JAH MON!

I would be remiss AND my 248 friends would be disappointed if I didn't include something Jamaican! I am including a Jamaican poem (go figure) and some pictures of "real " Jamaica.

One of my favorite sites to visit is This specific link will take you to Karen's poem titled "We Are the Dream." It is a beautiful poem expressing the majesty of Jamaica and the beauty of its people. Jamaicans.com is a great site to learn about culture, history, news and arts from Jamaica. It is entirely worth a visit, more than once! I have become familiar with some of the regular contributing authors (mostly poets). They are quite good and enjoy receiving comments and feed back via the Internet. Email them they will absolutely email you back.

Here is Karen McFarlane's Poem:


We Are The Dream By Karen L. McFarlane
Thursday, February 21, 2008

We are the dream

We are the new generation of dreamers

Who live the dreams of greatness

Purpose and possibilities

We are the ones dreamt about

By Dr. Martin Luther King

We are the dream

Our lives

Actualize

Strength

Unity

Destiny

We are the dream

We are the blacks and whites

Who now unite

In commonality

Passion…with the destiny

To build this great nation

We are the dream

We identify

That our lives

Embody the dream’s cry

What we are not only the color of our skin

But the content of our character

And that’s what matters

We are the dream

Heirs to the promise

Of equality

Knowing we are equal

So we sit at the table of unity

Hands joined, you and me

We are the dream

We are the generation living the creed of equality

One nation, one cause, one GREAT dream

Creating the beautiful symphony

That we are now free

Pursuing happiness, having the liberty

To be and to live the dream

TODAY… WE ARE THE DREAM

© KLMcFarlane 1/08

Birches --Robert Frost

Birches-- Robert Frost

Hey 248 Friends-- Remember swinging on birches about two months ago??? Okay I know I AM TRULY a poetry NERD but....Here are some pictures I took Tuesday on the way home from work.





I agree with Frost, I'd rather think the damage was done by Charlie swinging on Birches! BTW-This is my neighbor's house. And of course the poetry too!

Birches

WHEN I see birches bend to left and right
Across the line of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
(Now am I free to be poetical?)
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches;
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

I think both Charlie and my 248 friends need to swing on more birches!