“Everyone Must Leave Something Behind When He Dies, My Grandfather Said. A Child Or A Book Or A Painting

—Somewhere a Band is Playing, Ray Bradbury

[text ID: Somewhere a band is playing

Oh listen, oh listen that tune!

If you learn it you’ll dance on forever

In June and yet June and more June.

And Death will be dumb and not clever

And Death will lie silent forever

In June and June and more June.]

My heart did not beat, it exploded.

I did not warm to a subject, I boiled over.

I have always run fast and yelled loud about a list of great and magical things I knew I simply could not live without.

“We earth men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things.”

— Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles

It was September. In the last days when things are getting sad for no reason.

Ray Bradbury

                                            Thrown out of Eden                                       Now we headlong humans                                          Sinners sinned against                                                      Return.                                      Tossed from the central sun                                  We with our own concentric fires                                                 Blaze and burn.                                      Once at the hub of wakening                                               And vast starwheel,                              For centuries long-lost, and made to feel                                       Unwanted, orphaned, mindless,                                    Driven forth to grassless gardens,                                             Dead and desert sea,                          We were shut out by comet grooms like Kepler                                                   Galileo Galilei                                Whose short-sight probing light-years                                                  Upped and said:                                               The Hub’s not here!                                      So shot man through the head                         And worse, each starblind prophet killed a part,                                           Snugged shut our souls,                                          Chopped short our reach,                                         Entombed our living heart.                                    But now we bastard sons of time                                         Pronounce ourselves anew                                        And strike fire-hammer blows                          To change tomorrow’s clime, its meteor snows.                                         Our rocket selfhood grows                            To give dull facts a shake, break data down                       To climb the Empire State and thundercry the town                                         But more! reach up and strike                                             And claim from Heaven                                    The Garden we were shunted from,                                               For now, space-driven                                            We fit, fix, force and fuse,                                            Re-hub the systems vast                                                 Respoke starwheel                                             And at the spiraled core                                             Plant foot, full fire-shod                                               And thus saints feel                                          Our yeast like flesh of God.                                         We march back to Olympus,                                      Our plain-bread flesh burns gold!                                        We clothe ourselves in flame                                         And trade new myths for old.                                         The Greek gods christen us                                        With ghosts of comet swords;                                       God smiles and names us thus:                                          "Arise! Run! Fly, my Lords!“

—-

We March Back To Olympus

Ray Bradbury  1920-2012

—-

Graphic - Daniel Maidman  (B.1975)

“Oh God, midnight’s not bad, you wake and go back to sleep, one or two’s not bad, you toss but sleep again. Five or six in the morning, there’s hope, for dawn’s just under the horizon. But three, now, Christ, three A.M.! Doctors say the body’s at low tide then. The soul is out. The blood moves slow. You’re the nearest to dead you’ll ever be save dying. Sleep is a patch of death, but three in the morn, full wide-eyed staring, is living death! You dream with your eyes open. God, if you had strength to rouse up, you’d slaughter your half-dreams with buckshot! But no, you lie pinned to a deep well-bottom that’s burned dry. The moon rolls by to look at you down there, with its idiot face. It’s a long way back to sunset, a far way on to dawn, so you summon all the fool things of your life, the stupid lovely things done with people known so very well who are now so very dead – And wasn’t it true, had he read somewhere, more people in hospitals die at 3 A.M. than at any other time...”

-Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

“And a last thought from Tom: O Mr. Moundshroud, will we EVER stop being afraid of nights and death? And the thought returned: When you reach the stars, boy, yes, and live there forever, all the fears will go, and Death himself will die.”

― Ray Bradbury, quote from The Halloween Tree

“I think the only way we can grow and get on in this world is to accept the fact we’re not perfect and live accordingly.”

— Ray Bradbury, The Illustrated Man