Memorial Day

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Memorial Day

The sky is drooling gray on this day to celebrate the dead.

Lying a bed the extra hours, grateful.

Sacrificial spring is cold.

Still there is clamor on the street

Anticipating the parade,

Honoring and remembering

Remembering enforced duty with little option.

No fan of waste am I.

The dying always die.

We watch through black and white to verdant color

Appling polemic practice

To steady motives against attrition

The parade passes and remembering,

Wonder silently, the question;

Does the world need a parent?

Morning

The storm system that hit Oklahoma edges closer to us with less severity. Still the meteorologists are antsy. Warning of harsh storm possibilities if the sun were to warm the air, all were wishing for a cloudy morning. Instead I awoke to an azure sky. We shall see what this afternoon brings, if anything.

Today the weather could not have been better. The air was warm. The sun was out and temps were in the eighties. We went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. It was beautiful. The azalea, rhododendrons, lilacs, peonies and blue bells were all in their glory. Many of the views were accompanied by the singing of the Mocking Birds. I could have stayed there all day. More pictures will be forth coming.

Yesterday was breezy with a smattering of sprinkles. We went into the city and saw a musical. A the end of the day we went to Juilliard for a violin concert. The performance was part of a Masters thesis in music. The violinist, Hyorim Han played Mozart, Schumann, Bach and Wieniawski , beautifully; all while looking lovely in a sage green dress. The concert was free-an amazing gift. It was the perfect cap to a day in New York.

New York City,

> The best part of today, aside from seeing people I love graduate from college, which cannot be gauged, was a visit to the Frick Collection housed in a fabulous mansion across from Central Park. It possess a wonderful eclectic mixture of magnificent art, the Goyas transition to the Manets, the Degas juxtapose against the Toulouse-Lautrecs and the Titians, Holbeins, Gainsboroughs, Corots and Turners jumble together in a fantastical riot of imagery. This is a gallery where centuries of art have been distilled down to esoteric essentials and the experience is the better for it. In addition to the paintings, there are ceramics from the orient, a plethora of clocks, gilded furniture and tasseled chairs. The bones of the mansion are equally decorative with ornately carved moldings around every door and window, sculpted marble fireplaces and a grand stair case with a pipe organ on the landing. (Unfortunately no pictures were allowed.) Through it all the Vermeers, unassuming in their tiny frames, reward the viewer with a sumptuous view of life gone by, much like the Frick itself.

#art

Brooklyn,

Spent most of the day hanging with the graduates of Pratt. The highlights included being with amazing students, seeing fantastic ID projects and eating luscious food at Romans on Dekalb. For several hours I experienced what it was like to be hip, connected and cool in ways I am not.

Alas the post failed yesterday but fortunately today promises more of the same if not slightly cooler. Breezy and brisk in Brooklyn.