poe | The Direction of Intention

Two Moons [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on October 3, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.” ~ Edgar Allan Poe, Eleonora

Looking back it makes me laugh. I advocated – more than once – with skeptical school board members that daydreaming was not only useful but a necessary activity. The inception of every worthwhile invention, every startling work of art, every passionate pursuit, begins with a daydream. An idea somewhere out-there. A student staring out the window is rarely wasting time. I wonder how much life Shakespeare or Einstein or Marie Curie spent gazing into imagination-space?

And what about the light of the moon? More than once we’ve chased the moon and stood at the shore in awe. Moonlight evokes a silent reflection. It pulls me into a different kind of imagination-space: not “out-there” but inside. “When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past…” (Sonnet 30, William Shakespeare) Things past. Memories.

Many years ago, deep into the night, I stood beside a backyard pool and gazed at the full moon. I knew my life was about to change radically. A leap. I was scared. I whispered, “I don’t know where you will lead me but I will follow you.” Recently, standing on the shore of Lake Michigan, watching Kerri snap photos of the brilliant full moon, for some reason I vividly remembered that long ago poolside moment. I smiled and whispered, “So this is where you led me!”

I couldn’t be more grateful.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE MOON

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Gratitude, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, daydream, full moon, imagination, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lack of imagination, Marie Curie, memory, moon, poe, reflection, story, studio melange, the melange, William Shakespeare | 2 Comments »

Speak Truth To Rot [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on January 8, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

The morning is cold and it snowed last night. The world is coated in white. A raucous murder of crows brought me to the kitchen window. I found the black birds cawing on the white snow both beautiful and foreboding. Edgar Allan Poe stepped in the room. Dostoyevsky. I have a dubious history with crows so they are at once fascinating and spine-chilling.

When I heard the crows I was reading about the fall of Rome. I’m not sure how I came to be reading about ancient Rome since I was searching for something else. I got snagged, followed the thread and went down a rabbit hole. I stopped on the phrase “political rot.” A poet’s phrase.

An Alice-in-Wonderland reference is apt for how I feel of the politics of our time: down a rabbit hole. Yesterday Kerri asked if a politician-in-the-news was a democrat or a republican and I answered, “I’m not sure anymore what a republican is…” Not an answer to her question; more a sad statement of our predicament. We will fall, like Rome, not because of the thunder-lies spewed by an angry man who would be emperor, but because of the complicity of those who remain silent so they, too, might stay in power. The very definition of political rot.

400 years separate Martin Luther and Martin Luther King. The first could no longer remain silent to the corruption of the church so he nailed his 95 Theses to the door. The second, Martin Luther King, could no longer remain silent to the horrors perpetuated on black citizens in “the land of the free…” For speaking out, Martin Luther was excommunicated by the church and condemned as an outlaw by the king. Martin Luther King was assassinated for giving voice to our national shame.

It takes courage to speak truth to rot. Rot never takes kindly to the voices of veracity.

Take heart. Rot always falls while truth reveals itself through the smoke and devastation.

Consider these words, spoken by Martin Luther and 400 years later by his namesake:

“You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say.” ~ Martin Luther

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” ~ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

So much silence.

In my Roman read, two other phrases caught my eye, the very blossoms of political rot: “Civic pride waned…” and “Roman citizens lost their trust in leadership.” In complicit silence, history has no alternative but to repeat itself.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SILENCE