#291 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Saturday March 5)
Good morning,
POETRY
The Summer Day
By Mary Oliver
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 down 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?
—Mary Oliver
MUSIC
A selection of great music covering multiple genres, from isolation and beyond:
Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett, “The Lady is a Tramp,”
and “Anything Goes”:
The New York Times has a wonderful series of “5 Minutes That Will Make You Love the …” These are pieces curated with famous classical music stars and other lovers of the music. Here is 5 Minutes That Will Make you Love the Piano: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/19/arts/music/classical-music-piano.html
Finally, New Ansonia by the Patchwork Jazz Orchestra in isolation (only a few minutes but really special):
The cast of Hamilton paying homage to A Chorus Line on the 40th anniversary of its premiere on the same stage. In Hamilton costumes. Quite the love letter from today’s great musical to yesterday’s, which remains as beautiful today as it was in the year of its premiere:
Here’s Melissa Etheridge and her 23-year-old daughter, Bailey, performing “Fix You” by Coldplay:
Have a great weekend,
Glenn
From the archives: