Robert's Favorites: 2010

Sunday, November 21, 2010

On this sacred night, when the aurora looked like rain, I reflected back on my childhood dreams of flying a spaceship through the infinite expanse of space... to be among the mosaic of billions of stars, and visit other worlds. Now as I look from space at our planet I realize that had I been born and spent my childhood here in space... how much greater and more vivid my dreams would have been to visit this blue planet.
-Douglas H. Wheelock

Monday, September 20, 2010

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Trees

Trees

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree
A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day
And lifts her leafy arms to pray,
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair
Upon whose blossom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems were made by fools like me
But only God can make a tree.

-Joyce Kilmer

Saturday, August 7, 2010

It Is the Soldier

IT IS THE SOLDIER

It is the Soldier, not the minister
Who has given us freedom of religion.
It is the Soldier, not the reporter
Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the Soldier, not the poet
Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer
Who has given us freedom to protest.
It is the Soldier, not the lawyer
Who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is the Soldier, not the politician
Who has given us the right to vote.
It is the Soldier who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Oh Bury Me Not (On the Lone Prairie)

Oh Bury Me Not (On the Lone Prairie)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IOuEnn8oPQ&feature=related

Lord, I've never lived where churches grow,
I loved creation better as it stood,
That day you finished it so long ago,
And looked upon your work and called it good.

I know that others find you in the light,
That sifted down through tinted window panes,
And yet I seem to feel you near tonight,
In this dim, quiet starlight on the plains.

I thank you, Lord, that I'm placed so well,
That you've made my freedom so complete,
That I'm no slave to whistle, clock or bell,
Nor weak eyed prisoner of Waller Street.

Just let me live my life as I've begun,
And give me work that's open to the sky,
Make me a partner of the wind and sun,
And I won't ask a life that's soft or high.

Let me be easy on the man that's down,
Let me be square and generous with all,
I'm careless sometimes, Lord, when I'm in town,
But never let them say I'm mean or small.

Make me as big and open as the plains,
And honest as the horse between my knees,
Clean as a wind that blows behind the rains,
Free as the hawk that circles down the breeze.

Forgive me, Lord, if sometimes I forget,
You know about the reasons that are hid,
You understand the things that gall or fret,
Well, you knew me better than my mother did.

Just keep an eye on all that's done or said,
And right me sometimes when I turn aside,
And guide me on that long, dim trail ahead,
That stretched upward toward the great divide.