# data[].attributes.body
When my father worked on the Hubble Telescope, he said

They operated like surgeons: scrubbed and sheathed

In papery green, the room a clean cold, a bright white.

He’d read Larry Niven at home, and drink scotch on the rocks,

His eyes exhausted and pink. These were the Reagan years,

When we lived with our finger on The Button and struggled

To view our enemies as children. My father spent whole seasons

Bowing before the oracle-eye, hungry for what it would find.

His face lit-up whenever anyone asked, and his arms would rise

As if he were weightless, perfectly at ease in the never-ending

Night of space. On the ground, we tied postcards to balloons

For peace. Prince Charles married Lady Di. Rock Hudson died.

We learned new words for things. The decade changed.

The first few pictures came back blurred, and I felt ashamed

For all the cheerful engineers, my father and his tribe. The second time,

The optics jibed. We saw to the edge of all there is—

So brutal and alive it seemed to comprehend us back.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
My God, It’s Full Of Stars (The Universe in Verse, Part 2)

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The Character of a Happy Life Sir Henry Wotton

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The Character of a Happy Life Sir Henry Wotton

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How happy is he born and taught
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill!

Whose passions not his masters are;
Whose soul is still prepared for death,
Untied unto the world by care
Of public fame or private breath;

Who envies none that chance doth raise,
Nor vice; who never understood
How deepest wounds are given by praise;
Nor rules of state, but rules of good;

Who hath his life from rumours freed;
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make oppressors great;

Who God doth late and early pray
More of His grace than gifts to lend;
And entertains the harmless day
With a religious book or friend;

—This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise or fear to fall:
Lord of himself, though not of lands,
And having nothing, yet hath all.

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For weeks we’ve seen some wild winds.

Today, I find my hives knocked over.

A season’s honey smeared in rivers

on the ground. I stand their domes again.

The bees are swarming in the trees and fighting

against the gale. I watch one entire colony

trapped by a whirlwind, carried out and up

across the Green. I run to follow and see them

swept over the river and caught in a maple grove.

Can anyone call bees?

Alone before the water’s edge,

in desperate worry for my colony,

not knowing what to do, I hold

my arms high, as if to block the wind,

and cry like swarming bees. I speak

about our apple blooms, promise

them acres of blossoms and honey mounds.

Your domes are upright, your babies waiting.

Suddenly, in one black cloud, they return

across the water, above my raised

head and waving arms, over the Green.

When I return, almost

horizontal against the raging winds,

I climb to my orchard, and find

the hives filling back

with colonies of bees.

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The game of baseball is not a metaphor

and I know it’s not really life.

The chalky green diamond, the lovely

dusty brown lanes I see from airplanes

multiplying around the cities

are only neat playing fields.

Their structure is not the frame

of history carved out of forest,

that is not what I see on my ascent.

And down in the stadium,

the veteran catcher guiding the young

pitcher through the innings, the line

of concentration between them,

that delicate filament is not

like the way you are helping me,

only it reminds me when I strain

for analogies, the way a rookie strains

for perfection, and the veteran,

in his wisdom, seems to promise it,

it glows from his upheld glove,

and the man in front of me

in the grandstand, drinking banana

daiquiris from a thermos,

continuing through a whole dinner

to the aromatic cigar even as our team

is shut out, nearly hitless, he is

not like the farmer that Auden speaks

of in Breughel’s Icarus,

or the four inevitable woman-hating

drunkards, yelling, hugging

each other and moving up and down

continuously for more beer

and the young wife trying to understand

what a full count could be

to please her husband happy in

his old dreams, or the little boy

in the Yankees cap already nodding

off to sleep against his father,

program and popcorn memories

sliding into the future,

and the old woman from Lincoln, Maine,

screaming at the Yankee slugger

with wounded knees to break his leg

this is not a microcosm,

not even a slice of life

and the terrible slumps,

when the greatest hitter mysteriously

goes hitless for weeks, or

the pitcher’s stuff is all junk

who threw like a magician all last month,

or the days when our guys look

like Sennett cops, slipping, bumping

each other, then suddenly, the play

that wasn’t humanly possible, the Kid

we know isn’t ready for the big leagues,

leaps into the air to catch a ball

that should have gone downtown,

and coming off the field is hugged

and bottom-slapped by the sudden

sorcerers, the winning team

the question of what makes a man

slump when his form, his eye,

his power aren’t to blame, this isn’t

like the bad luck that hounds us,

and his frustration in the games

not like our deep rage

for disappointing ourselves

the ball park is an artifact,

manicured, safe, “scene in an Easter egg”,

and the order of the ball game,

the firm structure with the mystery

of accidents always contained,

not the wild field we wander in,

where I’m trying to recite the rules,

to repeat the statistics of the game,

and the wind keeps carrying my words away

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Runny be quimble,
Runny be nick,
Runny cump over the jandlestick
But now- what smells like furning bluff?
Guess he didn't hump jigh enough.

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i am confident i am over you. so much that some mornings i wake up with a smile on my face and my hands pressed together thanking the universe for pulling you out of me. thank god i cry. thank god you left. i would not be the empire i am today if you had stayed.

but then.

there are some nights i imagine what i might do if you showed up. how if you walked into the room this very second every awful thing you’ve ever done would be tossed out the closet window and all the love would rise up again. it would pour through my eyes as if it never really left in the first place. as if it’s been practicing how to stay silent so long only so it could be this loud on your arrival. can someone explain that. how even when the love leaves. it doesn’t leave. how even when i am so past you. i am so helplessly brought back to you.

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"Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep" by Mary Frye 

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"Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep" by Mary Frye 

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Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

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“The Mountain”Emily DickinsonThe mountain sat upon the plainIn his eternal chair,His observation omnifold,His inquest everywhere.The seasons prayed around his knees,Like children round a sire:Grandfather of the days is he,Of dawn the ancestor.

# data[].attributes.subject
“The Mountain”Emily DickinsonThe mountain sat upon the plainIn his eternal chair,His observation omnifold,His inquest everywhere.The seasons prayed around his knees,Like children round a sire:Grandfather of the days is he,Of dawn the ancestor.

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"Morning in the Burned House" by Margaret Atwood

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"Morning in the Burned House" by Margaret Atwood

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In the burned house I am eating breakfast.
You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast,
yet here I am.

The spoon which was melted scrapes against
the bowl which was melted also.
No one else is around.

Where have they gone to, brother and sister,
mother and father? Off along the shore,
perhaps. Their clothes are still on the hangers,

their dishes piled beside the sink,
which is beside the woodstove
with its grate and sooty kettle,

every detail clear,
tin cup and rippled mirror.
The day is bright and songless,

the lake is blue, the forest watchful.
In the east a bank of cloud
rises up silently like dark bread.

I can see the swirls in the oilcloth,
I can see the flaws in the glass,
those flares where the sun hits them.

I can't see my own arms and legs
or know if this is a trap or blessing,
finding myself back here, where everything

in this house has long been over,
kettle and mirror, spoon and bowl,
including my own body,

including the body I had then,
including the body I have now
as I sit at this morning table, alone and happy,

bare child's feet on the scorched floorboards
(I can almost see)
in my burning clothes, the thin green shorts

and grubby yellow T-shirt
holding my cindery, non-existent,
radiant flesh. Incandescent.

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Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,

Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,

Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)

Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,

Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,

Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,

The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here—that life exists and identity,

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

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I’ve made me a moon-catchin’ net,

And I’m goin’ huntin’ tonight,

I’ll run along swingin’ it over my head,

And grab for that big ball of light.

So tomorrow just look at the sky,

And if there’s no moon you can bet I’ve found,

What I sought and i finally caught,

The moon in my moon-catchin’ net.

But if the moon’s still shinin’ there,

Look close underneath and you’ll get,

A clear look at me in the sky swingin’ free,

With a star in my moon-catchin’ net.

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there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

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My own dear love, he is strong and bold

And he cares not what comes after.

His words ring sweet as a chime of gold,

And his eyes are lit with laughter.

He is jubilant as a flag unfurled—

Oh, a girl, she’d not forget him.

My own dear love, he is all my world,—

And I wish I’d never met him.

My love, he’s mad, and my love, he’s fleet,

And a wild young wood-thing bore him!

The ways are fair to his roaming feet,

And the skies are sunlit for him.

As sharply sweet to my heart he seems

As the fragrance of acacia.

My own dear love, he is all my dreams,—

And I wish he were in Asia.

My love runs by like a day in June,

And he makes no friends of sorrows.

He’ll tread his galloping rigadoon

In the pathway of the morrows.

He’ll live his days where the sunbeams start,

Nor could storm or wind uproot him.

My own dear love, he is all my heart,—

And I wish somebody’d shoot him.

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Defeat, my Defeat, my solitude and my aloofness;

You are dearer to me than a thousand triumphs,

And sweeter to my heart than all world-glory.

Defeat, my Defeat, my self-knowledge and my defiance,

Through you I know that I am yet young and swift of foot

And not to be trapped by withering laurels.

And in you I have found aloneness

And the joy of being shunned and scorned.

Defeat, my Defeat, my shining sword and shield,

In your eyes I have read

That to be enthroned is to be enslaved,

And to be understood is to be leveled down,

And to be grasped is but to reach one's fullness

And like a ripe fruit to fall and be consumed.

Defeat, my Defeat, my bold companion,

You shall hear my songs and my cries and my silences,

And none but you shall speak to me of the beating of wings,

And urging of seas,

And of mountains that burn in the night,

And you alone shall climb my steep and rocky soul.

Defeat, my Defeat, my deathless courage,

You and I shall laugh together with the storm,

And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us,

And we shall stand in the sun with a will,

And we shall be dangerous.

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Who's to say what's impossible
Well, they forgot this world keeps spinning
And with each new day
I can feel a change in everything
And as the surface breaks, reflections fade
But in some ways, they remain the same
And as my mind begins to spread its wings
There's no stopping curiosity

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Problem with our people, there's too many wannabe Jordan Too many forces thinking they could make a fortune scorin' Too many wannabe actors instead of achieving their masters At least a bachelors but no, too many wannabe rappers, hah That's just statistics, don't mistake me for hypocrites

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If I could choose the things that I knew
And all the things that I'd see
I'd let the room fill with memories until
The walls were staring at me

If I could choose, I'd never lose
I'd always take without giving
I wrote down the truth in letters to you
But I know you'll never get them

If I were a mountain, I'd stand my ground
And maybe I'd never listen
But if I were a mountain, I'd close my mouth and
Maybe I'd be forgiving

I'm not a mountain
I can't hold you on my own
I'm not a mountain
I will crumble when you go
There in the square, my arms in the air
And is it so bad to be alone?

I can do it on my own

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What Makes You Beautiful by One Direction

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What Makes You Beautiful by One Direction

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You're insecure, don't know what for
You're turning heads when you walk through the door
Don't need makeup to cover up
Being the way that you are is enough

Everyone else in the room can see it
Everyone else, but you, ooh

Baby, you light up my world like nobody else
The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed
But when you smile at the ground, it ain't hard to tell
You don't know, oh-oh
You don't know you're beautiful

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I've got a love for you
I just can't escape
All of my love for you
cuts me like barbed wire

I was meant to love you
and always keep you in my life
I was meant to love you,
I knew I loved you at first sight

If I abandoned love
I'd be a man without dreams
I'd rather be out there staring death
right between its eyes now

And I can still hear the sound
of you crying through the night
There in the opera house
with no one else for miles

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I wish that you would stay in my memories
But you show up today, Just to ruin things
I wanna put you in the past

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Turning back into the earth from which I've grown
Oh she'll whisper to me "darling, welcome home."
...
You only get to realize that you're alive once
And then somehow that day feels like the first
First you grow and then decay
the breeze will blow your bones away
Don't wait til then to realize what they're worth

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At the edges of my fingers
Never quite closing round it
Oh, that peace like a river
Always going, but never getting

Seems like maybe it's not all that much a place
As it is a way
And ways don't ever seem to want to
Stay too still for too long

Isn't that what it's all about?
The slow trickling thaw that sets the banks in half
The sweet melody it makes when the canyons crack
I wanna give it all I've got, and I want nothing
I want nothing back

Whatever kingdom come, it probably won't come quick
No mighty clarion to announce it
No single use ark to discard in an instant
Like Theseus's ship, we'll fix the busted bits

'Til it's both nothing like and everything
It's always been
It's a wonder we expect a thing to
Stay the same at all

Maybe that's what it's all about
We keep fixing what we know is only bound to break
What's worth saving is never worth letting go to waste
I want to mend what I've got, instead of throwing away

Ain't nothing come easy
No, nothing comes quick
It's gonna hurt like hell to become well
But if we set the bone straight
It'll mend
It'll fix
And we'll be well

Ain't nothing come easy
No, nothing comes quick
But I want for you this, that you are well

I want for us this, that we are well

We are well, we are well
We are well, we are well
We are well

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Im tryna right my wrongs but its funny the same wrongs helped me write this song

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Green green grass, blue blue sky
You better throw a party on the day that I die

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Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

# data[].attributes.body
Laying down on the lawn
I'm tired of trying to get in the house
I'm thinking out loud

I've been playing dead
My whole life
And I get this feeling
Whenever I feel good
It'll be the last time

But I feel something
When I see you now
I feel something
When I see you

If you're a work of art
I'm standing too close
I can see the brush strokes

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"As She's Walking Away" By Zac Brown Band

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"As She's Walking Away" By Zac Brown Band

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Now I'm falling in love as she's walking away
And my heart won't tell my mind to tell my mouth what it should say
May have lost this battle, live to fight another day
Now I'm falling in love as she's walking away

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How's one to know?
I'd meet you where the spirit meets the bones
In a faith-forgotten land
In from the snow
Your touch brought forth an incandescent glow
Tarnished but so grand

And the old widow goes to the stone every day
But I don't, I just sit here and wait
Grieving for the living

Oh, goddamn
My pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand
Taking mine, but it's been promised to another
Oh, I can't
Stop you putting roots in my dreamland
My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you

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Over and over
Many setting suns
I have run
I have waited for the rain to come
When through that mist
I see the shape of you
And I know, and I know
That I'm in love with you

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In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of every glove that laid him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving"
But the fighter still remains

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Feel the magic in the air
allez allez allez
levez les mains dans l'air
allez allez allez

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Bring me down, beat me blue
There ain't a kindness on the planet that compares to you
In the dark of the night or the light of day
I'll long for you tomorrow as I did today

Well my day dreamin', people pleasin', bright on dark days girls
I fell hard and I've loved wide, and you're the rarest in the world

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I took a walk down by the seashore
Saw a beggar pickin' up some cans
Saw a little boy who had some salt in his eye
Reachin' out for his mama's hand
Watched a stranger give that man a dollar
I watched the mama wipe the tears from the little boy's eyes
Then I stared up into the heavens
I said, "Oh my God, I'm glad that I'm alive, glad that I'm alive!"

# data[].attributes.body
One day I took your tiny hand
Put your finger in the wedding band
Your daddy gave a piece of land
We laid ourselves the best of plans
Forty years go by with someone laying in your bed
Forty years of things you wish you'd never said
How hard would it have been to say some kinder words instead
I wonder as I stare up at the sky turning red

I've had some time to think about you
And watch the sun sink like a stone
I've had some time to think about you
On the long ride home

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I wanna ride that K-10 to way back when
Sleep next to the river, hear it rushin' again
Give my no-good soul back to where it belong
And do my best to keep truth in songs
And do my best to keep truth in songs