Archive for the ‘Birthday’ Tag

The Existential Man Would Have Been 81 Today   2 comments

Tom Turner in an Existential Moment — Image by kenne

“If thought corrupts language,
language can also corrupt thought.”

— George Orwell

He gazes through the 
rained soaked window
into his confused mind.

Lonely in the moment
turning his head away
from my open hand.

He was not prepared
to be rejected and
broken up by life.

— kenne

 

Foggy Morning Birthday On Tanuri Ridge   1 comment

Foggy Morning Birthday On Tanuri Ridge — Image by kenne

This sandgrain day in the bent bay’s grave
He celebrates and spurns
His driftwood eighty-second wind turned age;
Herons spire and spear.

— An age modification from Poem On His Birthday by Dylan Thomas

Expectations: Tomorrow Is Not Promised   Leave a comment

Photo-Artistry by kenne

Expectations

Who are you,
you who share
my very existence
with your expectations,
sometimes calling them
traditions,
placing more value
on the worth
of your expectations,
unwilling to understand
neither the what
nor the why
of my very being.

Who am I,
I who share
your very existence
with my expectations,
sometimes calling them
logical
placing more value
on the worth of my expectations,
unwilling to understand
neither the what
nor the why
of your very being.

Who are we,
we who share
a finite existence
with our expectations,
sometimes calling them
unconditional
placing more value
on the worth of our expectations
unwilling to understand
neither the what
nor the why
of a finite being.

Who are they,
they who share
our very existence
with their expectations,
sometimes calling them
laws
placing more value
on the worth of their expectations
unwilling to understand
neither the what
nor the why
of our very being.

Who are We
We who share
an infinite existence
with our expectations,
sometimes calling them
spiritual
placing more value
on the worth of all expectations
willing to understand
both the what
and the why
of a universal being.

— kenne

(. . . He celebrates and spurns
His driftwood eighty-first wind turned age;
Herons spire and spear.*)

*Dylam Thomas, “Poem On His Birthday”

 

Nick’s Birthday 2009 — Two Photos   1 comment

Nick's Birthday Party 2009

Nick's Birthday Party 2009Nick’s Birthday 2009 — Images by kenne

This September, grandson Nickolas will be celebrating his 15th birthday.
Wish we could be there. Maybe we can make if for the 16th.

— kenne

Posted August 10, 2020 by kenneturner in Family, Information, New Hampshire, Photography

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Words Are Powerful!   4 comments

Joy and Kenne Celebrating Her Birthday July 24, 2011

hugging-words_txt

Hugging-Words — Source PVE

As we grow old, remember to stay young.

As we grow wiser, remember to stay foolish.

As we grow weak, remember to stay strong.

As we grow dull, remember to stay sexy.

As we grow stupid, remember to stay sensible.

As we grow suspicious, remember to stay trusting.

As we grow forgetful, remember to stay attentive.

As we grow gloomy, remember to stay cheerful.

As we grow conventional, remember to stay enlightened.

As we grow frail, remember to stay sturdy.

As we grow, may we stay forever
young,
foolish,
strong,
sexy,
sensible,
trusting,
attentive,
cheerful,
enlightened, and
sturdy — simple words to live by.

Words are powerful!
Why?
Because they can hurt and
they can bring people together.
Both acts have powerful results.
Words divide us.
However,
the power of words
is that once divided,
they can be used
to bring us back together.
We should not allow words
to change our relationships,
because unlike the cucumber
that becomes a pickle
and can never be a cucumber again,
we can break down the walls that divide.

kenne

Happy Birthday, Joy   3 comments

kennejoy2001-8-artImage by kenne

Photographs:

“things that remain to
remind us of what we were
before we were without that
which prompts us to remember.”

Hiking The Sunset Trail Out Of Marshall Gulch   Leave a comment

Marshall Gulch (1 of 1)-9 blogHiking The Sunset Trail Out Of Marshall Gulch On Mt. Lemmon — Images by kenne

Marshall Gulch (Click on any of the tiled images for a larger view in a slideshow format.)

Sunset Trail (Click on any of the tiled images for a larger view in a slideshow format.)

Birthday Picnic for Ricki (Click on any of the tiled images for a larger view in a slideshow format.)

Counting from One to a Million, Whitman and the Civil War Dead   2 comments

Whitman Event Ed_2015 05 07_0686_edited-3 blogEd Folsom presenting “Counting from One to a Million, Whitman and the Civil War Dead” — Image by kenne

For the 24th year the Writers in Performance series at Lone Star College – Montgomery celebrated the birthday of Walt Whitman. For the last several years the celebrations has been in two parts, one a lecture on campus in the afternoon, the second part an evening gathering of poets at a local pub or cafe.

This year’s lecture featured Dr. Ed Folsom recognizing the sesquicentennial of the publication of Dram Taps, most of which Whitman wrote while serving as a hospital volunteer tending wounded and dying soldiers. Whitman felt that a poet’s voice was needed to document the war and help make sense of such a travesty.

This year’s Birthday Celebration for Walt Whitman took place May 7th, which I thought would be appropriate to delay posting till this Memorial Day, 2015. (Post Note) — The holiday originally was called Decoration Day and was a day of remembrance for Union soldiers who died in the American Civil War.

kenne

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The Gathering of Poets at Dosey Doe Music Cafe, Conroe Texas — Images by kenne

The following passage from Dram Taps includes the longest sentence ever written by Whitman.

The Million Dead, Too, Summ’d Up — The Unknown (from Memoranda During the War)

THE DEAD in this war—there they lie, strewing the fields and woods and valleys and battle-fields of the south—Virginia, the Peninsula—Malvern hill and Fair Oaks—the banks of the Chickahominy—the terraces of Fredericksburgh—Antietam bridge—the grisly ravines of Manassas—the bloody promenade of the Wilderness—the varieties of the strayed dead, (the estimate of the War department is 25,000 national soldiers kill’d in battle and never buried at all, 5,000 drown’d—15,000 inhumed by strangers, or on the march in haste, in hitherto unfound localities—2,000 graves cover’d by sand and mud by Mississippi freshets, 3,000 carried away by caving-in of banks, &c.,)—Gettysburgh, the West, Southwest—Vicksburgh—Chattanooga—the trenches of Petersburgh—the numberless battles, camps, hospitals everywhere—the crop reap’d by the mighty reapers, typhoid, dysentery, inflammations—and blackest and loathesomest of all, the dead and living burial-pits, the prison-pens of Andersonville, Salisbury, Belle-Isle, &c., (not Dante’s pictured hell and all its woes, its degradations, filthy torments, excell’d those prisons)—the dead, the dead, the dead—our dead—or South or North, ours all, (all, all, all, finally dear to me)—or East or West—Atlantic coast or Mississippi valley—somewhere they crawl’d to die, alone, in bushes, low gullies, or on the sides of hills—(there, in secluded spots, their skeletons, bleach’d bones, tufts of hair, buttons, fragments of clothing, are occasionally found yet)—our young men once so handsome and so joyous, taken from us—the son from the mother, the husband from the wife, the dear friend from the dear friend—the clusters of camp graves, in Georgia, the Carolinas, and in Tennessee—the single graves left in the woods or by the road-side, (hundreds, thousands, obliterated)—the corpses floated down the rivers, and caught and lodged, (dozens, scores, floated down the upper Potomac, after the cavalry engagements, the pursuit of Lee, following Gettysburgh)—some lie at the bottom of the sea—the general million, and the special cemeteries in almost all the States—the infinite dead—(the land entire saturated, perfumed with their impalpable ashes’ exhalation in Nature’s chemistry distill’d, and shall be so forever, in every future grain of wheat and ear of corn, and every flower that grows, and every breath we draw)—not only Northern dead leavening Southern soil—thousands, aye tens of thousands, of Southerners, crumble to-day in Northern earth.

And everywhere among these countless graves—everywhere in the many soldier Cemeteries of the Nation, (there are now, I believe, over seventy of them)—as at the time in the vast trenches, the depositories of slain, Northern and Southern, after the great battles—not only where the scathing trail passed those years, but radiating since in all the peaceful quarters of the land—we see, and ages yet may see, on monuments and gravestones, singly or in masses, to thousands or tens of thousands, the significant word

UNKNOWN.

(In some of the cemeteries nearly all the dead are unknown. At Salisbury, N. C., for instance, the known are only 85, while the unknown are 12,027, and 11,700 of these are buried in trenches. A national monument has been put up here, by order of Congress, to mark the spot—but what visible, material monument can ever fittingly commemorate that spot?)

A Week of Celebrating Life   Leave a comment

Las Vegas & Zion_2015 05 20_0811_Joy & JustonJoy and son Justin, a week of celebrating his 40th birthday in Las Vegas and Zion National Park. — Image by kenne

We drove,

they flew

for a celebration

in Vegas,

hiking 

in Zion and

a blast-off

to the next 

forty on

Fremont Street.

— kenne

of life

Four Years Out   3 comments

kenne-kika-joy-on-patio-arriving_20100621_1287-blog-ii 2014 framedKenne, Kika & Joy On Empty Patio (June 21, 2010)

Looking back on our move from The Woodlands, Texas to Tucson, I’m not sure which one of us may have experienced the most anxiety. One might think it would have been the cat, Kika (who passed away this past December), but Joy would probably argue that point. In many ways we have adjusted well to our new home, town and friends. 

Now we are starting our fifth year here, longer than most friends and family would have predicted, especially since Joy has not grown to love southern Arizona as I have — we may very well be considering a different five-year plan after this year. 

The four years we have lived here have allowed us to experience most of the things we took into consideration in making the decision to make the move: a new adventure, closer to Joy’s mother and siblings.  We are now moving into our fifth year in the Catalina Foothills, not yet knowing what will be driving our next five-year plan, which is why I share again the following poem, “Birthday.” The poem could have very easily been titled, “Life.”

Turned around,
Here am I.

Knowing how,
Not the why.

Never one to be,
Part of the pack

Keep following,
Wind at my back.

Young in heart,
Old in age.

Feeling the itch,
Pacing the cage.

Inner peace,
Knowing the thou.

Learning to write,
Thesis of now.

Turned around,
Found love.

Living the moment,
Free as a dove.

Still learning,
When to talk.

Listening for,
Beat of the walk.

Reality is now,
Truth in the heart.

Singing the knowledge,
Requiem to smart.

Turned around,
Found beauty in art.

Traveling the future,
With Dylan and Descartes.

Satisfying my wonderlust,
Following only the wind.

Traveling this earth,
With little left behind.

— kenne

The Happiest of Birthing Days and Birthdays   2 comments

It’s Virginia’s Birthing Day and Joy’s Birthday — Image by kenne

Today is your birthday.
A day we celebrate.

It was her third birthing day,
When you came into her life.

A day you both share,
But only she remembers.

She celebrates your special day
In a way, only she can feel.

Because of her singular feelings,
You will always be her Joy.

— kenne

I thought about you, old girlfriend   2 comments

by kenne

Happy Birthday, Joy!

Posted July 24, 2011 by kenneturner in Family, Information, Photography, Poetry

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Virginia’s 87th   Leave a comment

Joy’s Mother, Virginia, on her 87th birthday — image by joy 

Many of the family gathered at Jody & Jim’s to celebrate Virginia’s 87th birthday. Since I was a little under the weather, and my camera battery went dead (sadly, I was not prepared), there are just a handful of photos. (Flickr Photo Set)

kenne

 

Posted June 8, 2011 by kenneturner in Family, Information, Life, Photography

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Happy Birthday Mother!   6 comments

Kenne David, Katie, Agnes (Mother) & Kenne — November 27, 2003

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOTHER!

WE MISS YOU!

Thinking about Mother

I thought about yesterday
Remembering the moments

I thought about today
Taking a big breath.

I thought about tomorrow
Exceeding my grasp.

I thought about time
Wondering about timeless.

I thought about life,
Asking the question.

I thought about people,
Knowing not what I see.

I thought about what is,
Wondering why?

I thought about ideals,
Seeking what should be.

I thought about truth,
Confusing it with the facts.

I thought about art,
Becoming aware.

I thought about love
Touching the feeling.

I though about Joy,
Feeling love inside.

I thought about you,
Walking with long shadows.

I thought again of tomorrow
Sharing your path.

— kenne

Posted March 3, 2011 by kenneturner in Family, Information, Life, Photography, Poetry

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Pretty-Girl Katelyn is Six Years Old   1 comment

Katelyn College 2009 blog

Little Girl Blues

Although,

she has her peers,

She lives in

A big girl world

Yet holding her own

In their big girl games.

But,

What does she do

When the game is new

And the players

Play too fast

In little girl games.

She does what

We all do

In a world

Going round and round,

She stops and gets off

The merry-go-round.

kenne

Janie&KenneWedding2007-08-14-73e-1x

Posted September 26, 2009 by kenneturner in Family, Life, Photography, Poetry

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