A visit

Every place on earth should be like this; unexpected.
On a good day, you can see forever.

Restful sleep for a windy place.
Tranquility is a marvelous experience
sound of meadowlarks in the morning, music
for the body.
Breath and love are everything.

This is sort of my home town.
Where my father went to school,
took piano lessons.

I had stitches on my hand in this place �

Nice to be back home,
to see the old schoolroom and
place where I was born

Different than I remember it as

Hope we weren�t too much trouble.
Thanks for the beer.

(You will remember me by the broken chair)



Entries in the visitors' guest book at the Convent Inn in Val Marie, Saskatchewan, Canada, noted during a visit in the autumn of 2006. Submitted by Shannon Bruyneel.

Supper preferences

When these birds move their wings in flight,
their strokes are slow, moderate and regular,
and even when at a considerable distance

or high above us, we plainly hear the quill-feathers,
their shafts and webs upon one another,
creak as the joints or

working of a vessel in a tempestuous sea.
We had this fowl dressed for supper
and it made excellent soup;

nevertheless as long as I can get any other
necessary food I shall prefer his
seraphic music in the ethereal skies.



William Bartram, in Travels Through North & South Carolina, Georgia, East & West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges, or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws. Spelling modernised. Submitted by Dawn Corrigan.

Sport

About midnight, having fallen asleep,
I was awakened and greatly surprised

at finding most of my companions
up in arms, and furiously engaged

with a large alligator
but a few yards from me.

One of our company, it seems,
awoke in the night, and perceived

the monster within a few paces of the camp,
who giving the alarm to the rest,

they readily came to his assistance,
for it was a rare piece of sport;

some took fire-brands and cast them
at his head, whilst others formed javelins

of saplins, pointed and hardened with fire;
these they thrust down his throat

into his bowels, which caused the monster
to roar and bellow hideously, but his strength

and fury was so great that he easily wrenched
or twisted them out of their hands, which

he wielded and brandished about and kept
his enemies at distance for a time;

some were for putting an end to his life
and sufferings with a rifle ball, but

the majority thought this would too soon
deprive them of the diversion and pleasure

of exercising their various inventions
of torture; they at length however grew tired,

and agreed in one opinion, that he had suffered
sufficiently, and put an end to his existence.



Taken from Travels of William Bartram by William Bartram, published 1928. Submitted by Dawn Corrigan.

A UK Taxpayer Considers Concorde

As a way
of getting over the Atlantic
it may have sucked

but as a beautiful thing
to look up and see
flying

over Reading
and the Thames Valley
at 6pm every afternoon

it was worth
every
penny.



A friend's Facebook comment, 22 January 2014. Submitted by Ailsa Holland.