Dear cat

I brought home a kitten from a friend
So tiny yet so fierce he bit my hands
We could not find him when we came back home
He was tucked in with the sheet under the foam

We had no garden so we took him out
Wrapped in a wool cardigan,I think
He lay contented on my knee all day
Looking at the trees and coloured sky

When mature he roamed the night away
Sleeping in a rocking chair most days
Benjamin, we called him, was run down
In the rush hour by a speeding clown,

The amber eyes of Benjamin would glow
He gave us happiness,we loved him so

Don’t miss the flowers

Do we choose what we perceive each hour?
Or are we automata clothed in skin,
Wh see the thorns and then ignore the flower?

Can we, like grass, be grateful for a shower.
Or is our store of gratitude too thin?
Can we choose what we perceive each hour?

Can we choose to smile instead of cower?
Can we love the game played not to win?
Who sees sharp thorns but then ignores the flower?

Do we choose to love or to use power?
Can we choose the virtue, not the sin?
Do we choose what we perceive each hour?

As we struggle inside Babel’s tower
Ambivalence may torture some within
Most see the thorns and then ignore the flowers

With softened eyes ,we see the whole sweet bower
If we draw near, we see what is now dim
Can we choose what we perceive each hour?
Some see the thorns but then ignore the flowers.

Mary and the dogs

As Mary ate her topside with green peas,she gazed out of the front window where a police car was parked.They had gone to speak to her neighbours.Her neighbours had 23
dogs and a dead cat .all in the back garden for recreation and making holes in fences or other places
When Mary had come home from the delightful dentist she had been attacked by five of the dogs on her own patio
who were bored with their own garden so has made a hole in the fence as was their wont.
She sat silentky her mind brooding about animals,and their force, as she ate the last roast potato and wondered if she had a pudding
Suddenly a cold wind seemed to blow across the room as Annie her delightful neighbour
had run in without closing the back door firmly
Hello dear.Put the kettle on for me, Mary ordered Annie
I am sorry,Annie said,I have lost weight but even so the kettle won’t fit me
Why do you take things so literally,Mary asked?
I am trying to be funny, Annie muttered indecisively, her blood red lipstick melting down her chin and dripping onto the floor
Good grief, what a mess,Mary said.Hang on, your lips are bleeding
I keep biting them,Annie revealed.
Why?
To stop myself screaming at those people with the dogs.What will you do?
Her mascara from Mix Vector in dark brown began to melt and created streaks across her rose beige moisturising foundation from Bess of Ardent
Are you crying,Mary asked curiously
I must be.I have tears in my eyes.I am over-identifing with your feelings.
Empathy has its limits,Mary said sweetly>I phoned the police and they came here
They were amazed he has 23 dogs.They have gone to see him.
How can they afford to feed so many dogs?
Oh,I feel faint,ring 999
In ran Dave the bisexual, transvestment paramedic all dressed in tartan
Why are the police here, he asked anxiously
It’s about the dogs attacking Mary.
Shall I make some nice strong tea,Dave asked wisely
Good idea, said Annie
How is Emile taking this?
I’ve sent him to my sister’s for a break,But I miss him
Goodness me, what a terrible time we needyou are having
They all went into the lounge and sat down on the grey high backed armchairs
Here is the tea,Dave cried as he put the tray down on a low table.Don’t let it go cold~
Shall I give them some cake, he asked Mary?
Why not, she answered.See what you can find
It is very hard if neighbours attack you,Why, I’ve even read about murders at times like this,Dave cried.
Let’s see how it goes,Mary said quietly.They are not fools
I hope you are right,Dave said wisely
Rolling Stones never get mopped
Evert cloud has a silver lining~
When glum ,keep mum
Amen

The  grief of God, the  pity of his mind

Armageddon  comes and we don’t find
The time to stop and think and wonder at
The wrath of God, the thunder of his mind

Is he  the ground of   being undefined?
The earth where seeds are nurtured  by his  hands
Armageddon  comes and  we are blind

He is not  a sweet and compliant friend
Nor the lord of  rich and  fertile lands
His  the wrath  and his  the thunderous mind

As the storms washed men off Kentish sands
So God  hurls the energy he sends
Armageddon  comes and  we are blind

In these trials, whose hearts are refined?
Are  we open, can we each attend,
His  the sun and his  the mighty mind

As on the rocky path we wary stand
Below despair, we find the deep commands
Armageddon,  love and care are drained
The  grief of God, the  pity of his mind

I have studied  and I’ve got my last degree

I have studied and I’ve got my last degree
My heart has learned its lessons one by one.
I’m a graduate of the grief academy

I didn’t know how painful it would be
When the man you love is here and then is gone
I’ve been studied and I got the third degree

The tears I wept could wash out the Dead Sea
Remove the salt and scour the shore till done
I’m a graduate of the grief academy

I know now I must die,we cannot flee

We turn to dust and that is not much fun
I have studied and I’ve got my last degree

Ii is not News, not for the BBC.
Unless you’re Stephen Hawkings, that great man
We’re graduates of the grief academy

We can’t control life with a self made plan
God is gone though prayer might well begin
I have suffered till I got a new degree
I’m a graduate of the grief academy

Mary Adair 2 and the reading glasses

Instead of going to the pub to meet men,Mary went on FB and changed her name
Unfortunatly  her name was also changed on the Page where she was insulted  and every where she had been.
I have learned something useful, she said to Dave who had come because Emile had rung 999
Better if you had not visited their page,he told  her sensibly, then Emile would be happy
Yes, she said,each side is as bad as the other,You must either totally agree or be called a vicious Monster.There is no space for debate so why even try?
Just then the phone rang
Hello, it’s Noreen ,she heard
Mary, I am so happy you have changed your name
Are you,Mary asked in suprise
Yes,my grandparents were Scottish and  none of the relatives are left,
so as you are partly Scottish too it’s lovely you chose to emphasis that
Well, stone the crows,Mary thought.How unpredictable life is.And how one unexpected event  led to a   good talk with Noreen
Well, since Stan is not here,I’d better do some housework. she told Dave
On the other hand if Annie and  you,Dave, accept my untidiness, why  should i worry?
After all it’s wonderful finding books I had  forgotten I had.Not to mention 30 pairs of tights and my reading glasses
Emile looked at her turquoise glasses
Can I have some reading glasses Mother?
Why? demanded Mary angrily
Then they will read stories to me as they can already read
Mary wondered how to explain to a cat that  the lenses of humans’ eyes become less flexible with age like their minds, perhaps
Then she thought of Donald Trump who needs King Canute
to explain  that no human is omnipotent and that viruses are unable to distinguish between him and another  old person even Joe Biden
Why the family of the first virus might have relatives near Joe.
But how do viruses communicate?They  have no voices,eyes or hands
Might it be they live in another reality? Do they have minds withour having  brains?
Or brains without minds
Dave ran out of the house wondering how to help Mary
And so would all of us!

NYTimes: The Case for Having a Hobby

The Case for Having a Hobby https://nyti.ms/2G2D0cG

In my garden.

Z

Isn’t it telling that you forgot?” said Brigid Schulte, author of “Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play When No One Has the Time,” when I told her I had blanked on the word.

“That’s so indicative of where we are in our culture right now, that you can actually forget what it is to have something you like to do that’s not a) tied to work and b) productive,” Ms. Schulte said.

While researching her book Ms. Schulte realized how many “lifehacks” make hobbies out to be keys to productivity rather than activities just meant to be enjoyed, and she saw that it was difficult for people to get out of that way of thinking.

But eventually, she found that people responded to “neuroscience and research about how you need a space where you’re calm that leads to insight.” Yet even with that knowledge in hand, Ms. Schulte said, people still saw hobbies as means to improve their performance at work. “That’s the only way I can break through to people about why having leisure is important.”

Indeed, Americans’ difficult relationship with leisure is nothing new.

“People forget that when we were negotiating the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, there were three conditions people wanted: minimum wage, 40-hour workweek and mandatory two-week vacation,” Ms. Schulte said. We got two out of three, “and we’ve been stuck ever since.” One in four Americans has no access to paid time off, and those who do often don’t take all of their vacation time or they spend their vacations checking email. Many of us have been taught to hate not being productive, and we’ve structured our culture around work, not play.

The benefits of art

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/22/opinion/david-zwirner-museums-coronavirus.html

I would contend that art and culture are the most important vehicles by which we come to understand one another. They make us curious about that which is different or unfamiliar, and ultimately allow us to accept it, even embrace it. Isn’t it telling that those societies most afraid of “the other” — the Nazis, Stalin’s Soviet Union, the Chinese under Mao — were not able to bring forth any significant cultural artifacts? Yet an abundance of work created in resistance to such ideologies can still dominate our cultural discourse.

Mary visits Sally 1+ 2 +3+4+5 +The End

By Katherine 2015

Mary got all  dolled up in her new pink wool dress.She was going to visit her former neighbour Sally in her pleasan and friendly Care Home not far away

Which handbag will match this, she asked her tomcat  Emile.She did love a bag of fine quality as did he.

Not a black one, he muttered

How about blue?

Yes cerulean blue is pretty.

Mary put her keys and money into the bag,

It is very large,but never mind

Emile thought, Now my chance has come.

He donned his denim jacket and got a clean Hanky

Then when Mary was powdering her nose he hid inside the  gorgeous Enny bag

Powder puff £4 by Barks 2 Often

Buy  bag in G bay for £5000

Mary put the bag on her

shoulder and went to the

bus stop

And so will all of us

Soon the bus arrived.She picked up her beautiful bag and almost fell over.It was very heavy.

  I am getting old, she thought I can hardly lift my handbag Little did she suspect the truth That Emile was inside  trembling in fear in case Mary should drop the bag off the bus.He weighed 5 kg without his fur,so he had been told by the Doctor.

The bus went off and soon they reached Naughty Hall with it’s lovely Cedar Tree and its rose gardens.They got off the bus and walked to Pewter Road where Sally was waiting for Mary.She did not know that Mary had this errant cat hiding in her bag

But she soon will

Mary rang the bell on the front door of Suffolk House.

Come in the receptionist cried.

I have come to visit Sally, Mary told her Is she still in Room 13?

No we call it 12a now because 13 is unlucky

For whom?

Well someone broke a tooth eating nuts in there.

That’s not bad luck.Its stupid to bite hard nuts when you are old.At least it was not some old people having heart attacks while making love That would have made the News.

In the Guardian last week  it said that old people could still enjoy sex They advise playing with toys.

Well they could still have heart attacks using toys

Can’t tell you as I have never seen a sex toy nor used one.

We will ask Matron then

Do you think she uses them?

God knows but it is not part of the job description.

Not yet

And so cry all of us.

Sally was happy to see Mary

What a pretty dress she whispered

Thank you said Mary.

Oh, lord your handbag is shaking.Is there a bomb in it?

Who would bomb a Care Home?

A crazy old woman!

That would be stupid.

Oh dear, it’s moving .Oh, God.

The women froze.

The two women stared at the bag.

And so have all of us.

Then they heard a loud Miaow.

It’s a cat.A large one.

Now Emile what are you doing?

Can’t breathe.Let me out, mother.Quick.

Are you the cat’s mother, asked Sally?

Not literally, Mary confessed.

She let Emile out and it was a lovely treat for Sally.She had not touched an animal since her husband died 6 years ago.

She usually preferred dogs but Emile was such fun

And so are all of us .

Then Mary decided to go home with her cat but he had to walk to the bus stop because she wasn’t going to carry them in her handbag

Sally I have to say goodbye now. I need to get home and someone is coming to see me tonight nk

So you are lucky sorry soon I wish someone was coming to see me but maybe my son John will be coming tomorrow

Mary walked along to the bus stop will her cat then she saw a car stopping.

It was her neighbour Michael.

What are you doing with your cat up here?

We have been to see Sally my friend in her care home and now we are going home home

I can take you said Michael

St. Mary and her cat got into the back of the car along was Mary’s handbag

Then NH NH in 10 minutes they were back in their own neighbourhood and Emile was especially delighted

I will never get inside Mary’s handbag ever again, he vowed even if Sally has never touched an animal for 7 or 8 years. It’s not my fault but they have no animals in the care home..

and at that very moment a very kind lady called Dora was scrubbing Sally’s room when they when they realised that a cat has been inside it

And so would all of us

Even in black darkness all is well

Cut off from humankind in my dark well
Unimagined death had my love scorned
I lay grieving in a prison cell

How did I get here, am I in hell?
My soul was leaving from my body warm
Cut off from humankind in my dark well

Shall I too fall where my lover fell?
I felt such pain,I was a skinless worm
A person grieving in a prison cell

I did not wish in this black place to dwell
I felt a force that pulled till my heart tore
Cut off from humankind in my dark well

In despair I had no thoughts at all
Until a golden light around me formed
To hold this person grieving in her cell

In gratitude great tears ran as I learned
Love had followed me when I was harmed
Cut off from humankind in my dark well
The ladder of his thorns broke my death spell

By the Lily Pond

Shimmering light
The lily pond
The music of your eye
The touch of your arm
Your always honey smell.
I love.

Rustling trees in a row,
A wide green lawn;
People stoop to see small flowers.

A snail on the path.
The perfection of the shell.
I believe

Unusually tall dandelions
at the edge of this wood
Wave in the warm west wind.
We smile.

Sitting pen in hand
I wonder what I would have written
In all the letters I’ve not sent you.

Far away on the Ridgeway,
Cars, like ants,
Rush towards the motorway.
They make us laugh.
How green the meadows
How fresh the old trees.

I gaze at you.
I find I am.
It’s mutual.
They call it Love

The 9 best drawing apps for Android

Fruit Katherine

https://www.androidpolice.com/best-drawing-apps-for-android/

D

Sketchbook

Originally developed by Autodesk, Sketchbook has become a popular choice for many. It has a clean, uncluttered, and easy-to-navigate interface. If this is your preferred app on your computer, you’ll be right at home using it on your mobile device.

Pros:,Free

You can change your brain

Many of the longest-lived cultures with very low rates of dementia are getting close to nine or nine and a half hours of sleep a night, which sounds ridiculous for most of us. But we do have to stop thinking of sleep as a waste of time. Now I track my sleep with my watch and I’m very diligent about it. I get at least seven hours a night.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/023c9f1e-8837-11ed-bb21-8f4d97ec7b02?shareToken=232dd70c8a87da27613e5e443c88a20f

Life

I’ve been so very lonely in this place

I cannot understand the death of God

Are we meant to do with out his grace.

On his dying face our feet have trod

Abandoned in the darkness I fell down

I could not rise again till I had died

In The waters of my tears I drowned

I wanted only truth, they’ told me lies

Where is my map my compass my sure guide?

My guardian angel was a myth of note.

He stood behind my shoulder, by my side.

He was no man despite his shining coat

Feel inside, your instinct knows the clues.

No one else can walk on in your shoes

Love’s victory

Turn back, live again, he asked of me
Do not wander in this darkness anymore
One false step might give death victory

We are each connected to that tree
The sunlit top, the roots hid in earth’s floor
Come back, live again, he asked of me

While we live, we’ll live with dignity
Not scrabbling for the gold in blood and gore
One false step will give death victory

The kindness of the golden light was clear
And left an image in my mind’s deep core
Come back, live your life, he then soothed me

Do not wonder now why you are here
We’re here to live and living shall restore
What our suffering self has found so dear

I had never seen the Light before
Only Christ the Tyger with his roar
Come back, live through pain, he asked of me
One right step will give love victory

Most sensuous, most tangled with love’s grace

Could it be despair  that held me tight

in the wintry evening and the night

I could not see a way to  carry on

Everything  was wrong and I was done

I saw great blackness all around myself

I could not be restored, I had no health

I   had reached the end of seeking aid

God alone  knew all the coins were paid

  Inexplicable, the  golden light

That made a sweet shawl round me on that night

Impressing me with kindness and goodwill

Holding me until I had had my fill

Most sensuous, most tangled with love’s  grace

Surrounding me,  protecting my lost face

As if the arms of love were something real

That anyone  who knew this  must reveal

Only when we reach the very end

May the force of love on  us descend

i

 

May the force of love on  us descend

Love will need no trick

In my despair I felt that I was stuck
Paralysed by  grief and guilt I failed
By the end I had tried every trick

From prayer unthought to deeps of logic black
My  life, my engine ,juddered off the  rails
I hated God and of “his” Church was  sick

Starving  and alone I was in shock
The death of one I loved   had made me frail
By the end I had tried every trick


I felt  Love’s arms around me,  death was blocked
I knew   this goodness,  why else would I wail?
I   thought I hated God  but Love had struck

Warm and golden light  that  did me hold
Where are you now when Evil has grown bold?
Kind despair  that  made me long time sit
By the end I learned Love needs no trick

Oh, gentle Light

I ‘ll try to get it right just one more time
You did not converse with me in words
You were simply present with your Light

Nowhere did I feel your power and might
You were no eagle, but a little bird
I ‘ll try to get it right just one more time.

Who made our language with its subtle rhymes?
The ancient people  had their well trained Scribes
You were always there,oh gentle Light

You  gave me warmth, you  changed my too fixed sight
A comforter , a Spirit, how describe?
I ‘ll try to get it right a final time.

The agony inside me lost its bite
I wanted to go on, to be alive
You  do not always show your golden Light

We do not know  when we at last arrive
We do not reach this  meeting place by strife
I ‘ve tried to get it right this final time
I never saw such  Gold until that night

More from Keats’ letter

huttonroof2017-1

SpringFlowers2019

“It has been an old comparison for our urging on – the Beehive; however, it seems to me that we should rather be the flower than the Bee – for it is a false notion that more is gained by receiving more than giving – no, the receiver and the giver are equal in their benefits. The flower, I doubt not, receives a fair guerdon from the Bee – its leaves blush deeper in the next spring – and who shall say between man and woman which is the most delighted”

Limestone at Hutton Roof

Beetham Fairy Steps

I wish I were on Hutton Roof again
The limestone and the little open flowers
The sea at Arnside like a distant gem
The spaciousness, like days with far more hours

I wish I were as agile now as then
I’d climb the mountains, hills,the little lanes

Windermere below still winding on
The handsome Lake,the old man, Coniston

I wish I were in Dent, the curious shapes
The hills and their deep mystery engross
The height, the little river, the mistakes
The lost loved man alive, to hold me closeI

I yearn to be on Hutton Roof today
The holy smell of grass, the feel of air

I don’t want to do for a man

I don’t want to get married again

I don’t want to do for a man

Will he do for me?

Let’s wait and see

I am writing an ode to the sun

I don’t want to bury a man

Along will his cast iron pan.

Maybe I’m trans

Come be my friend

My social life is just a sham

The world in doubt

After world war II I can’t believe

The Russians want to fight for no good end

They skilful and they will deceive

Onto many endless darkness will descend

Even one life lost destroys a world.

Destroys the latent good that would have come

In every act and word these young men shared

There was a future life, will that be bombed?

Little children on the train gaze out.

The entire world and love are now in doubt

Defiance not compliance:turning the other cheek

https://www.cpj.ca/defiance-not-compliance-turning-other-cheek

“Wink goes on to examine the phrase “if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.” Why, Wink asks, does Jesus reference the right cheek specifically? The answer is both challenging and enlightening. Jesus lived in a right-handed world where left hands were reserved only for unclean tasks. Therefore, we can see assume that the person doing the hitting would have used their right hand. The only way to strike someone on the right cheek with your right hand is a backhanded slap. Such a blow connotes an insult, not a fistfight, and was a normal way to reprimand someone over whom you had power (e.g. masters to slaves, husbands to wives, Romans to Jews). To strike your equal in such a manner was socially and legally unacceptable, carrying with it a huge fine.

With this new understanding of the context Jesus was speaking in, picture the scenario with yourself as the oppressor. You are a wealthy, powerful person whose slave has displeased you in some way. You reprimand your slave with a backhanded slap. The response you expect is the response you have always received from your slaves – the response you yourself would give if someone higher than you treated you the same way. You expect your slave to cower, submit, and slink away. Instead, your slave defiantly turns their other cheek and challenges you to hit them again. What can you do?

You would like to give your slave another backhanded slap to show them their place, but to do that you would have to use your left hand which would admit that your action is unclean. You could hit them on their left cheek, instead, but it would be embarrassing to hit your slave the way you should hit your equal. You’re confused. You don’t know what to do. Flustered, you could order the slave be flogged, but the slave has already made their point. They have shown you that they are a human person with dignity and worth. You don’t own them, you cannot control them, and they do not submit to your rule.

And so, in light of Wink’s insights, Jesus’ instruction not to resist evil and to turn the other cheek transforms from an instruction to accept injustice into a challenge to resist systems of domination and oppression without the use of violence. Rather than ignoring an evil situation and hoping it will go away, Jesus is telling his followers to find creative, active, and nonviolent ways to assert their humanity and God’s love in the world.”