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Creative tourism is defined as ‘travel directed toward an engaged and authentic experience, with participative learning in the arts, heritage, or special character of a place, and it provides a connection with those who reside in this place and create this living culture’

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Come Let Us Be Friends

Sarah Lee Brown Fleming

Come, let us be friends, you and I,       E’en though the world doth hate at this hour;  Let’s bask in the sunlight of a love so high        That war cannot dim it with all its armed power.  

Come, let us be friends, you and I,       The world hath her surplus of hatred today;   She needeth more love, see, she droops with a sigh,       Where her axis doth slant in the sky far away.  

Come, let us be friends, you and I,        And love each other so deep and so well,   That the world may grow steady and forward fly,       Lest she wander towards chaos and drop into hell. 

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La vida vegetal és la vida en tant que exposició integral, en continuïtat absoluta i en comunió global amb el medi (...). No es pot separar —ni físicament ni metafísicament— la planta del món que l'acull. Ella és la forma més intensa, més radical i més paradigmàtica de ser al món.

La vida de les plantes, Emanuele Coccia

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Sonnet

Joseph Seamon Cotter Jr. 

I would not tarry if I could be gone       Adown the path where calls my eager mind.       That fate which knows naught but to grip and bind   Holds me within its grasp, a helpless pawn,   And checks my steps when I would travel on.       Forever shall my body lag behind,       And in this valley with the moaning wind   Must I abide with never a glimpse of dawn?  

Though bends my body towards the yawning sod,       I can endure the pain, the sorrows rife,   That hold me fast beneath their chastening rod,       If from this turmoil and this endless strife,   Comes there a light to lead man nearer God,       And guide his footsteps toward the Larger Life.

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Incognito Grief: A Blues

Allison Joseph

Who knows the secrets in my gaze? What holds me back when I might choke? Who sees beyond my taut hellos To see the grief etched on my face? Nobody knows what lurks within; Nobody brings me back again. Who needs to disappear for a while? Who sings my name beyond the veil? Who has my memories, my tales? Who’s lurking in my carpet’s dust? Nobody feels this weight beneath my skin. Who knows I’m grieving as I walk? Who has the list of gravity’s costs? Nobody but the man I’ve lost.

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To the Dandelion

James Russell Lowell

    Dear common flower, that grow’st beside the way,  Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,            First pledge of blithesome May,  Which children pluck, and full of pride, uphold,    High-hearted buccaneers, o’erjoyed that they       Eldorado in the grass have found,          Which not the rich earth’s ample round      May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me    Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be. 

    Gold such as thine ne’er drew the Spanish prow Through the primeval hush of Indian seas,            Nor wrinkled the lean brow  Of age, to rob the lover’s heart of ease;     ’Tis the Spring’s largess, which she scatters now  To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand,         Though most heart never understand      To take it at God’s value, but pass by      The offered wealth with unrewarded eye. 

    Thou art my tropics and mine Italy;  To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime;            The eyes thou givest me  Are in the heart, and heed not space or time:     Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee Feels a more summer-like warm ravishment         In the white lily’s breezy tent,     His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first      From the dark green thy yellow circles burst. 

    Then think I of deep shadows on the grass,  Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze,            Where, as the breezes pass,  The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways,     Of leaves that slumber in a cloud mass,  Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue        That from the distance sparkle through      Some woodland gap, and of a sky above,      Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move.

    My childhood’s earliest thoughts are linked with thee; The sight of thee calls back the robin’s song,           Who, from the dark old tree  Beside the door, sang clearly all day long,       And I, secure in childish piety,  Listened as if I heard an angel sing         With news from heaven, which he could bring      Fresh every day to my untainted ears      When birds and flowers and I were happy peers. 

    How like a prodigal doth nature seem,  When thou, for all thy gold, so common art!            Thou teachest me to deem More sacredly of every human heart,      Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam  Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show,         Did we but pay the love we owe,      And with a child’s undoubting wisdom look      On all these living pages of God’s book. 

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Weathering Hate

Harryette Mullen 

The way, exposed to weather, a body is worn. Velvet threads begin to wither, rapid ripened beyond the burst bloom. Vibrant strands, cut short, fray, unweaving faded fabric. Sun-struck, rain-warped, storm-blasted, rough-sanded in whipping wind that whittles rock.  Small, torturous fractures opened in stone where water freezes in the pores with grains of salt. Cracks in the surface pried apart by unrelenting pressure. With incessant freezing and thawing, shock and fatigue speed rugged stress to ultimate breakdown. Intemperate weather, abrading edges, gradually disintegrates resolute minerals.  A boulder, even a mountain, will wear down. So will bodies, bent and broken under toilsome burdens, caving beneath unbearable weight, in adverse climate, exposed to harsh elements, caustic rains. 

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After a while  by Veronica A. Shoffstall

After a while you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul and you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning and company doesn’t always mean security. And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts and presents aren’t promises and you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes ahead with the grace of woman, not the grief of a child and you learn to build all your roads on today because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight. After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much so you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers. And you learn that you really can endure you really are strong you really do have worth and you learn and you learn with every goodbye, you learn…

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Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the Empyrean; engraving (c1867) by Gustave Doré, from Canto 31 of the Divine Comedy (c1308-21) by Dante Alighieri

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Stephen Case

In this Christian cosmology, the first heaven was the heaven of the air, which extended from Earth’s surface to where the Moon separated the terrestrial and celestial realms. Above the airy heaven was the second heaven – the starry or celestial heaven – which extended from the Moon to the sphere of the stars, the boundary of the visible universe. Beyond this was the empyrean heaven, which was identified as the dwelling of God, the saints and the angels.

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Youth and Age

Khalil Gibran

In my youth the heart of dawn was in my heart, and the songs of April were in my ears.

But my soul was sad unto death, and I knew not why. Even unto this day I know not why I was sad.

But now, though I am with eventide, my heart is still veiling dawn,

And though I am with autumn, my ears still echo the songs of spring.

But my sadness has turned into awe, and I stand in the presence of life and life’s daily miracles.

The difference between my youth which was my spring, and these forty years, and they are my autumn, is the very difference that exists between flower and fruit.

A flower is forever swayed with the wind and knows not why and wherefore.

But the fruit overladen with them honey of summer, knows that it is one of life’s home-comings, as a poet when his song is sung knows sweet content,

Though life has been bitter upon his lips.

In my youth I longed for the unknown, and for the unknown I am still longing.

But in the days of my youth longing embraced necessity that knows naught of patience.

Today I long not less, but my longing is friendly with patience, and even waiting.

And I know that all this desire that moves within me is one of those laws that turns universes around one another in quiet ecstasy, in swift passion which your eyes deem stillness, and your mind a mystery.

And in my youth I loved beauty and abhorred ugliness, for beauty was to me a world separated from all other worlds.

But now that the gracious years have lifted the veil of picking-and-choosing from over my eyes, I know that all I have deemed ugly in what I see and hear, is but a blinder upon my eyes, and wool in my ears;

And that our senses, like our neighbors, hate what they do not understand.  

And in my youth I loved the fragrance of flowers and their color.  

Now I know that their thorns are their innocent protection, and if it were not for that innocence they would disappear forevermore.

And in my youth, of all seasons I hated winter, for I said in my aloneness, “Winter is a thief who robs the earth of her sun-woven garment, and suffers her to stand naked in the wind.”  

But now I know that in winter there is re-birth and renewal, and that the wind tears the old raiment to cloak her with a new raiment woven by the spring.  

And in my youth I would gaze upon the sun of the day and the stars of the night, saying in my secret, “How small am I, and how small a circle my dream makes.”

But today when I stand before the sun or the stars I cry, “The sun is close to me, and the stars are upon me;” for all the distances of my youth have turned into the nearness of age;  

And the great aloneness which knows not what is far and what is near, nor what is small nor great, has turned into a vision that weighs not nor does it measure.  

In my youth I was but the slave of the high tide and the ebb tide of the sea, and the prisoner of half moons and full moons.  

Today I stand at this shore and I rise not nor do I go down.  

Even my roots once every twenty-eight days would seek the heart of the earth.

And on the twenty-ninth day they would rise toward the throne of the sky.  

And on that very day the rivers in my veins would stop for a moment, and then would run again to the sea.  

Yes, in my youth I was a thing, sad and yielding, and all the seasons played with me and laughed in their hearts.

And life took a fancy to me and kissed my young lips, and slapped my cheeks.  

Today I play with the seasons. And I steal a kiss from life’s lips ere she kisses my lips.  

And I even hold her hands playfully that she may not strike my cheek.  

In my youth I was sad indeed, and all things seemed dark and distant.  

Today, all is radiant and near, and for this I would live my youth and the pain of my youth, again and yet again.

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The Holy Longing

poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Tell a wise person, or else keep silent,

because the mass man will mock it right away.

I praise what is truly alive,

what longs to be burned to death.

In the calm water of the love-nights,

where you were begotten, where you have begotten,

a strange feeling comes over you,

when you see the silent candle burning.

Now you are no longer caught in the obsession with darkness,

and a desire for higher love-making sweeps you upward.

Distance does not make you falter.

Now, arriving in magic, flying,

and finally, insane for the light,

you are the butterfly and you are gone.

And so long as you haven't experienced this: to die and so to grow,

you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth.

Translated from the German by Robert Bly

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The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want. Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open. Don’t go back to sleep.

~ Rumi

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You, Darkness You, darkness, that I come from I love you more than all the fires that fence in the world, for the fire makes a circle of light for everyone and then no one outside learns of you. But the darkness pulls in everything- shapes and fires, animals and myself, how easily it gathers them! - powers and people- and it is possible a great presence is moving near me. I have faith in nights.

Rainer Maria Rilke

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from “Far Country” Kyce Bello

Mist snakes the mountains,

uncoiled, unhurried.

                            The moon waxes and wanes.

             Storms                              sometimes never come,

sometimes never go.

          ^^         ^

Dry soil softens between my lips. My mouth deepens

into a well filled with roots.

          ^^        ^           ^^

            Call it a life, this cloak intended for our backs.

If this happened to us or long ago or is someday going to happen

I cannot say.

I drink tea brewed from last summer’s flowers.

                                     Petals re-open           in the pot before pouring.

                       ^^

The ditch fat with runoff,

             snowmelt

                                       un-dressing granite, icing my hands into hooks.

^

                                        On the dunes, every step shifts the surface.

                          All this reaching for a resting place we likely passed years ago.

We sink a little even as we climb.

          ^                       ^^

Another thread unwinds.

                        All my reparations made in darkness,                         in the space in my chest before the candles are lit.

There by the creek there is ice                                                     and beneath ice, ripples,

                        then three mule deer                         bending their heads to drink.

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Summer Wind

William Cullen Bryant

It is a sultry day; the sun has drunk The dew that lay upon the morning grass; There is no rustling in the lofty elm That canopies my dwelling, and its shade Scarce cools me. All is silent, save the faint And interrupted murmur of the bee, Settling on the sick flowers, and then again Instantly on the wing. The plants around Feel the too potent fervors: the tall maize Rolls up its long green leaves; the clover droops Its tender foliage, and declines its blooms. But far in the fierce sunshine tower the hills, With all their growth of woods, silent and stern, As if the scorching heat and dazzling light Were but an element they loved. Bright clouds, Motionless pillars of the brazen heaven— Their bases on the mountains—their white tops Shining in the far ether—fire the air With a reflected radiance, and make turn The gazer’s eye away. For me, I lie Languidly in the shade, where the thick turf, Yet virgin from the kisses of the sun, Retains some freshness, and I woo the wind That still delays his coming. Why so slow, Gentle and voluble spirit of the air? Oh, come and breathe upon the fainting earth Coolness and life! Is it that in his caves He hears me? See, on yonder woody ridge, The pine is bending his proud top, and now Among the nearer groves, chestnut and oak Are tossing their green boughs about. He comes; Lo, where the grassy meadow runs in waves! The deep distressful silence of the scene Breaks up with mingling of unnumbered sounds And universal motion. He is come, Shaking a shower of blossoms from the shrubs, And bearing on their fragrance; and he brings Music of birds, and rustling of young boughs, And sound of swaying branches, and the voice Of distant waterfalls. All the green herbs Are stirring in his breath; a thousand flowers, By the road-side and the borders of the brook, Nod gayly to each other; glossy leaves Are twinkling in the sun, as if the dew Were on them yet, and silver waters break Into small waves and sparkle as he comes

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Summer Wind It is a sultry day; the sun has drunk The dew that lay upon the morning grass; There is no rustling in the lofty elm That canopies my dwelling, and its shade Scarce cools me. All is silent, save the faint And interrupted murmur of the bee, Settling on the sick flowers, and then again Instantly on the wing. The plants around Feel the too potent fervors: the tall maize Rolls up its long green leaves; the clover droops Its tender foliage, and declines its blooms. But far in the fierce sunshine tower the hills, With all their growth of woods, silent and stern, As if the scorching heat and dazzling light Were but an element they loved. Bright clouds, Motionless pillars of the brazen heaven— Their bases on the mountains—their white tops Shining in the far ether—fire the air With a reflected radiance, and make turn The gazer’s eye away. For me, I lie Languidly in the shade, where the thick turf, Yet virgin from the kisses of the sun, Retains some freshness, and I woo the wind That still delays his coming. Why so slow, Gentle and voluble spirit of the air? Oh, come and breathe upon the fainting earth Coolness and life! Is it that in his caves He hears me? See, on yonder woody ridge, The pine is bending his proud top, and now Among the nearer groves, chestnut and oak Are tossing their green boughs about. He comes; Lo, where the grassy meadow runs in waves! The deep distressful silence of the scene Breaks up with mingling of unnumbered sounds And universal motion. He is come, Shaking a shower of blossoms from the shrubs, And bearing on their fragrance; and he brings Music of birds, and rustling of young boughs, And sound of swaying branches, and the voice Of distant waterfalls. All the green herbs Are stirring in his breath; a thousand flowers, By the road-side and the borders of the brook, Nod gayly to each other; glossy leaves Are twinkling in the sun, as if the dew Were on them yet, and silver waters break Into small waves and sparkle as he comes.

William Cullen Bryant