Home » Fave-O-Lit Friday (Page 9)
Dear Mrs. Palin, It’s not ok for anybody to use the R word. Your dear friend Rush included. I know you know this. Please don’t let politics affect your ability to defend your dear little one. Spread the word to end the word Mrs. Palin. Use your power for good. Sincerely, This Momma
PS: I pledge and support the elimination of the derogatory use of the r-word from everyday speech and promote the acceptance and inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities
It was my child who taught me to understand so clearly that all people are equal in their humanity and that all have the same human rights. I might never have learned this in any other way. I may have gone on in the arrogance of my own intolerance for those less able than myself. My child taught me humanity” -Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winning author, Pearl S. Buck
Today I explained telepathy to you,
and telephone, and television,
on the way to day care,
and I said, sometimes when I’m at work
I’ll think of you,
and if I could send you that thought with my mind,
you’d get it right then,
and maybe you’d smile, stopping a moment at whatever
you were doing, or maybe not
but just going on with it, making a mask out of paper plates
and orange and green cards
with markers and scissors and paste,
or screaming circles in the gym
either being a monster
or being chased by a gang of them, but still you’d get
the picture I was beaming
and you’d brighten inside and flash me something back,
which I’d get, where I was, and smile at.
That’s telepathy, I said
pulling into the parking lot,
looking at you in the mirror.
Who could need more proof than honey—
How the bees with such skill and purpose
enter flower after flower
sing their way home
to create and cap the new honey
just to get through the flowerless winter.
And how the bear with intention and cunning
raids the hive
shovels pawful after pawful into his happy mouth
bats away indignant bees
stumbles off in a stupor of satiation and stickiness.
And how we humans can’t resist its viscosity
its taste of clover and wind
its metaphorical power:
don’t we yearn for a land of milk and honey?
don’t we call our loved ones “honey?”
all because bees just do, over and over again, what they were made to do.
Oh, who could need more proof than honey
to know that our world
was meant to be
and
was meant to be
sweet?
Third thing that we’ll do today
Is look you in the eye and say
I love you sweet baby, I love you sweet baby
I love you more than anything
Then we’re gonna change you
Then we’re gonna feed you
Then we’re both play peek-a-boo
Then we’re gonna read to you
Then you have more milk and have some water
And we’ll smile at you and tell you we’re so glad that you’re our daughter
Then you’ll fall asleep on daddy’s lap
We’ll watch MacGyver while you take a nap
When you wake up we have more plans
Say good morning baby and kiss your hands
Then you’re gonna make a pee
In your little green potty
Then we’re gonna eat our lunch
Mash avocados for you to munch
Then you’re gonna nurse again
Then we’re gonna call our friends
Then we’ll dump out all your toys
Singin’, dancing, make some noise
Then we’re gonna take a walk
Down the street to the park
We’ll play on the see-saw, play on the slide
You’ll get tired and rub your eyes
Then we’ll go home for more nursing and sleeping
Bouncing and nursing and waking and peeing
Crawling and bouncing and dancing and hitting
Nursing and peeing and kisses and seeing
You’re an amazing human being
You’re an amazing human being
You’re an amazing human being
You’re an amazing human being
Then we’ll all cuddle in our bed
You’ll nurse to sleep, we’ll kiss your head
Good night sweet baby, I love you sweet baby
I love you more than anything
Good night sweet baby, I love you sweet baby
I love you more than anything
The first thing in our list of things to do
Is to wake up right next to you
Second thing that we have planned
Is to kiss both of your hands
Third thing that we’ll do today
Is look you in the eye and say
I love you sweet baby, I love you sweet baby
I love you more than anything
I love you sweet baby, I love you sweet baby
I love you more than anything
I love you sweet baby, I love you sweet baby
I love you more than anything
Saying Goodbye to Very Young Children
They will not be the same next time. The sayings
so cute, just slightly off, will be corrected.
Their eyes will be more skeptical, plugged in
the more securely to the worldly buzz
of television, alphabet, and street talk,
culture polluting their gazes’ dawn blue.
It makes you see at last the value of
those boring aunts and neighbors (their smells
of summer sweat and cigarettes, their faces
like shapes of sky between shade-giving leaves)
who knew you from the start, when you were zero,
cooing their nothings before you could be bored
or knew a name, not even you own, or how
this world brave with hellos turns all goodbye.
You think my hands are full, you should see my heart!
-Author Unknown
I check the locks on the front door
and the side door,
make sure the windows are closed
and the heat dialed down.
I switch off the computer,
turn off the living room lights.
I let in the cats.
Reverently, I unplug the Christmas tree,
leaving Christ and the little animals
in the dark.
The last thing I do
is step out to the back yard
for a quick look at the Milky Way.
The stars are halogen-blue.
The constellations, whose names
I have long since forgotten,
look down anonymously,
and the whole galaxy
is cartwheeling in silence through the night.
Everything seems to be ok.
You’d think, to see us carrying on about that little tad,
That, like as not, that baby was the first we’d ever had;
But, sakes alive! he isn’t, yet we people make a fuss
As if the only baby in the world had come to us!
And, morning, noon, and night-time, whatever he may do,
Gran’ma, she laughs,
Gran’pa, he laughs,
Wife, she laughs,
And I, of course, laugh, too!
But once – a likely spell ago – when that poor little chick
From teething or from some such ill of infancy fell sick,
You wouldn’t know us people as the same that went about
A-feelin’ good all over, just to hear him crow and shout;
And, though the doctor poohed our fears and said he’d pull him through,
Old gran’ma cried,
And gran’pa cried,
And wife, she cried,
And I – yes, I cried, too!
It makes us all feel good to have a baby on the place,
With his everlastin’ crowing and his dimpling, dumpling face;
The patter of his pinky feet makes music everywhere,
And when he shakes those fists of his, good-by to every care!
No matter what our trouble is, when he begins to coo,
Old gran’ma laughs,
And gran’pa laughs,
Wife, she laughs,
And I – you bet, I laugh, too!
The truth is that there is nothing noble in being superior to somebody else. The only real nobility is in being superior to your former self.
Whithey Young
US civil rights leader (1921 – 1971)
Ordinary Afters... 