Before the marble roads and iron law,
Before the eagle standard crossed the sea,
There rose in mist and forest glen
The songs of elder memory.
In Gaulish fields and Brythonic hills,
In Old Irish chant and Pictish sign,
The Celtic tongues like woven threads
Bound tribe to tribe through oak and shrine.
Their words were wind along the moor,
A harp-string drawn through rain and fire-
Echoes that still in fragments live
In Wales' proud speech and Gaelic choir.
Then came the legions-measured tread-
Roman Empire in bronze array,
With road and aqueduct and law
They claimed the breadth of Europe's sway.
From Iber's sun to Rhine's cold line,
From Britain's cliffs to Balkan plain,
They carved in stone their ordered world,
Yet left the old songs in the rain.
Empires fade as embers cool;
New banners rise where old have passed.
Across the Channel's restless tide
Came William the ******* bold and fast-
William the Conqueror crowned by right of sword and claim,
In 1066's fateful year,
He stitched a Norman thread through England's name,
And set a feudal age in gear.
Centuries turned like weathered wheels;
The crown and Parliament contended flame.
Through civil strife and iron will
Strode Oliver Cromwell into fame-
A commoner with psalm and blade,
Who bent a kingdom to reform,
And left a legacy debated still,
Half thunderclap and half calm storm.
Across the western ocean's reach
New settlements took root and breath;
Old Europe's children, seeking hope,
Faced wilderness and want and death.
From thirteen strands of coastal claim
A fragile union dared to stand;
The Declaration's careful flame
Lit liberty across the land.
Yet liberty proved forged in fire-
North and South in bitter cry;
In cannon smoke and brother's grief
The Union's fate was cast to try.
The Civil War in sorrow's wake
Unbound the chains of human wrong,
Though scars ran deep in soil and soul
And justice marched both slow and long.
Then rose the clang of hammer's age-
Steel and steam and coal-fed might;
Cities grew where fields had been,
Factories burned through day and night.
Gibson shaped from maple, spruce, and flame
In Kalamazoo's humming halls,
Where luthiers bent the wood to song
And jazz and blues leapt factory walls.
On Detroit's line, in ordered pace,
Stood Henry Ford with vision clear:
To harness time, to master scale,
To place the motor age in gear.
Assembly lines like Roman roads
Bound town to town in humming chain;
Old craft gave way to modern speed,
And progress carried loss and gain.
Then shadow fell across the globe-
A second war of iron and sky;
From London's blaze to Normandy
The cost of tyranny ran high.
In trenches, camps, and shattered streets
The century's fury reached its height;
Yet through the ruin nations learned
The price of darkness-and of light.
So runs the thread from Celtic tongue
To steel and wire and engine's roar-
A tapestry of striving hands,
Of fallen crowns and open door.
Europe's tale, and America's too,
Are woven tight in warp and weft:
Old roots beneath new branches spread,
Much gained by time, and much still left.
Feb 14
Feb 14, 2026 at 10:17 AM UTC
On a chimney crown in Northampton town,
Where frost has stitched the fields in white,
A traveler rests in feathered gown,
A lantern in the fading light.
From Arctic winds and tundra wide,
Where silver moons on silence gleam,
He's crossed the cold on steady glide,
A hunter threading winter's seam.
His amber eyes, two embers bright,
Scan hedgerow, meadow, drift, and eave;
Each shadow stirs his ancient sight,
Each whisper tells him what to seize.
He rides the dusk on soundless wing,
No branch too bare, no roof too steep;
The north still in him, listening,
While village windows blink and sleep.
A pale command against the sky,
He keeps the old and patient ways-
To watch, to wait, then fall and fly
Through brittle air and iron days.
And when the thaw begins its creep,
And robins test the tender ground,
He'll turn again to snowfields deep,
To star-shot dark without a sound.
Feb 13
Feb 13, 2026 at 11:11 AM UTC
We gather where tunes linger
after the chairs are folded,
where rosin dust still floats
in the memory of a good bow stroke.
Someone sets a mandolin gently on a table,
like a hat laid down out of respect.
Someone else hums, not meaning to.
That's how it starts.
That's how Stan would have liked it.
He was there before most of us knew
we were looking for this music-
before the word community had a stage
or a mailing list or a folding banner.
He stood at the edge of a cold New England winter
and said, simply,
Let's bring them together.
And people came.
A boy of ten or eleven sits on a hard chair,
feet dangling, fiddle too big for his arm.
At the judges' table:
Joe Val, a legend already,
and Stan-eyes bright, leaning forward,
listening like the future depended on it.
Because in a way, it did.
Stan listened the way engineers listen:
for structure, for patterns,
for the elegant solution hidden in noise.
Five degrees, a doctorate,
databases built to remember
what the world is afraid to forget.
At MIT he learned how systems work.
At Brown he taught them to others-
how information finds its place,
how ideas don't vanish if you care for them properly.
But music was never data to him.
It was breath.
It was laughter between notes.
It was a banjo break that went on too long
because nobody wanted it to stop.
In 1976, when bluegrass in Boston
was more hope than certainty,
Stan helped give it a home.
Not a monument-
a living thing.
The Boston Bluegrass Union:
a handshake, a newsletter,
a phone call made late at night
because the band just canceled
and someone has to fix this.
For forty years and more,
he fixed things.
He booked the bands.
He introduced them.
He stood at the microphone,
voice calm, generous,
making every artist feel
like they had just arrived somewhere important.
The Joe Val Festival grew-
from a gathering to a pilgrimage.
From a weekend to a landmark.
Stan didn't build it to be famous.
He built it to last.
That's the difference.
Somewhere between sound checks and set lists,
love found him.
Gail.
A partnership tuned just right-
curiosity, music, shared breakfasts,
a life where asking why
was never separated from asking who wants to play?
He raised a family the same way he built organizations:
with attention, patience,
and the quiet confidence
that people grow best
when you trust them.
The wider world noticed.
IBMA called.
Boards were chaired.
Cities were moved.
Awards were given names-
and one of those names became his.
Kentucky called him Colonel,
and he smiled,
because tradition mattered to him.
Because roots matter.
But ask the swimmers at Dedham High,
five mornings a week,
what they knew of his titles.
They'll tell you about discipline,
about showing up,
about Saturday breakfasts
where the coffee was strong
and the laughter stronger.
Ask the pen collectors
about nibs and ink
and the joy of small, perfect tools.
Ask anyone who shared a tune with him
how he never played at you-
only with you.
And ask him about ice cream.
Vanilla.
Always vanilla.
“If that's not good,” he'd say,
“you can't trust the rest.”
A philosophy, really.
Start with the fundamentals.
Make them honest.
Everything else follows.
Now the room is full.
Someone calls a key.
Someone else starts it off.
The tune wobbles for a bar,
then locks in.
Feb 10
Feb 10, 2026 at 11:13 AM UTC
Hampshire sits on rolling ground,
Eight hundred acres, soft and sound,
Where barns remember earnest schemes
And hallways echo half-formed dreams.
The sinks drip soapless, curtains bloom
With quiet mold in borrowed rooms,
The dining hall grows thin and spare,
Still students linger, stubborn there.
They walk past fields and shuttered wings,
Past broken doors and hopeful things,
Past studios where film still hums
And art refuses to be done.
The ledgers groan, the numbers bite,
Deficits pacing through the night,
And prophets murmur, heads bowed low:
“This place is fading. Let it go.”
Yet someone laughs and says, Not yet,
We're not prepared for mourning debt,
We've raised our millions, almost whole,
And land still breathes beneath the toll.
No grades, no majors, maps unmade,
Just questions sharpened, plans delayed,
A curriculum of risk and nerve,
An oddball will to not conserve.
Not Amherst's gold, not Williams' shine,
No velvet rope, no waiting line,
Just students building selves from scratch,
Lighting sparks they hope will catch.
Here filmmakers stitch the frame,
And poets wrestle truth from name,
Entrepreneurs of mind and will
Pitch futures no one's funded still.
They say the market wants the new,
That risk is something worth its due,
That in the age of thinking machines
Human strangeness still convenes.
A refuge, some have dared to call it,
When other halls grow cold and policed,
A place to stand when tides insist
That difference must be coalesced.
The past half-century limps and leans,
Scarred by plans and near-extremes,
Yet alumni plant roots nearby,
Refusing clean goodbyes.
Farmers, artists, teachers stay,
Raising children, debts, and hay,
Living proof that what was tried
Still walks the world, still won't subside.
So if the lights go dim one day,
If Hampshire's doors should swing away,
The experiment won't disappear-
It's walking, breathing, teaching here.
Because some places aren't meant to win,
Or balance books, or neatly end-
They're meant to risk, to bruise, to try,
To teach us how to fail alive.
And whether Hampshire stands or falls,
Its question hums within the walls:
What if learning isn't safe or clean,
But worth the cost of being seen?
Feb 10
Feb 10, 2026 at 9:48 AM UTC
On a winter day in Amherst town,
When early dusk is settling down,
The drums awake the waiting street,
With steady hands and dancing feet.
From fire doors in painted red,
The lion lifts its bright-stitched head,
It bows to luck, to years gone by,
Then greets the hope that's passing by.
Through downtown paths the colors roll,
A cloth-bound heart, a borrowed soul,
Each cymbal crash, each measured spin,
Invites the coming fortune in.
At teahouse doors and kitchens warm,
The lion pauses, takes its form,
Bestowing luck from stop to stop,
Where laughter steams and woks don't stop.
At two o'clock the journey starts,
Through careful time and beating hearts,
Each moment marked, each doorway blessed,
No hurried step, no second-guess.
From bowl to cup, from spice to steam,
The streets themselves begin to dream,
That luck can walk, that joy can stay,
And lead the year the proper way.
When drums grow soft and lions rest,
The town feels lighter, quietly blessed,
For in the cold, the old, the new,
Amherst remembers what to do.
Feb 10
Feb 10, 2026 at 8:48 AM UTC
In the year of twenty-six, when the shamrocks bloom once more,
From Holyoke's old canals to the hills beyond the shore,
Every town in western Mass has named its Colleen fair,
To lead the Saint Patrick's march with flowers in their hair.
Chicopee sends her daughter by the river's steady flow,
Westfield brings her own from where the mountain breezes blow,
Northampton's lass steps lively down the streets of brick and stone,
Amherst crowns her scholar with the ivy overgrown.
Greenfield calls her maiden from the meadows rich and wide,
Pittsfield lifts her daughter where the Berkshires rise with pride,
South Hadley, Easthampton, Longmeadow in their turn,
Send their fairest forward for the green to brightly burn.
With sashes tied in emerald, crowns of shamrock bright and true,
They walk the Holyoke pavement where the crowds are gathered new,
The daughters of the old country, the blood of Erin strong,
Marching proud together in the parade so long.
From Agawam to Ware, from Palmer down to Lee,
Each valley town has chosen one to set the spirit free,
Their eyes are bright as morning, their laughter clear and high,
They carry all the beauty of the western Massachusetts sky.
The drums beat out the rhythm, the pipes begin to wail,
The banners wave above them like the green upon the gale,
Through the streets of Holyoke where the paper mills once stood,
These Colleens of twenty-six are marching for the good.
They pass the old cathedral, the bridges arched and high,
The factories now quiet beneath the winter sky,
Yet on this day in March the city comes alive again,
With every Colleen smiling, the past and future blend.
So sing their names in honor from Deerfield to the south,
From Shelburne Falls to Hadley, from the river to the mouth,
The Pioneer Valley's daughters, crowned and standing tall,
Lead the Saint Patrick's glory down the streets for one and all.
In twenty-six they gather, the fairest of the land,
A chain of western emerald held fast by loving hand,
And when the last note echoes and the sun begins to fade,
Their memory lingers softly in the green parade.
Feb 8
Feb 8, 2026 at 11:24 AM UTC
In Central Mass, a master named Karen Brown,
With fifty years' fire, wears taekwondo's crown.
From Michigan roots where bullies once loomed,
She kicked into greatness, her confidence bloomed.
Through drills and tough spars, with sticks for the guide,
She claimed countless trophies, her spirit untied.
To Worcester she ventured, teaching with grace,
Her kids black-belt strong, joining the chase.
Two schools she commands, in Shrewsbury and town,
Where students find strength, never backing down.
But the call came from Korea, the art's sacred birth,
To test for eighth dan, proving her worth.
At World Headquarters, forms danced in the air,
Her body screamed weary, but victory was there.
"Scary and grueling," she said with a grin,
Yet lifted by loved ones, she let the win in.
For Korea's our tie, where my wife's kin reside,
Her family's heartbeat, our cultural pride.
This honor from Seoul echoes deep in our soul,
A bridge 'cross the ocean, making us whole.
In taekwondo's homeland, where traditions ignite,
Karen's drive inspires, a beacon so bright.
Nine years till the ninth, she'll prepare with new might,
Our family's Korea connection, pure delight.
Feb 8
Feb 8, 2026 at 10:58 AM UTC
I sing the Dawn Redwood,
and I sing Amherst that shelters it,
and the long patience of the earth that forgot,
then remembered.
I sing the tree that learned how to wait.
Once it walked the whole Northern world,
its feet in swamps, its needles brushing mammoth breath,
its cones listening to ice and fire argue over centuries.
Then silence came.
The books closed.
The pages of stone said, extinct.
But the tree did not argue.
It stood quietly in a hidden valley,
mist rising from Hubei soil,
while empires burned and railroads sang,
while clocks were invented and wars named themselves.
I love this about it,
that survival does not always announce itself,
that endurance can look like stillness,
that the future sometimes hides behind a mountain
until the right eyes arrive.
O Dawn Redwood,
you drop your needles each year like a practiced truth,
not clinging, not hoarding,
trusting the seasons to return what they must.
Green to bronze, bronze to bare, bare to promise again.
You stand now in Amherst,
flanking the doorway of prayer and song,
two witnesses at the Goodwin church,
your roots holding stories older than the cornerstone,
your height speaking faster than the town can write you down.
You were planted after memory forgot to list you,
yet you rose anyway,
as all necessary things do.
I see you from Woodside Avenue,
from Tyler Place,
from Belchertown Road where young ones stretch their limbs,
and I feel the town breathing through you,
cooling itself leaf by leaf.
O people of Amherst,
this is how time returns to us,
not as a museum piece behind glass,
but as shade on a sidewalk,
as red bark peeling in the afternoon sun,
as children learning the word fossil
and then learning that fossil does not mean gone.
I say the tree belongs to the future
because it remembers the past without being trapped by it.
I say the tree is a lesson in mercy,
in patience,
in the radical act of continuing.
Sing with me, Dawn Redwood,
you who were lost and found without changing your name,
you who remind us that extinction is not always the final verse,
that the earth keeps drafts,
and sometimes revises.
Feb 7
Feb 7, 2026 at 7:29 AM UTC
In Holyoke where brick and river meet,
Where echoes of the mills still line the street,
A classroom desk becomes a starting line,
Where simple pencil marks begin to shine.
Not bright balloons or colors loud and fast,
But stone and towers reaching from the past.
They turned away from shapes that fade too soon
And built with weight, with patience, not a tune.
Celtic curves like footprints set in time,
Each careful line a gesture, not a rhyme
For noise or flash, but homage deep and true
To hands that built, to craft that still comes through.
One hundred fifty-three dreams took their turn,
Each hopeful sketch with something left to learn.
Again reduced, again the choice made tight,
Until two visions held the truest light.
The prize is modest, framed in glass and name,
A hundred dollars, brief parade-time fame.
But greater still, the honor earned that day
To help a city carry pride its way.
When down the street the Grand Colleen rolls on,
With music, flags, and crowds from dusk to dawn,
That float will bear more than a chosen queen,
It bears the love of those who shaped the scene.
Feb 7
Feb 7, 2026 at 7:16 AM UTC