From One Book Lover

@  the Crossroads - A Sudden American Poem RIP Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, Dallas police                        officers Lorne Ahrens, Michael Krol, Michael J. Smith,                        Brent Thompson, and Patrick Zamarripa—and all                        their families. And to all those injured.                                                  Let us celebrate the lives of all As we reflect & pray & meditate on their brutal deaths Let us celebrate those who marched at night who spoke of peace & chanted Black Lives Matter Let us celebrate the officers dressed in Blues ready to protect Let us know the departed as we did not know them before—their faces, Bodies, names—what they loved, their words, the stories they often spoke Before we return to the usual business of our days, let us know their lives intimately Let us take this moment & impossible as this may sound—let us find The beauty in their lives in the midst of their sudden &

Wilfred Owen: Dulce Et Decorum Est, Graphically Represented One century ago, the world was stunned and wounded by The Great War. Poet Wilfred Owen, a casualty of the war himself, tried to tell us the cost. here is one of his most well-known poems rendered graphically by Nathan Gelgud. courtesy  Signature

Independence Day, celebrated on July 4 in the United States, is an exciting day, one whose origin is all but forgotten — or, perhaps, ignored. In the late eighteenth century, a group of immigrants occupied a country under the control of a monarch across the ocean. Rather than live as subjects of the English crown, the people of the nation rose up and claimed independence from the crown. Who were these people? French, English, Irish, Scottish, African — in a word, immigrants. Some came for personal safety and security, some came for financial reasons. We celebrate still, two and a half centuries later. Yet let's always remember what made us great: our diversity, which, when harnessed, exuded a power too great for even a king. When we stand together, we are too mighty a force to be defeated. Do not let anyone, within or without, divide us and dilute our greatness and power. Click on the video below for a reading of the Declaration of Independence, courtesy of Max McLean.