RattleBag and Rhubarb

Making Change

On a daily neighborhood soodle a while back I saw this single golden sandal on a stoop on W112th Street. I wondered about the backstory. Was it lost or abandoned and was it missed? And I took a photograph. Sue did the same. Sometime later that child’s shoe was transformed. You can check out Sue’s additional transformations at Prufrock’sDilemma and …

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RattleBag and Rhubarb

Summer in the City: Parks, Pocket Parks and Patches

Summer in the City Hot town, summer in the city Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty Been down, isn’t it a pity? Doesn’t seem to be a shadow in the city All around, people looking half dead Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head                        …

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Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

The Consent

I came across “The Consent” when I was exploring Howard Nemerov’s life and work for some other posts. It seems appropriate for about now.  The Consent Late in November, on a single night Not even near to freezing, the ginkgo trees That stand along the walk drop all their leaves In one consent, and neither to rain nor to wind…

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Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Simple Pleasures and Stickybeaking

Stickybeak  NOUN: an intrusive, meddlesome, busybody, nosy parker who sticks their nose (beak) into other people’s business. The act of stickybeaking. VERB: to snoop or pry into other’s people’s business. This was a delightful new word for me this week although it’s clearly common currency in Australia and New Zealand. I came across it first in one of a series…

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Books, RattleBag and Rhubarb, WW2

October , Propaganda, and Mrs. Miniver Buys the Chrysanthemums Herself

The Year Begins in October  Armistead Maupin based his vignettes of gay life in 1970s San Francisco – Tales of the City – on Jan Struther’s Mrs. Miniver (1939). They first appeared in a long-running serial in the San Francisco Chronicle. Instinctively I wanted to write a gay male Mrs Miniver, the minutiae of gay life with Michael Tolliver as…

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RattleBag and Rhubarb

Look Up, Look Down, Look Out

Before all the leaves are down take a moment to look up. This is Innisfree Garden last Saturday.  Big Halloween storm came through and probably tore a few more leaves down. Certainly took three shingles off the roof. And then look down. Robert Macfarlane tweeted about “beechmast” this week and certainly this has been a mast year for our oak…

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Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Game of Swans

A group of swans is a wedge when they’re in flight, likely because of the shape a group of swans takes in flight. And while we can call a group of swans a bevy, a herd, a game, or a flight, they can only be a bank when they’re on the ground. Merriam-Webster But there’s more:  a gaggle of swans  a whiteness of swans  a herd of swans…

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Art, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Images for Winter and a Winter Robin

I found this on the London Library Advent calendar. Just the perfect image for anything a little Christmassy with a touch of vintage thrown in. This robin was for day 10.   It was the perfect pic for the home-made greeting card. All of the images were interesting and here are a few more that caught my eye. Day 11:…

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Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

The Day That Summer Died

The Day That Summer Died From all around the mourners came The day that Summer died, From hill and valley, field and wood And lane and mountainside. They did not come in funeral black But every mourner chose Gorgeous colours or soft shades Of russet, yellow, rose. Horse chestnut, oak and sycamore Wore robes of gold and red; The rowan…

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Art, Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

A Catalpa Tree On West Twelfth Street

Here again – for the summer solstice – are those Wittenham Clumps. By the early 1940s Nash’s was in declining health. Suffering from chronic asthma – triggered his wife Margaret believed by inhaling gas at Passchendaele in 1917 –  he had endured several spells in hospital. He and  Margaret, began to make visits to nearby Boars Hill where their friend Hilda Harrison lived…

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Art, Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Lines Written in Early Spring

Lines Written in Early Spring by William Wordsworth I heard a thousand blended notes, While in a grove I sate reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind. To her fair works did Nature link The human soul that through me ran; And much it grieved my heart to think What man has made…

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