! ‘

Read my little fable:
He that runs may read.
Most can raise the flowers now,
For all have go...

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No daffodils, I’m afraid, but we’ve got the clouds and a lake.

“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”

I wandered lonely as a cloud 
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly d...

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SOWING LIGHTNING

Seize
Bolts of lightning from the sky
And plant them in fields of life.

They will grow like tender sprouts of fire.
Charge somber thoughts
With unexpected flash,
You, my lightning in the soil!

― Visar Zhiti, The Condemned Apple: Selected Poetry

 

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Why does the willow weep? Did something horrible happen in another age, hidden in the green sanctuary beneath her branches? Might a trusted friend and confidant have lost all hope and flown from this world, leaving her body cradled in the willow’s arms? Did the willow witness young love gone wrong? That’s what Billy Holiday seemed to think as she crooned,

“Gone my lover’s dream
Lovely summer dream
Gone and left me here to weep my tears into the stream
Sad as I can be
Hear me willow and weep...

Beautiful things can be created in an ugly building. Mr. Isaac Crouch, Sr. proved it in 1860 when he erected a rough, two-story, wooden structure at the northeast corner of Tennessee and Louisiana …

Source: One Hundred Twenty-Four Years Young

I have aconfession to make. I’m just now reading Papa Hemingway’s Islands in the Stream for the first time. It’s one I’ve put off, since he wasn’t alive to complete the editing and rewriting process. The thought of anyone besides the master – his last wife and publisher, in this case – preparing his unfinished manuscript for publication just scares me. The book got a lot of good press, but it’s Hemingway. The reviews will be either good or bad, mostly good, with none in between.

One of Papa’s...

Historic buildings and houses have always fascinated me. Their walls have absorbed so many human emotions and interactions that each one could be its own library or book store if those stories could somehow be harvested. Paranormal groups spend time looking for folks who still occupy old structures, and sometimes they make some pretty interesting finds. Even when they score an apparition or a recording of a disembodied voice, though, they don’t know why someone cared enough to stick around in...

We all know what karma is, and we all know what she can be. We all know, too, that karma will always track down those who owe her a debt and exact an appropriate settlement. Being the clumsy sort, I try to avoid handing out any of those karmic chits by not laughing at people who, like me, probably deserve it. Anyone who knows me knows that at some point, all on my own, I’m going to do something goofy that will amuse the hell out of everybody else in the room. I don’t need a no-nonsense-female...