Margaret’s Song

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  There was a king in Thule,  True even to the grave;  To whom his dying mistress  A golden beaker gave.  At every feast he drained it,  Naught was to him so dear,  And often as he drained it,  Gush’d from his eyes the tear.  When death came, unrepining  His cities o’er he told;  All to his heir resigning,  Except his cup of gold.  With many a knightly vassal  At a royal feast sat he,  In yon proud hall ancestral,  In his castle o’er the sea.  Up stood the jovial monarch,  And quaff’d his last life’s glow,  Then hurled the hallow’d goblet  Into the flood below.  He saw it splashing, drinking,  And plunging in the sea;  His eyes meanwhile were sinking,  And never again drank he. “Margaret’s Song” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) in “Faust. Part I.”

Up there

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A while back I was walking through the park, along the black metal fence that surrounds the lake. As I made the gradual curve, taking me back toward the cascades, I could not help but notice the string tied to the top of the handrail. The string went up, up, up into the sky. I followed the string with my eye to see the kite was on the other end.

Up, up, up, went the string, until it disappeared into the blue sky. I saw no kite.

It was almost as if someone tethered the sky to the handrail.

A cloud floated by. I stared into the sky.

I felt the string. Yup, definitely something there alright, I could feel the tug.

What do you think was up there?

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