Amanda Gorman Art by Darryl Banks

 Darryl Banks

Wendell Berry (born August 5, 1934)

There are, it seems, two muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say "It is yet more difficult than you thought." This is the muse of form. It may be then that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction, to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.
Wendell Berry

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendell_Berry

Great Freemasons: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (August 28, 1749 – March 22, 1832)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832)

"A Mason’s ways are
A type of existence,
And his persistence
Is as the days are
Of men of the world.
The future hides in it
Good hap or sorrow,
We pass through it-
Naught there abides in it
Daunting us- onward.
And silent, before us,
Veiled the dark portal,
Goal of all mortal;
Stars silent rest over us,
Graves under us silent.
But heard are the voices-
Voices of the sages
Of the world and the ages-
Choose well, your choice is
Brief, but yet endless.
Here eyes do regard you
In eternity’s stillness,
Here is all fullness,
Ye brave, to reward you,
Work and despair not."


Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His "Faust" has been called the greatest long poem of modern European literature. His other well-known literary works include his numerous poems, the "Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship," and the epistolary novel "The Sorrows of Young Werther." ~wikipedia

(Lodge Amelie, Weimar)

The Brethren, by Edgar Guest

The Brethren
by Edgar Guest

The world is needing you and me,
In places where we ought to be;
Somewhere today it’s needing you
To stand for what you know is true.
And needing me somewhere today.
To keep the faith, let come what may.
The world needs honest men today
To lead its youth along the way,
Men who will write in all their deeds
The beauty of their spoken creeds,
And spurn advantage here and gain,
On which deceit must leave its stain.
The world needs men who will not brag,
Men who will honor Freedom’s Flag,
Men, who although the way is hard,
Against the lure of shame will guard,
The world needs gentle men and true
And calls aloud to me and you.
The world needs men of lofty aim,
Not merely men of skill and fame,
Not merely leaders wise and grave,
Or learned men or soldiers brave,
But men whose lives are fair to see,
Such men as you and I can be.

Great Freemasons: Edgar Guest (August 20, 1881, Birmingham, England – August 5, 1959, Detroit, Michigan)

The Temple

You may delve down to rock for your foundation piers,
You may go with your steel to the sky
You may purchase the best of the thought of the years,
And the finest of workmanship buy.
You may line with the rarest of marble each hall,
And with gold you may tint it; but then
It is only a building if it, after all,
Isn’t filled with the spirit of men.

You may put up a structure of brick and of stone,
Such as never was put up before;
Place there the costliest woods that are grown,
And carve every pillar and door.
You may fill it with splendors of quarry and mine,
With the glories of brush and of pen—
But it’s only a building, though ever so fine,
If it hasn’t the spirit of men.

You may build such structure that lightning can’t harm,
Or one that an earthquake can’t raze;
You may build it of granite, and boast that its charm
Shall last to the end of all days.
But you might as well never have builded at all,
Never cleared off the bog and the fen,
If, after it’s finished, its sheltering wall
Doesn’t stand for the spirit of men.

For it isn’t the marble, nor is it the stone
Nor is it the columns of steel,
By which is the worth of an edifice known;
But it’s something that’s LIVING and REAL.
Edgar Albert Guest  (aka Eddie Guest) was a prolific English-born American poet who was popular in the first half of the 20th century and became known as the People's Poet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Guest

(Ashlar Lodge 91 of Detroit)