This is the blog for the Bentari Project.
Saturday, March 07, 2015
A friendly backyard giant, our curly willow [1] welcomed us under a billowy canopy in 2007 when we moved in. She would provide a green parasol for picnics and games on many summer afternoons. Our new yard was spacious, gently sloping and with our green giant casting her cooling umber over us, it recalled immortal words of poet Joyce Kilmer about th...
Read full postSaturday, March 07, 2015
Bark feels good to touch. It's wonderful to smell. It holds designs like tiny islands in streams for us to follow—for us to see and smell and feel and follow…. Can you hear it? With every windy rustle, she speaks of life. Listen. “We are all connected,” she sings....
Read full postSaturday, March 07, 2015
Curly willows have weak wood, we later learned, but thick branches supported a rope swing for our grandchildren without a creak or groan. While we played, the giant overseer of our yard cast angular, eerie, fascinating shadows upon the lawn and walls....
Read full postSaturday, March 07, 2015
On Halloween 2009, a little imagination revealed the spectral skull that screamed in mournful horror above the lonely grave stones in our haunted yard! The shadows of our willow fell on our garage!...
Read full postSaturday, March 07, 2015
Willows have weak wood and short lives. Our willow was not immune. She allowed us many good times in her shadow’s embrace. Yet, in her frailty, she became a hazard. Wind, rain and ice all took turns knocking down large branches, narrowly missing our garage and fence and car in six scary episodes....
Read full postSaturday, March 07, 2015
She was home to squirrels and a variety of winged friends throughout the years. Like all trees, her boughs welcomed all. None were turned away. We sadly had her molecules reorganized, January 8, 2015. We will replant....
Read full postSaturday, February 28, 2015
For African-American and Black History Month in 2015, we have explored some of the impacts made by our brothers and sisters of African descent on folks with different cultural heritages. In entries below, read about a Greek-American, a Mauritanian, the famous Gloria Steinem and three members of the Ku Klux Klan. In addition, there is a long-awaited...
Read full postSaturday, February 28, 2015
In his book Klan-destine Relationships: A Black Man’s Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan [1] , Daryl Davis [2] , tells how he befriended leaders of three rival KKK groups in Maryland. Each man, in his turn, gave up his leadership role, left the Klan and presented Davis with his Klan robes as a tribute to a new friendship and the growth of consciousness th...
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“Your Honor, this Court and those troops are not the real agencies that keep the public peace. Their mere presence is proof that we are letting peace slip through our fingers. Public peace is the act of public trust; it is the faith that all are secure and will remain secure.” [1] In the Foreword of Native Son , author Richard Wright [2] tells why ...
Read full postSaturday, February 28, 2015
Sojourner Truth [1] --her story is epic and deservedly recounted throughout the generations. This telling of Truth’s story holds a little known footnote—written nearly a century after she died! Here’s how it came to pass. Born into slavery in the state of New York circa 1797, she managed to escape with her daughter in 1826—but her son remained behi...
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