What Was Told, That

by Jalal al-Din Rumi, 1207 - 1273

What was said to the rose that made it open was said
to me here in my chest.

What was told the cypress that made it strong
and straight, what was

whispered the jasmine so it is what it is, whatever made
sugarcane sweet, whatever

was said to the inhabitants of the town of Chigil in
Turkestan that makes them

so handsome, whatever lets the pomegranate flower blush
like a human face, that is

being said to me now. I blush. Whatever put eloquence in
language, that’s happening here.

The great warehouse doors open; I fill with gratitude,
chewing a piece of sugarcane,

in love with the one to whom every that belongs!

Swimming

Swimming
by Carl Phillips

Some nights, I rise from the latest excuse for
Why not stay awhile, usually that hour when
the coyotes roam the streets as if they’ve always
owned the place and had come back inspecting now
for damage. But what hasn’t been damaged? History
here means a history of storms rushing the trees
for so long, their bowed shapes seem a kind of star—
worth trusting, I mean, as in how the helmsman,
steering home, knows what star to lean on. Do
people, anymore, even say helmsman? Everything
in waves, or at least wave-like, as when another’s
suffering, being greater, displaces our own, or
I understand it should, which is meant to be
different, I’m sure of it, from that pleasure
Lucretius speaks of, in witnessing from land
a ship foundering at sea, though more and more
it all seems related. I love the nights here. I love
the jetty’s black ghost-finger, how it calms
the harbor, how the fog hanging stranded just
above the water is fog, finally, not the left-behind
parts of those questions from which I half-wish
I could school my mind, desperate cargo,
to keep a little distance. An old map from when
this place was first settled shows monsters
everywhere, once the shore gives out—it can still
feel like that: I dive in, and they rise like faithfulness
itself, watery pallbearers heading seaward, and
I the raft they steady. It seems there’s no turning back.

Undone

Hermitage

by Joseph Fasano

It’s true there were times when it was too much
and I slipped off in the first light or its last hour
and drove up through the crooked way of the valley

and swam out to those ruins on an island.
Blackbirds were the only music in the spruces,
and the stars, as they faded out, offered themselves to me

like glasses of water ringing by the empty linens of the dead.
When Delilah watched the dark hair of her lover
tumble, she did not shatter. When Abraham

relented, he did not relent.
Still, I would tell you of the humbling and the waking.
I would tell you of the wild hours of surrender,

when the river stripped the cove’s stones
from the margin and the blackbirds built
their strict songs in the high

pines, when the great nests swayed the lattice
of the branches, the moon’s brute music
touching them with fire.

And you, there, stranger in the sway
of it, what would you have done
there, in the ruins, when they rose

from you, when the burning wings
ascended, when the old ghosts
shook the music from your branches and the great lie

of your one sweet life was lifted?

Spring Running Playlist

Fall Out Boy – Uma Thurman 

Wyclef Jean Ft. Avicii – Divine Sorrow

DJ Snake & AlunaGeorge – You Know You Like It

Giorgio Moroder Ft. Sia – Déjà vu

Odesza Ft. Zyra – It’s Only

Panic! At the Disco – Hallelujah

Misterwives – Reflections 

X Ambassadors – Renegades

Broods – Mother & Father

Banks – Beggin’ for a Thread

OMI – Cheerleader

Odessa – Hummed Low

Who Sits at the Table Matters

When ELLE asked Chelsea Clinton what she thought about the idea of having a female president and if it would make any real change. She said,

"We've made real progress on legal protections for women, but in no way are women at parity to men in our country in the workplace. And if we look in the political sphere, it is challenging to me that women comprising 20 percent of Congress is treated as a real success. Since when did 20 percent become the definition of equality? And so when you ask about the importance of having a woman president, absolutely it's important, for, yes, symbolic reasons—symbols are important; it is important who and what we choose to elevate, and to celebrate. And one of our core values in this country is that we are the land of equal opportunity, but when equal hasn't yet included gender, there is a fundamental challenge there that, I believe, having our first woman president—whenever that is—will help resolve. And do I think it would make a substantive difference? Yes, we've seen again and again, when women have been in positions of leadership, they have had different degrees of success versus their male counterparts, historically being able to build more consensus so that decisions have longer-term effects, whether in economic investments or in building social capital. Who sits around the table matters. And who sits at the head of the table matters, too."

Read more about the interview here.  

Winter Running Playlist

Is it just me or does everyone pretend to be dancing when they run? No? Just me? Well, hopefully this music will inspire you to feel the same way...

Home - Kids of 88

Your Heart - Dirty South

Sun Blows Up Today - The Flaming Lips

Laura Palmer - Bastille (Kat Krazy remix)

Suavement - Elvis Crespo (Kennedy Jones remix)

Of the Night - Bastille (Fix8 remix)

The Call

C. Dale Young

                           in memoriam Cecil Young

I am addicted to words, constantly ferret them away

in anticipation. You cannot accuse me of not being prepared.

I am ready for anything. I can create an image faster than

just about anyone. And so, the crows blurring the tree line;

the sky’s light dimming and shifting; the Pacific cold and

impatient as ever: this is just the way I feel. Nothing more.

I could gussy up those crows, transform them

into something more formal, more Latinate, could use

the exact genus Corvus, but I won’t. Not today.

Like any addict, I, too, have limits. And I have written

too many elegies already. The Living have become

jealous of the amount I have written for the Dead.

So, leave the crows perched along the tree line

watching over us. Leave them be. The setting sun?

Leave it be. For God’s sake, what could be easier

in a poem about death than a setting sun? Leave it be.

Words cannot always help you, the old poet had taught

me, cannot always be there for you no matter how you

store them away with sharpened forethought.

Not the courier in his leather sandals, his legs dark and dirty

from the long race across the desert. Not the carrier

pigeon arriving with the news of another dead Caesar

and the request you present yourself. Nothing like that.

The telephone rings. Early one morning, the telephone rings

and the voice is your mother’s voice. No fanfare. Your

father’s brother is dead. He died that morning. And your tongue

went silent. Like any other minor poet, you could not find

the best words, the appropriate words. Leave it be now.

You let your mother talk and talk to fill the silence. Leave it be.

All of your practiced precision, all of the words saved up

for a poem, can do nothing to remedy that now.

- Oscar de la Renta

This made me laugh... and reminded me of my brother

Real girl New Year resolutions (see 9A, 17 and 22 - nailed it)

Interesting connection between childhood guilt and adult depression

Do you follow Humans of New York on Instagram? I highly recommend

This song is my jam right now. As well as this one and this one (shhh...)

Shrimps faux fur pieces are so cool. Plus, how cute is her website?

Jimmy Fallon realizing he missed his chance with Nicole Kidman is adorable

Reading this book now and can't seem to put it down. I also can't wait to see the movie!

Dying to try aerial and acrobatic yoga. The aerial circus hour class looks amazing

On Friendship

by Kahlil Gibran

Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.

When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the "nay" in your own mind, nor do you withhold the "ay."
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.

And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.