Preserving History

If I stood here back then I wouldn’t be today,
And to be safe each day I can only pray.

Eastern State Penitentiary Group Shoot

An African Folktale

I fear that Yungaba will be no more
Than expensive homes for millionaires;
A century of migrants memories gone
But it’s business, so nobody cares.

And I dreamed we danced the night away
While a tenor sang “Macushla”

so whatever your race, colour or creed
to remember, by all should be agreed

That world existed in the Blue Mountains, only about 60 miles West of Sydney but for an awe-inspired toddler, it could have been on another planet.

“Letters would be written, in verse and long hand
Communicate with others, soul to soul, from
Hand to paper, to eyes, and then back again, constant”

Can you hear the echo….?

“Laughter is a reminder, the past, large trees provide shade, place
Days of old nourish days of tomorrow, Remember
Never forget, the childhood remains, a constant like the wind”

She decided one of her children would be sold to a local farmer to obtain the money to clear her debt.

You had no secrets! Your weight was public knowledge as was your length. And if you were a boy, your Dad knew well his bragging rights and used them.

A poem and song, based on the Charles Dickens book ‘A Tale of Two Cities’.

Humorous Australian bush poetry.

My Dad used the GI Bill to attend the University of Portland when he returned home from the war. This afforded him a well-paying job as a surveyor for the United States Government.

It is an impressive moment, when the sunrise begins on Mount Nemrud in Southeastern Anatolia, when slowly spreads the first light to the stone heads from the Kommagene time in the 1st C. BC.

The old district with the Bookseller’s Bazaar, the famous Covered Bazaar and the Spice Bazaar in Istanbul is a busy marketplace …

Spring had survived a vicious mountain lion attack, and would undoubtedly have perished …had we not come to the place we did, at exactly the time that we did.