“you Can’t Forget Your Mother Tongue” Okay But Have You Considered Bilinguals And Polyglots Whose

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Frosted glass between rain and life

I run my hand through the same old withered branches,

Drenched in the same old tired rain,

Far away the sunset harbours the lost gold of

Odysseys gone by, and if the wind were to hide

Within it some unremembered glow from the land

Of unknown secrets, the evening will gently

Whisk away the covers of the coquette,

And reveal to us a maiden under the bent willow,

Sweet as the apples from the orchards where our dreams

Were buried. She will beckon for the children

To gather around the fire and tell them the story

Of Zerah and Zulamith, whilst we twist the

Slender branches of the cherry tree into a throne

Fit for the brides of heaven to recline on,

Place at the altar a wreath of dead roses,

And hope that the silent fragrance borne to the shore

Is enough for the sea to give up the child

She drew to her heart in death’s storm.

…

And dare I tag anyone? @pollosky-in-blue perhaps you’ll like the story?

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As punishment for his sins, a human is sentenced to battle endlessly against hordes of demons with nothing but a knife. Satan’s court laughs at him for a few thousand years… until he starts winning the battles. Then they start screaming in terror.

Please make a post about the story of the RMS Carpathia, because it's something that's almost beyond belief and more people should know about it.

Carpathia received Titanic’s distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours.

(Californian’s exact position at the time is…controversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanic’s distress rockets. It’s uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.)

Carpathia’s Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanic’s aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it.

All of Carpathia’s lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her. He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once.

I don’t know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope.

Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awake–prepping a ship for disaster relief isn’t quiet–and all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets.

And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support.

Here’s the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining rooms–which, of course, were being used to make hot drinks and receive survivors. He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when she’d done that, he asked her to go faster.

I need you to understand that you simply can’t push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only reckless–it’s difficult to maneuver–but it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They can’t do it. It can’t be done.

Carpathia’s absolute do-or-die, the-engines-can’t-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half.

No one would have asked this of them. It wasn’t expected. They were almost sixty miles away, with icebergs in their path. They had a respondibility to respond; they did not have a responsibility to do the impossible and do it well. No one would have faulted them for taking more time to confirm the severity of the issue. No one would have blamed them for a slow and cautious approach. No one but themselves.

They damn near broke the laws of physics, galloping north headlong into the dark in the desperate hope that if they could shave an hour, half an hour, five minutes off their arrival time, maybe for one more person those five minutes would make the difference. I say: three people had died by the time they were lifted from the lifeboats. For all we know, in another hour it might have been more. I say they made all the difference in the world.

This ship and her crew received a message from a location they could not hope to reach in under four hours. Just barely over three hours later, they arrived at Titanic’s last known coordinates. Half an hour after that, at 4am, they would finally find the first of the lifeboats. it would take until 8:30 in the morning for the last survivor to be brought onboard. Passengers from Carpathia universally gave up their berths, staterooms, and clothing to the survivors, assisting the crew at every turn and sitting with the sobbing rescuees to offer whatever comfort they could.

In total, 705 people of Titanic’s original 2208 were brought onto Carpathia alive. No other ship would find survivors.

At 12:20am April 15th, 1912, there was a miracle on the North Atlantic. And it happened because a group of humans, some of them strangers, many of them only passengers on a small and unimpressive steam liner, looked at each other and decided: I cannot live with myself if I do anything less.

I think the least we can do is remember them for it.

there is something so beautiful about hearing people speak in their first language, their mother tongue. it’s as if you’re hearing them truly speak for the first time and suddenly you see rolling fields, cliffs and mountains, wind running through a forest. every day i wish that i could understand every language of the universe so that it can be more than music to my ears.

*goes to the top of a cliff and and whispers to a bird which obviously doesn’t care, “It’s my birthday today” and is met with a blank stare and an indignant ruffle and is left with the words echoing emptily across the hillside*

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cym as fav lyrics

Aaaaaaa anon you must forgive me for being so late about it, I had one hell of a ride choosing song lyrics *pants as if I'd been running*

But eeee it will be a long post-

• @shecriesalonemp3

"Listen close and don't be stoned

I'll be here in the morning

'Cause I'm just floating

Your cigarette still burns

Your messed up world will thrill me

...

Alison, I'll drink your wine

And wear your clothes when we're both high

Alison, I said we're sinking

But she laughs and tells me it's just fine

I guess she's out there somewhere"

- Alison (Slowdive)

• @its-toasted

"Take everything you have in front of you

Make every movement, do it to the groove

You will not be happy for long if you're working

And what would be the point if it did ever surface?

...

Wake up to the rhythm of the city and I try to remember

Even my brothers have some trouble with

Each other since since those things fell apart

It's the way that things are

It's the way that it is

...

Even when you split me up, groovin' to the sound of the laughter

And if I listen to it closely I can

Still hear all the love in his heart

Every time I take a look at the skyline it makes me feel better

'Cause I just miss you down here where the other people try to move on"

- Blue Coupe (Twin Peaks)

• @deviocat

"Oh, you can't hear me 'cause I sing to a different age

And you should fear me 'cause I believe in a different age

But I live in the city that lives in a different age

Oh, I live in a city that lives in a different age

Where all the poets are writing memoirs

And I'm still singing songs

Oh, all the poets are writing memoirs

And I'm still singing songs"

- A Different Age (Current Joys)

• @lacexleaves

"I used to think of ferris wheel light sounds

The Friday hum of neons and blue

But now they're like circular cages

Of grated tin and rusted wind

Hey, now, who really cares?

Hey, won't somebody listen

Let me say what's been on my mind

Can I bring it out to you

I need someone to talk to

And no one else will spare me the time"

- Hey, Who Really Cares? (Linda Perhacs)

• @francesco-bernoulli-gang

"Angels smoking cigarettes on rooftops in fishnets in the morning with the

Moon still glowing

And here comes Jesus in an Astrovan rolling down the strip again

He's stoned while Jerry plays

Life ain't ever what it seems

These dreams are more than paper things

And it's alright mama you're afraid

I'll be poor along the way

I don't wanna see those tears again

You know, Jesus drives an Astrovan

Yes, he does (I say woo)"

- Astrovan (Mt. Joy)

• @pani-puri

"Pulling up, getting down

This whole place is crazy town

Music bumping and the lights gone down

Never felt at home in any place I found

Oh, I live in a cold, white wind

And I feel the chill coming over me again"

- Butterfly (Adrianne Lenker)

• @anjo-umbra

"Put your hands on the wheel

Let the golden age begin

Let the window down

Feel the moonlight on your skin

Let the desert wind

Cool your aching head

Let the weight of the world

Drift away instead

These day I barely get by

I don't even try

It's a treacherous road

With a desolated view

There's distant lights

But here they're far and few

And the sun don't shine

Even when its day

You gotta drive all night

Just to feel like you're ok"

- The Golden Age (Beck)

• @roseusnoctua

"Satellite, headlines read

Someone's secrets you've seen

Eyes and ears have been

Satellite dish in my yard

Tell me more, tell me more

Who's the king of your satellite castle?

Winter's cold spring erases

And the calm away by the storm is chasing

Everything good needs replacing

Look up, look down all around, hey satellite

Rest high above the clouds no restrictions

Television we bounce 'round the world

And while I spend these hours

Five senses reeling

I laugh about this weatherman's satellite eyes"

- Satellite (Dave Matthews Band)

• @sidereusimber

"And though I may be getting older

Know that I'm going with you

Know that I'm hanging on

to the things that you said

The things that you said

...

I've felt my soul

Rise up from my body when

I look into your blue eyes

...

If cosmic force

Is real at all

It's come between you and I"

- Some Things Cosmic (Angel Olsen)

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The wind calls, a worn tale

twisted with the wry smiles of damsels

bemused and the blossoms of enchantment a-plenty

in the hands of knights exalted.

A puzzling air settled about the spectacle,

as the child sought eternity’s ill traveled lane.

Elusive youth caught in vain at her fly-away ardor

And laid bare her fragmented joy.

The silence of the day startled her,

Frivolous and temporal. Of what poisoned lake of

transcendence had she drunk?

Morose and frightened the child grew,

Farther and farther he strayed after a wayward fancy.

Impermanence was the derisive echo of decadence

from the hearth of the abyss and

the nightfall of the heavens.

.

.

.

Eternity and impermanence are interchangeable in the verse.

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Miles of Rain

The days after school haven't met change

Since times seasons revolved round the sun

You still wait by the corner lane

And I walk up after the bells have rung.

We eat a mouthful of your smoke

And break off bits of corn to make cake

Before we slip into the deep red of the

Bell-cracked wine glass with a rake

On Wednesdays you say, my hair looks nice,

That's for the soap I needed to save till

The next month so we didn't run out of rice.

There is, you know, comfort in unwashed mill

And yet more softness in hands that are soiled

To the nails in lovers' mud and dust.

It is only the shortness of one arm that

Asks to be coupled to twos at first.

Still, your fingers are long enough

To meet both ends and still cup snow

For us to breathe in the iced snuff,

To keep awake among the rafters below

For a few moments more.

We laugh at eachother's smiles

Lie forgetting and run wilder than raccoons

In Philadelphian winters, though miles

Of shadow could never erase these monsoons.

Unless you make it so, these months

Don't hold weddings or coronations

Or those hourly bypasses to coffee haunts,

But as it is, the gaps are fit to ration.

It has always been the dry edge of monsoon

Since times the seasons revolved round the sun.

- pollosky-in-blue

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my five year plan? read a lot of books. visit museums. walk through woods. stand in a river. adopt a little kitty. drink lemonade while sitting in a rocking chair on my porch.

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