Happy Birthday, PrinceMyshkin!

[kiz_paws]

To our one and only PrinceMyshkin, may this special day be one that has brought you smiles and joy. Look in the mirror and see the special friend that we send this greeting to!

Happy Birthday to you, Jer!

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s122/kiz_paws/birthday%20LitNet/catswavinginwindow.gif

Sending 75 hugs! ;)

♥~Kizzo~♥

[DanielBenoit]

Happy Birthday to one of lit-net's finest poets! :bday_2:

http://blog.theflowerraj.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Dostoevsky-The-Idiot-Cover-01.jpg

[Maryd.]

Another party... Yea. Have a good one.:party:

[Janine]

Happy Birthday :banana:

[Virgil]

Ah, one of my favorite people here! Happy birthday dear Prince! :bday_2::bday_2:

I hope you had a great day. Some presents for you.


Water
by Robert Lowell

It was a Maine lobster town—
each morning boatloads of hands
pushed off for granite
quarries on the islands,

and left dozens of bleak
white frame houses stuck
like oyster shells
on a hill of rock,

and below us, the sea lapped
the raw little match-stick
mazes of a weir,
where the fish for bait were trapped.

Remember? We sat on a slab of rock.
>From this distance in time
it seems the color
of iris, rotting and turning purpler,

but it was only
the usual gray rock
turning the usual green
when drenched by the sea.

The sea drenched the rock
at our feet all day,
and kept tearing away
flake after flake.

One night you dreamed
you were a mermaid clinging to a wharf-pile,
and trying to pull
off the barnacles with your hands.

We wished our two souls
might return like gulls
to the rock. In the end,
the water was too cold for us.


Father and Son
by Stanley Kunitz

Now in the suburbs and the falling light
I followed him, and now down sandy road
Whitter than bone-dust, through the sweet
Curdle of fields, where the plums
Dropped with their load of ripeness, one by one.
Mile after mile I followed, with skimming feet,
After the secret master of my blood,
Him, steeped in the odor of ponds, whose indomitable love
Kept me in chains. Strode years; stretched into bird;
Raced through the sleeping country where I was young,
The silence unrolling before me as I came,
The night nailed like an orange to my brow.

How should I tell him my fable and the fears,
How bridge the chasm in a casual tone,
Saying, "The house, the stucco one you built,
We lost. Sister married and went from home,
And nothing comes back, it's strange, from where she goes.
I lived on a hill that had too many rooms;
Light we could make, but not enough of warmth,
And when the light failed, I climbed under the hill.
The papers are delivered every day;
I am alone and never shed a tear."

At the water's edge, where the smothering ferns lifted
Their arms, "Father!" I cried, "Return! You know
The way. I’ll wipe the mudstains from your clothes;
No trace, I promise, will remain. Instruct
You son, whirling between two wars,
In the Gemara of your gentleness,
For I would be a child to those who mourn
And brother to the foundlings of the field
And friend of innocence and all bright eyes.
0 teach me how to work and keep me kind."

Among the turtles and the lilies he turned to me
The white ignorant hollow of his face.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCj1_7Xy72w

[qimissung]

One of my new favorite poems for one of my still favorite poets. Happy Birthday, Prince:

One Swaying Being
-Rumi

Love is not condescension, never
that, nor books, nor any marking


on paper, nor what people say of
each other. Love is a tree with


branches reaching into eternity
and roots set deep in eternity,


and no trunk! Have you seen it?

The mind cannot. Your desiring


cannot. The longing you feel for
this loves comes from inside you.



When you become the Friend, your
longing will be as the man in


the ocean who holds to a piece of
wood. Eventually, wood, man, and

oceans become one swaying being,
shams Tabriz, the secret of God.
__________________

[billl]

Happy Birthday!

[Haunted]

Happy Birthday, Prince :)

[Logos]

Best wishes to you today Prince :)

[SleepyWitch]

Happy Birthday!

[downing]

Happy Birthday:) I hope you're having a great one!

[Annamariah]

Happy Birthday! :)

[hoope]

A very Happy Birthday Prince :bday_2:
:party:

[AuntShecky]

Happy birthday, but far be it from yours truly to ask which one it is!

Yer Ol' (ahem) Auntie

[symphony]

To a man who's getting younger everyday,
Happy Birthday.
http://www.fotobank.ru/img/FC02-7144.jpg?size=l

[Helga]

happy birthday!

[Scheherazade]

Happy Birthday!

[eyemaker]

Happy Birthday Prince!:)
I was expecting an interview :)

[PrinceMyshkin]

Helga, KizPaws, Daniel Benoit., MaryD, Janine, Virgil, bill, Haunted, Logos, Sleepy, Downing, Annamariah, Hoope, AuntShecky, Symphony and... oh yes, the infinitely beautiful one who left this poem for me!


One of my new favorite poems for one of my still favorite poets. Happy Birthday, Prince:

One Swaying Being
-Rumi

Love is not condescension, never
that, nor books, nor any marking


on paper, nor what people say of
each other. Love is a tree with


branches reaching into eternity
and roots set deep in eternity,


and no trunk! Have you seen it?

The mind cannot. Your desiring


cannot. The longing you feel for
this loves comes from inside you.



When you become the Friend, your
longing will be as the man in


the ocean who holds to a piece of
wood. Eventually, wood, man, and

oceans become one swaying being,
shams Tabriz, the secret of God.
__________________

[papayahed]

Happy Birthday!

[Satan]

I wished you on your profile wall, sire! We share the same b'date: 17th of Feb.

I'll drink to your health.

[Taliesin]

PrinceMyshkin, I am awfully sorry for missing your birthday. To defend myself, though, I haven't been to LitNet recently, so I'll wish you a happy Unbirthday instead and as for a gift, this poem by Li Bai:


See how the Yellow River's water move out of heaven.

Entering the ocean,never to return.

See how lovely locks in bright mirrors in high chambers,

Though silken-black at morning, have changed by night to snow.

... Oh, let a man of spirit venture where he pleases

And never tip his golden cup empty toward the moon!

Since heaven gave the talent, let it be employed!

Spin a thousand of pieces of silver, all of them come back!

Cook a sheep, kill a cow, whet the appetite,

And make me, of three hundred bowls, one long drink!

... To the old master, Tsen,
And the young scholar, Tan-chiu,

Bring in the wine!
Let your cups never rest!

Let me sing you a song!
Let your ears attend!

What are bell and drum, rare dishes and treasure?

Let me be forever drunk and never come to reason!

Sober men of olden days and sages are forgotten,

And only the great drinkers are famous for all time.

... Prince Chen paid at a banquet in the Palace of Perfection

Ten thousand coins for a cask of wine, with many a laugh and quip.

Why say, my host, that your money is gone?

Go and buy wine and we'll drink it together!

My flower-dappled horse,
My furs worth a thousand,

Hand them to the boy to exchange for good wine,

And we'll drown away the woes of ten thousand generation!


:bday_2:

[Lynne50]

:bday_2: Happy Belated Birthday, Prince. Hope your day was enjoyable.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Oh, many, many thanks to those of you I might have overlooked before and to the more recent well-wishers: Eyemaker, Scheherazade, Papayahead, Satan, Taliesin & Lynne50!!!