BW27: Zero in the title

 

Happy Sunday! We're past the halfway point for the year and it's time to recite the alphabet backwards from Z to A. Go ahead and give it a go and see if you can say the alphabet backwards without having to say it forwards. LOL! 

Let's look for the famous zero (or a synonym) in the title of the book, or look for a picture of a zero on the cover, or a character, human or animal, named Zero.  Have fun and be creative. 

Zero!

by

1DNA

When I say nothing,

and you think of zero,

you’re partially wrong,

because it’s one of maths’ hero

Not all heroes,

have to be number one

In mathematics,

It’s all about the fun

Zero’s a kind number,

If you didn’t know.

Even if it’s added,

It lets you shine alone

But don’t make it angry,

As it may multiply.

It’ll remove your complete existence,

In the blink of an eye!

If you want its power,

It can’t guarantee you much.

But it can make you whole,

Stand straight and such.

Zeros got a major role

In defining limits,

Don’t underestimate this number,

It’s got endless potential in it!

There's more to this number,

From what you might already know!

Now, is zero just a nothing?

That’s a big, fat no!

BW33: Song for the Last Act

Song for the Last Act

by 

Louise Bogan

(August 11, 1897) 

Now that I have your face by heart, I look

Less at its features than its darkening frame

Where quince and melon, yellow as young flame,

Lie with quilled dahlias and the shepherd's crook.

Beyond, a garden, There, in insolent ease

The lead and marble figures watch the show

Of yet another summer loath to go

Although the scythes hang in the apple trees.

Now that I have your face by heart, I look.

Now that I have your voice by heart, I read

In the black chords upon a dulling page

Music that is not meant for music's cage,

Whose emblems mix with words that shake and bleed.

The staves are shuttled over with a stark

Unprinted silence. In a double dream

I must spell out the storm, the running stream.

The beat's too swift. The notes shift in the dark.

Now that I have your voice by heart, I read.

Now that I have your heart by heart, I see

The wharves with their great ships and architraves;

The rigging and the cargo and the slaves

On a strange beach under a broken sky.

O not departure, but a voyage done!

The bales stand on the stone; the anchor weeps

Its red rust downward, and the long vine creeps

Beside the salt herb, in the lengthening sun.

Now that I have your heart by heart, I see.

Find out more about Louise Bogan through the Correspondence of Louise Bogan, my Poetic Side, and the Poet who Wrote about Love.  

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BW42: Happy Birthday Robert Pinsky

Courtesy of Wikipedia

Happy Birthday to poet Robert Pinsky, who is turning 77 on October 20th

Samurai Song

When I had no roof I made

Audacity my roof. When I had

No supper my eyes dined.

When I had no eyes I listened.

When I had no ears I thought.

When I had no thought I waited.

When I had no father I made

Care my father. When I had

No mother I embraced order.

When I had no friend I made

Quiet my friend. When I had no

Enemy I opposed my body.

When I had no temple I made

My voice my temple. I have

No priest, my tongue is my choir.

When I have no means fortune

Is my means. When I have

Nothing, death will be my fortune.

Need is my tactic, detachment

Is my strategy. When I had

No lover I courted my sleep.

Learn more about Robert Pinsky, who is the founder of the Favorite Poem Project as well created the MOOC course The Art of Poetry offered through Boston University and EDX.

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BW37: Happy Birthday Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver - Courtesy of Emily's Poetry Blog

Happy Birthday to poet Mary Oliver who is 81 years old today.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean–

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down–

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

With your one wild and precious life?

Find out  more about Mary Oliver as well as learn about Oliver and the Romantic Tradition as well as read her interview with Maria Shriver  and NPR's review of Oliver's selected essays Upstream.

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Please link to your specific post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, leave a comment telling us what you have been reading. Every week I will put up Mr. Linky which will close at the end of each book week. No matter what book you are reading or reviewing at the time, whether it be # 1 or # 5 or so on, link to the current week's post.

BW21: Happy Birthday Ralph Waldo Emerson

May 25, 1803 

This week is the anniversary of Ralph Waldo Emerson's birthday so thought I'd leave you with one of his poems.  His complete works including essays and poems are available online at RWE.ORG.

The House

There is no architect

Can build as the muse can

She is skilful to select

Materials for her plan;

Slow and warily to choose

Rafters of immortal pine,

Or cedar incorruptible,

Worthy her design.

She threads dark Alpine forests,

Or valleys by the sea,

In many lands, with painful steps,

Ere she can find a tree.

She ransacks mines and ledges,

And quarries every rock,

To hew the famous adamant,

For each eternal block.

She lays her beams in music,

In music every one,

To the cadence of the whirling world

Which dances round the sun.

That so they shall not be displaced

By lapses or by wars,

But for the love of happy souls

Outlive the newest stars.

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Please link to your specific post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, leave a comment telling us what you have been reading. Every week I will put up Mr. Linky which will close at the end of each book week. No matter what book you are reading or reviewing at the time, whether it be # 1 or # 5 or so on, link to the current week's post.