A SAFE PLACE

6.2.18 Yep. We're still standing. Still tending to a Safe Place. Come set a spell. We book no Trump here. 

This evening we present for your heart and soul's solace the legendary Peruvian singer, Susana Baca, and her wonderful group performing a folk tale of a young Peruvian slave girl named "Maria Lando".  One World.

Dawn breaks shattering like a statue

Like a statue of wings that scatter throughout the city

And noon sings like a bell made of water

A bell made of golden water that keeps us from loneliness

And the night lifts its tall goblet

Its tall, tall goblet, early moon over the sea

But for Maria there is no dawn

But for Maria there is no midday

But for Maria there is no moon

Lifting its red goblet over the waters

Maria has no time to lift her eyes

Maria to lift her eyes, broken by lack of sleep

Maria broken by lack of sleep from so much suffering

Maria from so much suffering, all she does is work

Maria just works and works

Maria only works

And her work enriches others

Songwriters: Cesar Calvo / Chabuca Granda

Maria Lando lyrics © Tintoretto Music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8xuRPIdDjc

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On April 14 1865, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.

On April 14, 1865 President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. He died the following day. The photograph below, of the President and his son, Todd, was taken by Matthew Brady. 

The link below leads leads to the entire May 6, 1865 edition of  Harper's Weekly, the "Journal of Civilization" that reported the story and its' aftermath. The Funeral Ode is an uncredited eulogy that appeared in that edition. 

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1865/president-abraham-lincoln.htm

WALT WHITMAN'S EULOGY  TO THE FALLEN CAPTAIN

O Captain! My Captain!

BY WALT WHITMAN

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

                         But O heart! heart! heart!

                            O the bleeding drops of red,

                               Where on the deck my Captain lies,

                                  Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,

For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

                         Here Captain! dear father!

                            This arm beneath your head!

                               It is some dream that on the deck,

                                 You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,

The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;

                         Exult O shores, and ring O bells!

                            But I with mournful tread,

                               Walk the deck my Captain lies,

                                  Fallen cold and dead.

AN ANONYMOUS FUNERAL ODE.

WHEN raging earthquakes bury towns, Or fierce volcanoes lash their manes

Of boundless, fiery ruin round

The groaning hills and shrieking plains, he world may fitting emblems find To speak the horror of its heart,

In cities craped, in banners furled, And all the solemn show of art.

But when a Human Hand is turned Into a ruthless demon-power,

And smites a nation in its Chief,

Even at his triumph's crowning hour,

What emblems shall Man fitting find, What types sad, grand enough to show

The horror shaking continents,

And their infinity of woe?

Alas! alas ! we wildly feel

There should be still some outward sign, And so we furl the shining flag

And darkly cloud the glowing shrine.

How vain ! At last the Nation lifts

Its naked hands to Heaven, and owns

The impotence of every type

Before the awful Throne of Thrones :

Then silent stands and thinks of him

The swerveless Good, the calmly Great : In wonder would the reason pierce

Of their Beloved's mystic fate.

Was he too dear an Idol here ?

Too merciful for this dread time? Did Heaven now will a sterner hand, With justice mailed, to guard the clime?

O God of Nations, if we sin

In questioning, forgive, for we

Are by our woe driven on to seek The meaning of Eternity !

Forgive, and bless, and make us feel' That Thou wilt still love, watch, save all,

Though even the best of rulers die, Though earth should sink and planets fall !

(Uncredited eulogy for the President. Published in Harper's Weekly May 6, 1865)

Does anybody know what day this is? Does anybody truly care?

 Hint: It's not a pop song and it happened 156 years ago today. 

On July 1, 1863, the Battle of Gettysburg began.

 Over the course of the next three days, the Union Army of the Potomac, led by Major General George C. Meade, rebuffed the final attempt by Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia to invade the North.  The battle culminated with Pickett's charge, an infantry assault by the Confederate forces, into the center of the Union line at Cemetery Ridge that was repulsed and resulted in 12,500 Confederate deaths. The total casualties on both sides have been estimated at 50,000. Lee was forced to retreat and Northern observers reacted with jubilation.  The diarist, George Templeton Strong wrote of the outcome,  "The results of this victory are priceless. ... The charm of Robert E. Lee's invincibility is broken. The Army of the Potomac has at last found a general that can handle it, and has stood nobly up to its terrible work in spite of its long disheartening list of hard-fought failures. ... Copperheads are palsied and dumb for the moment at least. ... Government is strengthened four-fold at home and abroad.”  That optimism soon dissipated when Meade failed to pursue the retreating Lee.  President Lincoln's response was, "Our army held the war in the hollow of their hand and they would not close it". The slaughter continued for nearly two more years. The wounds have taken generations to heal. The scars may always remain. 

On November 19, 1863, President Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address, ten sentences that defined the meaning of the war and unveiled a path toward healing. 

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.