ModPo

A Countee Cullen favorite: There are no wind-blown rumors, soft say-sos, No garden-whispered hearsays, whispers lightly heard I know that summer never spares the rose, That spring is faithless to the brightest bird. I know that nothing lovely shall prevail To win from Time and Death a moment's grace; At Beauty's birth the scythe was honed, the nail Dipped for her hands, the cowl clipped for her face. And yet I cannot think that this my faith, My winged joy, my pride, my utmost mirth, Centered in you, shall ever taste of death, Or perish from the false, forgetting earth. You are with time, as wind and weather are, As is the sun, and every nailed star.

And let's not forget Edgar Allen Poe's Annabel Lee: It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of ANNABEL LEE; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me. I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea; But we loved with a love that was more than love- I and my Annabel Lee; With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me. And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her highborn kinsman came And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea. The angels, not half so happy in heaven, Went envying her and me- Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of thos...

In the following statement, I will outline the general milestones of my life and discuss that chronology from the perspective of the influences, the persons, the places, and the ideas which have guided me, steered me and propelled me through life. First, and most significantly, as influences are my parents, Raymond Robert Maxwell and Sallye Anne Hairston Maxwell, both of whom are deceased, yet both of whom continue to exert a tremendous influence on my life, my daily decisions, my hopes and my aspirations. My mother was the socializer of the pair.  She enjoyed parties and balls and relished giving teas on Saturday evenings and dinner parties after Church on Sunday.  She worked as a secretary but she found special satisfaction in volunteer work, carrying my sister and I out with her as she canvassed the neighborhood annually for Easter Seal, Muscular Dystrophy, the March of Dimes, NAACP membership drives and voter registration.  Her dream for me was to become a lawyer, and...

Shuttle Launch Today I watched the shuttle launched towards space. A tail of fire plowed the southern morning sky Until it disappeared. I thought about The people there, behind the scenes, who made It all occur. There's someone there whose life Is less than free from care, a lonely heart, Dis-eased, distressed, beset by worries, woes, Who, overcoming all, finds sweet the reaching Of the goal. There're happy ones who feel the tinge Of sadness at the thought of those who've missed By fate the thrill of launch complete, the charm, The pure romance of making dreams come true. The shuttle jets toward heaven, far away From troubles, closer still to hopes ideal.

It was an interesting, and maybe even a noble experiment.  Ron Long, Terry Jones, and Art Gaines led the charge in 1969.  They were the first generation, the pioneers.  I think they had some interesting experiences, but I’ll leave that story to them to tell.   In the second year,1970, Ron Lipscomb, Kevin Miller, Wayne Booker and I arrived as boarding students, and Gary Mance and Wayne Williams came in day students, tripling our numbers and making a significant addition to the number of variables in the social experiment. In 1971, Clifford Johnson and Robert Long, Ron’s younger brother, joined us, both as boarding students. Of course, it didn't take long for us to discover one another. Kevin and I both came from Greensboro and from Lincoln Jr. High.  (Five Lincoln students went to Virginia prep schools that year under the Anne C. Stouffer Foundation.  Veda Howell went to Foxcroft, another girl went to Chatham Hall whose name I can’t remember.).  I ...

You try to steer me, gently, On a course avoiding you, Then call my love a butterfly’s, Point it to flowers, new. “Take my deep desires elsewhere,” Is the song you sing to me, “Let us always hold fond memories Of the love that used to be.” Well, I understand your message, And I hear all that you say, You’d rather not get serious, Just be best friends at play. But my soul’s a mighty hunter Who has locked in on its prey, I’ll tone it down and pace it, In a very patient way. And just when you least expect it, I will be there for your needs, And you’ll wonder why I tarried with those flowers.