Hello.

I barely find time to update this. Perhaps it's because I don't want to record my thoughts as of late. Why don't I? Maybe I don't want you to know my thoughts :P. Kidding. Kind of. Lot's to think about. But isn't there always?

"Firm through the fiercest drought and storm."

So true. With all my thoughts lately it's nice to put those at rest at least. Seriously it's a weight off my mind. How did I ever doubt? Why did I ever doubt? Because sometimes your faith needs to be tested. If it can't survive doubts and tests, then what kind of faith is it in the first place? Not a very good faith obviously. Maybe not even your own. It's nice to slowly ease back into normality. Honestly my faith is the center of my life and nothing will change that. Nothing can take it's place. It's firm. Many factors have lead through this time of careful thought and drought.

A quote I love is from A Walk To Remember, " It's like the wind. I can't... see it, but I feel it."

How true is that? So true. A content is escaping from me right about... now. :]

It's that feeling where you feel so light and free, nothing can bring you down. But of course something always brings you down. How grateful I am for such blessed assurance. Now to strive ahead for the goal, to keep my eyes focused. Set my sight on things above and not earthly things.

Does this all sound like lunacy? I sound crazy sometimes don't I. I'm ok with that. :]

That's all... for noww.

The Cremation of Same McGee

Today in class my teacher read the post fabulous poem aloud. Honestly it's one of my favorites and I love it. I actually had read it before today. In her class she likes to introduce us to writers who are famous and esteemed, and usually people we have never heard of. I had! Robert Service's poem is fantastic and full of talent, the art of it is stunning. Try and write a poem like this one, I dare you. It's hard. Read it, laugh, smile, be mortified, I don't care. Just read it! It is so worth it. I find free verse kind of "so-so" at times. Sure, some of it is phenomenal... but in my personal opinion rhythm and rhyme make it so much richer. Note in this poem the rhymes within the lines. "Talk of your cold! through the parka’s fold it stabbed like a driven nail." Then it rhymes in the next line at the end also. Ah!! So good! I want to write something as great as this one day.

The Cremation of Sam McGee

by Robert W. Service

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam ‘round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he’d often say in his homely way that “he’d sooner live in hell.”

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka’s fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we’d close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn’t see;
It wasn’t much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o’erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and “Cap,” says he, “I’ll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I’m asking that you won’t refuse my last request.”

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn’t say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
“It’s the cursed cold, and it’s got right hold till I’m chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet ‘taint being dead—it’s my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you’ll cremate my last remains.”

A pal’s last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn’t a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn’t get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: “You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it’s up to you to cremate those last remains.”

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows—O God! how I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I’d often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the “Alice May.”
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then “Here,” said I, with a sudden cry, “is my cre-ma-tor-eum.”

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;

Then I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn’t like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don’t know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: “I’ll just take a peep inside.
I guess he’s cooked, and it’s time I looked;” . . . then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: “Please close that door.
It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.”

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

I cremated Sam McGee.