His birthday celebration with loved ones and friends all around.
He takes his Aunt’s hand and asks would you ride the carousel with me?
The greatest gift is to spend a few magical moments with her five-year-old nephew.-
A Little Boy’s Gift.

c@rainbowchaser2023

"We are creatures of constant awe, curious at beauty, at leaf and blossom, at grief and pleasure, sun and shadow," U.S. poet laureate Ada Limón writes in her new poem that will fly to Jupiter's moon Europa aboard NASA's Europa Clipper mission.

"And it is not darkness that unites us, not the cold distance of space, but the offering of water, each drop of rain."
The poem, unveiled at an event tonight at the Library of Congress, is going to be engraved in Limón's handwriting and affixed to the spacecraft, expected to launch in October 2024, Miriam writes.
The big picture: The Europa Clipper mission follows in the tradition of others — like NASA's Voyagers — that have sent pieces of art representing humanity into the cosmos.

The poem uses water as a thread that binds Earth — and all of its humans — to Europa, a moon with an ocean beneath its icy shell.
For Limón, writing this poem was a very human endeavor.

"The thing I think that makes me the most beautifully overwhelmed is the idea of all the humans that are going to read it," she tells Axios.
The poem, called "In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa," is featured on a NASA webpage where people can sign up to send their names to Europa with the spacecraft.
"I think to have it feel collective is really, really extraordinary to me, because it does feel like it's not my poem," Limón says. "It does feel like a collective poem. And as soon as I wrote it, it felt like oh, this belongs to Earth. This is our poem for Earth."
Between the lines: Sending this poem to Europa is an "evolution" of NASA's Golden Record, which is flying through space aboard the Voyager spacecraft, Robert Pappalardo, Europa Clipper project scientist, tells Axios.

Those records contain sounds from Earth — including music, laughter and animal noises — as well as a map of where we are in the galaxy. They are now billions of miles away, flying through interstellar space.
"This is an outgrowth in that we're not going to the stars," Pappalardo says. "There's no message to aliens here. This is purely a message to ourselves and a symbolic message to Europa."

My British husband and I were visiting his folks in London on 9/11/01.  It was afternoon and we were in St Pancras tube station when I caught the tail end of a news crawl moving across the wall. I said “ mmm…looks like there’s been a plane crash somewhere", and we went on about our shopping excursion.

After choosing a model car in a toy shop a little later, we went to pay and the young clerk I spoke to said “Did you hear about the planes that hit the skyscrapers and made them fall down?”  That didn’t make any sense, and I wasn't sure I understood his East End accent so I just said, “No we didn’t - guess we should check the news” and we walked out.  As we went out, I said, “I guess another little plane hit the Empire state Building, but it certainly wouldn’t fall down.”  

However, on the tube on the way home, we overheard bits of conversation that frightened us, so we rushed in and turned on the TV, where they replayed every terrible scene over and over for the rest of the day.

We were glued to the Telly for the next 3 days for round-the-clock coverage.

When we finally ventured out and anyone heard my American accent, I was immediately hugged and told how sorry they were to see this happen.  This continued for the following three weeks of our stay.  Never anything but sympathy and kindness towards me and America. I’ll never forget it.

I wonder if we were so caring when Irish terrorists previously bombed Harrods.  I somehow doubt it.  The other thing I will never forget is the burning hatred that welled up in me for Sadam Hussein who was named at the time as being responsible. I had never before or since felt such virulent loathing for any one or anything.  When those thoughts threaten to resurface today, I shush them away by recalling the overwhelming kindness of the ordinary English folk towards me.  I will never forget that.

I saw Ground Zero shortly afterwards, and the hatred resurfaced, as  it does in some measure on every September 11. On those times I again turn to my memories of British kindness.
                                                                              ljm

a wild god is sleeping in your bones
it is too early to tell the direction
of that thought, you know
it has a dark end
no need for an algorithm
for wonder

wild images colonize my brain
they throw me here and there
it's not too late under the roof of the world
not for a bleaching heart

something is growing like a wave
that forgot its end

I lost myself in some cranny
as I moved west to east.

My blue jeans fell off
somewhere along the road
and I can't see myself clearly.

I was wearing dust along my skin
with a tan, raggedy hair, and a cat.

I sang loudly with the radio
opened the window to let in the heat
let the wind dry my lips
and made plans, always making plans.

I had hope, and spirit, I let the worries of the world
roll off the hood of my car.
I followed the sacred om to the edge of the desert
and tried to heal.

I lost her somewhere in the din of the fat.
I have to find her again,
I have to shed the weight.

I'll find her again,
As soon as I am alone.

SCATTERED DREAMS

Whenever I fell
asleep

my father came
cupped me in his hands

carried me to bed

as if I were as precious
as water

in a hot dry land

or draped like discarded clothing
on a couch...in a garden
on a bench or a beach

I would be gathered up

& awake to find myself
back in the safety of my own bed.

And I would have thought
I had flown

or being magically
transported by a spell

but it was only
the ordinary

magic of my father

cradling me
in his arms

gathering up the littlest
of my scattered dreams

stroking my hair

& tip-toeing backwards
out of the room

his voice
full of tenderness

casting a spell

“Good night son...goodnight...goodnight.”

I have no choice but to breath this air
or do I? I can speak and I can write
something about anything,
I can witness the hows the whys
pro and cons of the daily agenda
freedom has a local flavour
idealogy a bitter taste

discrete pockets of life disjointed
I meet them on the streets
the social body this rags when
policemen rebel against the truth
doctors against health
teachers against compassion
politicians against duty
a slaughter house the mind in action

we look the other way with a laugh
not to see the epidemic of helplessness
political physiology gone awry
oppression cemented in our deeper minds
we carry it in our shoulders like
a gun machine waiting to happen
the collective focus a borderline land
the air itself suffocated by the
politics creating despair so that
minds have no more sceneries
to dream the world into existence
or do they?