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Barn Quilt
Several groups around the state of Wisconsin have been involved with barn quilt projects. The quilt blocks are aimed at increasing tourism in rural areas of the state.
This exerpt from the Green County Barn Quilts website:
“Quilts, always a beloved symbol of comfort, family, heritage and community will provide a warm invitation to the rural countryside of Green County. Vibrant quilt patterns will be painted on pre-built 8’x8’ wooden squares. Each quilt will be painted by a team of volunteers and will require a willing barn owner to donate hanging space on their building. Making these quilt squares will allow volunteer groups from churches, schools, 4-H, scouting, HCE, and other community service groups and even families the opportunity to create and paint their own quilt square as a group project. The square that is chosen may represent a family pattern from a beloved quilt or perhaps a new favorite.”
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© 2012 Loren Zemlicka
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Barbaric Black and Burning Gold
Deep with divine tautology,
The sunset’s mighty mystery
Again has traced the scroll-like west
With hieroglyphs of burning gold:
Forever new, forever old,
Its miracle is manifest.
Time lays the scroll away. And now
Above the hills a giant brow
Of cloud Night lifts; and from his arm,
Barbaric black, upon the world,
With thunder, wind and fire, is hurled
His awful argument of storm.
What part, O man, is yours in such?
Whose awe and wonder are in touch
With Nature,–speaking rapture to
Your soul,–yet leaving in your reach
No human word of thought or speech
Commensurate with the thing you view.
- “Sunset and Storm” by Madison Julius Cawein
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© 2012 Loren Zemlicka
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A Hole in the Sky
© 2012 Loren Zemlicka
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I’m looking through a hole in the sky
I’m seeing nowhere through the eyes of a lie
I’m getting closer to the end of the line
I’m living easy where the sun doesn’t shine
I’m living in a room without any view
I’m living free because the rent’s never due
The synonyms of all the things that I’ve said
Are just the riddles that are built in my head
Hole in the sky, take me to heaven
Window in time, through it I fly
- From “Hole in the Sky” by Black Sabbath
Here, Where the World is Quiet
© 2012 Loren Zemlicka
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Here, where the world is quiet ;
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds’ and spent waves’ riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams ;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing,
For harvest-time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.
- From “The Garden of Proserpine” by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Hushed October Morning
© 2012 Loren Zemlicka
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O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost–
For the grapes’ sake along the wall.
- “October” by Robert Frost
Gone, Gone Again
© 2012 Loren Zemlicka
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Gone, gone again,
May, June, July,
And August gone,
Again gone by,
Not memorable
Save that I saw them go,
As past the empty quays
The rivers flow.
And now again,
In the harvest rain,
The Blenheim oranges
Fall grubby from the trees
As when I was young
And when the lost one was here
And when the war began
To turn young men to dung.
Look at the old house,
Outmoded, dignified,
Dark and untenanted,
With grass growing instead
Of the footsteps of life,
The friendliness, the strife;
In its beds have lain
Youth. love, age, and pain:
I am something like that;
Only I am not dead,
Still breathing and interested
In the house that is not dark:–
I am something like that:
Not one pane to reflect the sun,
For the schoolboys to throw at–
They have broken every one.
- “Gone, Gone Again” by Edward Thomas
Abandoned Barns Defend Abandoned Men
© 2012 Loren Zemlicka
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Nature remains faithful by natural light, only.
Immeasurable, invisible in the wind.
Visible when blades and branches bend.
The wind speaks fluent rain.
Despite it the rain falls straight.
And beyond it abandoned barns defend abandoned men.
- Prayer’s End by Brooklyn Copeland
