April is Organ Donation Awareness Month!

Have you made the decision to be an organ donor yet? Have you talked to your friends and family to tell them of your decision? Thousands await the gift of life. Don't wait until it's too late. One donor can save eight lives and improve the lives of many more.

Read more about organ donation at organdonor.gov or at my previous message here.

Poetry Month- To Aster

Centuries ago, when I was in high school, our English lit text contained the poem "To Stella", written by Plato and translated by Percy Bysshe Shelley. It wasn't until I read Mary Renault's The Last of the Wine that I discovered "Stella" was actually "Aster" and a boy. Shelley's editors feminized the boy's name; both "Aster" and "Stella" mean "star". (Gee, I wonder why they did that?)


The Aster Epigrams
(By Plato; translation by Percy Bysshe Shelley)

To Aster I

Sweet Child, thou star of love and beauty bright,
Alone thou lookest on the midnight skies;
Oh! That my spirit were yon Heaven of light
To gaze upon thee with a thousand eyes.


To Aster II

Thou wert the morning star among the living,
Ere thy fair light had fled; –
Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving
New splendour to the dead.