Showers with Teachers

"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where
his influence stops." ~~ HENRY ADAMS


While it's good to converse with Mitch and Morrie on this cool Tuesday, Desi thinks a break for all of us to take a breather is in order. Sandwiches taste better with a change of the servings within -- I'll go into the garden to pick lettuce and tomato even as the rhythm of the rain soothes the soul and gives dance to one's ageing feet, renewal of greying cells because Mother nature has a way of preserving.

If my dear ER think the foregoing seems an odd way to introduce my Post today, you are right. But my subject today is in many ways an odd one, and a writer must keep to the spirit of his subject!



Soothin' in the Rain

While must we always ask for sunshine in our lives?

Peep through the darkening clouds
They bring showers of blessing
To quieten the jagged soul
To quicken the sagging spirit

I remember
it was not so long ago

A sweet young thing visited in a dream
Before the dawn
Sometimes a SWT visits surprisingly
When one's eyes are still daze with yesterday's mourns

The man snores terribly
Disturbing her tender sleep above perhaps
Yet she caresses his head gently
Mayhaps like Eve did for te virginal time
Hugging Adam's lighweight against her beating
breast longing to feed a mouth yet to be
And he snuggles like a babe against her biege-coloured breast

Surreal as he
samples a second childhood before time
suckling her two choc tipped nipples
Tasting like fresh baked French buns
And he draws in deep breaths of esctasy
But it evaporates with the break of day

My Soothin', thou sweet young thing
Come, make it a sure thing
We dance with the dew drops
Flowing softly to the edges of the leaves
Like your presence waving goodbye
With the approaching streaks of yellow, red and gold
As the sun peeps between yonder hills
of dark green and bold
And I'll linger a while in heaven
And thou my angel be
Kissing me softly in the rain
As you blend into nothingness
Melting into the warming, embracing atmosphere

Chong Yen Long (c)
9.00AM, Tuesday with ...
Composed on Inspiration
after re-visiting Two
Great Teachers
Monday night ...

Waking to the soft strains of pitter patter
on the roof top... (to be continued)
My cool haven.

What's the lesson about?

It's the teachings of a pupuil and his teacher.
About dying. Living. Living as a death approaches.
And every passing Tuesday is a fresh lesson on the art,
or is it the Tapestry? -- of Life and Living?


"The truth is, Mitch," he said, "once you learn how to die, you learn how to live."
I nodded.

This climactic lesson comes somewhere midway through the "I" in MITCH ALBOM's narrative of his last, and greatest lesson, his teacher -- MORRIE SCHWARTZ -- gave on his deathbed.

My re-visit to Morrie's Place was prompted by a Post titled EPITAPH.
I won't say whose or where except only a potential teacher akin to Morrie would
approach such a subject with alacrity and pomp. And pomp is far from being pompous.
As for alacrity -- find out the meaning for yourself. A teacher's first favour to his students is NEVER TO SPOON-FEED. Unless the teacher is on his deathbed, then it';s role reversal.

Some exerpts, no, not from TUESDAYS with MORRIE ... that will be continued.
From the EPITAPH~~~

E1~

Here lies
Johnny Yeast
Pardon me
For not rising.

E2~~

In a Thurmont, Maryland, cemetery

Here lies an Atheist
All dressed up
And no place to go.


E3~~~

Do believe I'll never leave you:
Always I'll be in your heart.
Don't forget my soul is near you,
And so we'll never be apart.

E3~~~

It is not length of life, but depth of life.
He jumped into life and never touched bottom.

E4~~~~


Earth has no sorrow that heaven can not heal.

And the author seeks help from ER, now extended to my ER here2 -- can anyone help in recalling word for dying word what was written on Little House on The Prairie's Laura Ingalls' tombstone?
A strange SOS, but what pitter patters in a woman's heart?
Desi's also dying to know...

We'll continue this conversation tomorrow, God willing. I'd dead serious.
Mitch and Morrie are also waiting, and they sure keep their deadline. Every Tuesday.