<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">Dear Milan,<div><br></div><div>What artistic gifts you have been blessed with. I love your song<i> Earth—For Life</i> — It is reminiscent of the powerful folk music that nurtured and emboldened us as the movement in the 60s (both the civil rights and spirit movements). The singers are masterful — are you one of those voices?</div><div><br></div><div>And the poem, <i>Great Expectations, </i> is powerful as a personal witness to your (and others of us) being part of and viscerally experiencing all the pain, distain, diminishment we have seen scrolling in newsreels before our eyes of late.</div><div><br></div><div>Today I began reading <i>the Soul of an Octopus </i>by Sy Montgomery, a kind of 21st century Loren Eiseley, exploring this complex, intelligent and spirited creature — and its possible consciousness. All creatures are included in your song Earth—for Life.</div><div><br></div><div>Thank you, dear colleague.</div><div><br></div><div>Marilyn<br><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div>On Feb 12, 2026, at 7:20 PM, Milan Hamilton via OE <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div><div dir="ltr"><div>When I get depressed about what is going on in the world, I tend to write poetry and song lyrics. I've been writing a lot of poetry lately. I am attaching one I have been working on for about a week called Great Expectations. I read it to my writing group today after which there was a definite period of silence. No response either from Marvin, my MAGA friend/nemesis on my right. It came out of a memory of a poem written by Thich Nhat Hanh during the Vietnam war, which brought up thoughts of our departed colleague Larry Ward. </div><div><br></div><div>The song came up because Linda has been after me to write singable lyrics for some of our Song Book songs. It is called For Earth--For Life. The lyrics are actually singable with the Tune Country Roads (aka All the Earth Belongs to All). But I tried to get something still singable that wasn't tied to the "good old songs" we all sang. So I just wanted to share these with those who care. It can get lonely out there sometimes. </div><div><br></div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr">Mellow Milan Hamilton<div>80 North Center Street</div><div>Redlands, CA 92373</div><div>Phone: (909) 943-1667</div><div>email: <a href="mailto:mellowmilan2@gmail.com" target="_blank">mellowmilan2@gmail.com</a></div></div></div></div>
<span id="cid:f_mlk51xr61"><Great Expectations.docx></span><span id="cid:f_mlk51xq80"><For Earth.docx></span><span id="cid:f_mlk53tse2"><For Earth! For Life! v.2.mp3></span>_______________________________________________<br>OE mailing list<br>OE@lists.wedgeblade.net<br>http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net<br></div></blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>