Nature and her gifts to us

Malay Mail Online:

Japanese park replaces resident hedgehog with a brush to protect it from the cold

A park in Japan decided to switch its resident hedgehog with a brush to protect the mammal from the cold. — Photo via Twitter/ @popoyo_pyn

KUALA LUMPUR, March 9 — A Japanese park in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture, has gone viral after it replaced its resident hedgehog with a brush to protect the mammal from the cold.

The switch was realised by a Twitter user who uploaded a picture of the enclosure at Kuragaike Park, together with a notice explaining the change.

The notice states that the hedgehog was not on display due to the cold weather.

The resident hedgehog was offered reprieve from the cold with its 'stand-in'. — Reuters pic

“Instead, please observe this brush that looks like a hedgehog. Please come again when it’s warmer.”

The tweet had since received over 318,900 reactions with over 73,500 retweets.

Hedgehogs are not native to Japan but have long been sold in the island nation, where less than 20 per cent of households are estimated to have a pet, reported Australia’s ABC.

A hedgehog-themed cafe was opened in Tokyo’s entertainment district in 2016.

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kt notes:

What beauty Nature provides, they treasure

Be it flowers, waterways, deer or porcupine

Protecting them with love by any measure

As with hydrangea & wisteria vines entwine

The murmur of brooks and their sweet notes

Cascading falls & alpine shrubs clad in snow

Lazy moving rivers with bamboo riverboats

In Summer and Winter with drifting ice floe

Remembering Mohamad Ammar Dhani Mohd Azuan

NST:

Cancer-striken Penang boy, whose wish to ride a police MPV was recently fulfilled, dies

Seven-year-old leukemia-stricken Mohamad Ammar Dhani Mohd Azuan, whose wish of riding in a police patrol car (MPV) was fulfilled recently, died yesterday. - NSTP/DANIAL SAAD.

KEPALA BATAS: Seven-year-old leukemia-stricken Mohamad Ammar Dhani Mohd Azuan, whose wish of riding in a police patrol car (MPV) was fulfilled recently, died yesterday.

Mohammad Ammar Dhani died at about 6pm yesterday at his family's home in Bakar Kapor, Penaga, here.

On Jan 22, Mohamad Ammar Dhani's wish of riding in a police MPV was granted when Noorzainy took him on a 10-minute VIP ride, along with his mother.

Mohammad Ammar Dhani, who had been diagnosed with cancer at the age of 2, had an obsession with police cars and had always wanted to be a policeman. 

- BERNAMA

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Such are the little memories of you;

They come and go, return and lie apart
From all main things of life; yet more than they,
With noiseless feet, they come and grip the heart.
Gay laughter leading quick and stormy tears,
Then smiles again and pulse of flying feet,
In breathless chase of fleeting gossamers,
Are memories so dear, so bitter-sweet.

No more are echoes of your flying feet.
Hard by, where Pike’s Peak rears its head in state,
The erstwhile rushing feet, with halting steps,
For health’s return in Denver watch and wait.
But love and memories of noiseless tread,
Where angels hovered once, all shining fair,
To tuck you in your little trundle bed,
Kneel nightly now in agony of prayer.

- George Marion McClellan

Keong Hee Huat Chye 2021

 

Happy New Year

 

Merry Christmas & Be Safe

 

To all and more - Happy Diwali

 

If You Should Go

If You Should Go

by Countee Cullen


Love, leave me like the light,
The gently passing day;
We would not know, but for the night,
When it has slipped away.

So many hopes have fled,
Have left me but the name
Of what they were. When love is dead,
Go thou, beloved, the same.

Go quietly; a dream
When done, should leave no trace
That it has lived, except a gleam
Across the dreamer’s face.

[This poem is in the public domain ]



“If You Should Go” originally appeared in the June 1922 issue of The Crisis.




Countee Cullen was born Countee LeRoy Porter on May 30, 1903, likely in Louisville, Kentucky. He is the author of On These I Stand: An Anthology of the Best Poems of Countee Cullen (Harper & Bros., 1947), The Black Christ and Other Poems (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1929), and Copper Sun (Harper & Bros., 1927). A teacher in New York City for twelve years, he died on January 9, 1946.

Evening

Evening

by Ranier Maria Rilke




The sky puts on the darkening blue coat
held for it by a row of ancient trees;
you watch: and the lands grow distant in your sight,
one journeying to heaven, one that falls;

and leave you, not at home in either one,
not quite so still and dark as the darkened houses,
not calling to eternity with the passion of what becomes
a star each night, and rises;

and leave you (inexpressibly to unravel)
your life, with its immensity and fear,
so that, now bounded, now immeasurable,
it is alternately stone in you and star.


Translated by Stephen Mitchell

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri

Peace on this Wesak Day

When My Soul Findeth Wings

Let me introduce another lovely poem, written a century ago by Libbie C Baer, which again moves me very much. I read it in poems.org (a website run by the Academy of American poets)

Libbie C. Baer was born in Ohio on 18 November 1849. She was the author of In the Land of Fancy and Other Poems (F. T. Neely, 1902). She passed away on 27 February 1929.

When My Soul Findeth Wings

Like roses the bright dream did pass, 

On swift, noiseless footsteps away;
Like glistening dew on the grass,
Dissolving beneath the sun’s ray.

Like voice of the lark that doth soar,
Through the golden haze of the dawn;
You hear it and bend to adore,
Just hear it and then it is gone. 

The lark on his swift, flashing wings,
Keeps pace with the flowers in their flight;
And that’s why when soaring he sings,
And passes so swiftly from sight.

I slept, and a vision did see,
Of eyes that were tender and blue;
I awoke to know that for me
The vision may never come true.

The lark soars no more in the skies,
He’s gone with the roses and dew;
The face with the soft tender eyes,
Comes never to gladden my view.

My memory holds images fair,
Of all these beautiful things;
Which I will be seeking somewhere,
When my soul, as lark, findeth wings.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on May 3, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets

In April

Let me introduce a lovely poem, written some 95 years ago by Ranier Maria Rilke, which moves me very much. I read it in poems.org (a website run by the Academy of American poets)

Rainer Maria Rilke was born in Prague on December 4, 1875. The author of several collections of poetry and prose, Rilke is recognized by many as a master of verse. He died on December 29, 1926.


In April 

Again the woods are odorous, the lark
Lifts on upsoaring wings the heaven gray
That hung above the tree-tops, veiled and dark,
Where branches bare disclosed the empty day.

After long rainy afternoons an hour
Comes with its shafts of golden light and flings
Them at the windows in a radiant shower,
And rain drops beat the panes like timorous wings.

Then all is still. The stones are crooned to sleep
By the soft sound of rain that slowly dies;
And cradled in the branches, hidden deep
In each bright bud, a slumbering silence lies.

I just love the beauty of 'In April'.

'In April' appeared in 'Poems' (T.A. Wright, 1918), translated by Jessie Lemont

Tolong berdiam-diam

Abang sayangku, abang sayangku
Look at that woman dress in PPE
With 'Menteri' label on dress too
Diam lah, manja voice-kau 2 geli

tiru nada Doraemon & dikuti dengan gelak manja?
😲😒😂

Oi, one and all, look I am spraying

4 your safety, I am dressed in PPE
To disinfect virus, monstrous being
Podah menteri, itu my mango tree

😠😠😠

Bersandiwara, kerbau, tua chong
'Ni menteri2 hanya mau publicity
Sampai memanggil Si Doraemon
Langsung ta' ikhlas, no sincerity

dei tangachi podah

👎👎👎

Minum air suam bagus sgt sekali

Lagi menteri kerbau cakap ayam

Ini bolih buat Covid bunuh sendiri

Tapi yang best, tolong berdiamx2

😛😜😝

Blessed Rain

We've been told the rain in Spain
In that tragic Covid ridden Iberia
Usually'd fall mainly on the plain
But what of our tropical Malaysia?

The rain goes dom dam dom dam
Beating rat-tat-tat on my zinc roof
Nature's musical singing telegram
Our friendly hujan, not at all aloof

Saying to me As-salāmu ʿalaykum
As I smell it sweet moist freshness

Sitting on the veranda of my home

Magically feeling tranquil calmness

Soon the rain will leave me alone

In idyllic and stoic contemplation

Meditating on my Nirvanic throne
& cherishing Nature's benediction

The Frogs of Malaysia

The eternal bane of our country are frogs
'Tis the season for them, hopping all over
Stinking like malodorous dirty worn socks
Yes, they're very much attracted to power

Frogs I refer to aren't nature's amphibians

Just offspring of scums in grotty cesspool
They love nefarious acts pre-post elections
Yes, drawn to filthy lucre & loot they drool

Some are amazingly agile in their hopping
They lompat kiri kanan, whoa, back to kiri
Their inner GPS' directing them to offering
Lucrative, in a game of 'Gimme', 'Gimme'

Their hides are thick as African rhinoceros
And faces masked with hypocrisy and lies
Preaching righteousness in voices sonorous
While converging on pungli like eager flies

Note: 'pungli' is Indonesian abbreviation for 'pungutan liar' or 'illegal levies' (bribes)

Happy New Year 2020

O Ass-Dick

O Ass-Dick Ass-Dick Ass-Dick galore
I feel quite comfy now I am staying
Many now of his 'mis-deed' deplore
Cursing that man with No 3 Sodomy

O Ass-Dick Ass-Dick Ass-Dick galore
He's beginning to frustrate me mucho
My men find jailing him 2 big a chore
'Coz he's wrestling like a dumb sumo

O Ass-Dick Ass-Dick Ass-Dick galore
That Apek I'll soon put in Kajang jail
Fails to realise his eff-ed mien I abhor
Like a greedy cur with a wagging tail 

O Ass-Dick Ass-Dick Ass-Dick galore
What's the prob, my dearest Boy Boy
Dad, not Ass-Dick but S(Ess)-D(Dee)
STFU, me you're beginning to annoy

he eff-ing thinks he knows it all when he has been eff-ing mucho stuff galore, wakakaka 

Is Chin Peng still with us?

When you remember me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us.

It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.

For as long as you remember me, I am never entirely lost.

When I'm feeling most ghost-like, it is your remembering me that helps remind me that I actually exist. When I'm feeling sad, it's my consolation. When I'm feeling happy, it's part of why I feel that way.

If you forget me, one of the ways I remember who I am will be gone. If you forget, part of who I am will be gone.”


― Frederick Buechner , Whistling in the Dark: A Doubter's Dictionary