A peaceful oasis of compassion at the Duc Quang Vietnamese Buddhist Centre on busy Hamilton Rd. in London, Ontariario. It seems to me, somehow, that not so long ago, this was a Spanish Catholic church or something like that, and the statue in the courtyard was the Virgin Mary. Plus ça change, eh?
3 comments:
Serene.
Maybe there is no essential difference, Virgin Mary, Woman statue in White...
Just different expressions of the psyche.
Maybe after this Egyptian culture and a statue of Bast.
You cat lover, you...
Talking about statues. I saw this great "Treasury of Poetry" in the store. Big. Great pictures. For kids. But what else am I but a big kid? I knew I wanted it. And indeed I bought it. Two as a matter of fact. One to give away for another big kid's birthday. The price was right.
And in it I found some poems I hadn't seen in a long time. You should have heard my exclamations, going through that book. I was like a kid in a candy store.
Here comes the statue one,
OZMANDIAS
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two fast trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert....Near them, on sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, who's frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold commend,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozmamdias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
It has a neat illustration. but I do not know how to send pictures, so you have to design one of your own in your imagination.
I'm sure you all know this poem. I'm not sending anything new. But maybe like me, you are pleasantly surprized to see and read it again.
I bet it was in the land of Bast anyway. Bast knew better than to boast. Her statue is in tact.
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