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For “Cracking Open the Content Tme Capsule,” we are to revisit our posts from this day, September 19.Here is one of my posts from 2016:

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Some people walk the 500-mile Camino de Santiago trail in Spain, but in the heat and humidity, a few hours walking the dirt rock-strewn paths of the yearly Monte Sano Art Show in Huntsville, Alabama were penance enough for me.  For some reason, I took very few photos, but we saw some wonderful and whimsical sights, including the pieces and people shown below.

Hiking the Art Fair

Eenie meenie miney moe­­––

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and baby toe,

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Grannies with their walking sticks,

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little doggies giving licks.

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Pigs to hang upon the wall
that are not really pigs at all.
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mobiles made of spoons and kettles,
bottle caps and other metals,

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As families start to walk away,
we also plan to end our day.

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Eyes grow sleepy,

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hairdos frizz.
This is the kind of day it is.

But as we leave the heat and fuss,
tender moments go home with us.

The End

Home for a nice swim and then out to Thai.  Perfect day that began with a hike.

Today’s WordPress prompt was Hike.

“At First” For Blast from the Blog

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At First

Days were not over half so soon
when we ate passion with a spoon.
Swirled chocolate at the Frosty Freeze
melting in the prairie breeze
hot and redolent of soil—
chaff of wheat and rattled coil.
Summer days and summer nights,
rolls in grass and water fights
with uncoiled hoses, cooking pans,
rolled up cuffs and soaked white Vans.

Passion then was not so much
a thing of kissing or of  touch
as of smells and sights and taste.
Baking beans and paper paste.
Brand new tablets, pencil shavings.
Summer nights, then autumn cravings.
Cattle lowing, school bells,
Cool spring water from deep wells.
Throats that ached from drinking it,
brought to light from ancient pit.

All these simple remembered things
that thinking about passion brings:
spin-overs on the monkey bars,
rides on bikes and naming stars.
It’s true some passion rides on night
with pressing lips and gentle bite,
or trembles on the fingertips
straying over breasts or hips.

Yet simpler loves bring lesser rations
of what adults consider passions.
Words like passion must be allowed
to be unfettered, like a cloud
and not confined in connotation,
dictionary or denotation.
Sometimes passion can be bright—
A meadowlark or soaring kite.
Sun-chapped lips just touched with mist
long before they’re ever kissed.

For Blast from the Blog. First published on September 18, 2016

Fibbing Friday Sillies for Sept 18, 2026

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Mary Quant

For Fibbing Friday, tje assignment is:

1. What is a logarithm? The successful foot and leg cadence maintained by a lumberjack log spinner riding a log down a river.
2. What is algebra? An item of clothing worn by a portly woman to keep her breasts in place.
3. What is an algorithm? The back and forth rhythm of your pencil between your fingers as you struggle to solve an algebra problem.
4. What is a quantile? A member of the Mary Quant fan club.
5. What is a quadrangle? A rookie cowboy’s fourth attempt to catch a horse.
6. What is a hexagon? A witch’s evil curse that has been removed by a priest or a good fairy.
7. What is a polygon? An escaped pet parrot.
8. What is a triangle? One of the initial (failed) excuses you use with your parents to try to get them to buy you a car.
9. What is a parallelogram? Your mother’s mother, walking up the aisle next to your father’s mother at your wedding.
10. What is a duodecahedron? 104 playing cards, all of which are either kings, queens or jacks.

“Rose” for Esther’s Writing Prompt

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Every Flower

Who dares to press a flower to one meaning?
When one is in love, every flower is full of passion.
When love dies, each flower listens to your grief.

They pick up your thoughts  by some telepathy,
soak up meaning through the air,
are watered by your grief or joy.

Hope, regrets, solitude?
Flowers do not signify.
Flowers only serve as balm.

Any flower head in a baby’s fist, held out to her mother.
Hibiscus petals strewn across a reunion table,
rose petals on a marriage bed.

When I die, do not look for the me in the roses
blanketing my grave or the bougainvillea
fallen to the ground in which I lie.

Look for me in the blue thunbergia,
hearty and profuse and growing ever upward,
insisting on being seen. Me, here! Me.

 

 

This week, Esther’s  Writing Prompt is ROSE

 

“Not to Taste” for Classic Material, Sept. 15

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This was what I posted on this date in 2017: (True story, by the way.)

Not to Taste

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We spend so much of our time choosing, discussing, cooking or devouring food that we consider to be flavorful, but rarely do we consider just how flavorful we ourselves may be.

Not to Taste

I have no taste for seafood—neither sea bass nor crustacean.
My friends’ attempts to feed them to me end in their frustration.
I cannot stand the taste of them—their odor nor their texture.
I’ve heard that they are good for me, so please spare me the lecture!

When I was in New Orleans, they tried to feed me gator.
I politely turned it down and had a burger later.
For though a gator’s not a fish, and that’s something I know,
they must be family somehow, ‘cause both live in H2O!

Sometimes I go out birding up a river by the sea.
The grandson of the captain comes along to talk to me.
The river’s full of crocodiles, and birds overhead
fly in by the thousands to seek their evening bed.

They rest so gently in the trees that I forget the threat
of all those crocs there down below, lurking in the wet.
Most of the year the estuary’s cut off from the sea,
but this year there was one big rain that set the river free.

When I was swimming Saturday, beyond the surf, just me,
I saw some people looking at—whatever could it be?
I just went on exercising in the surf and sand.
The sun went down but I stayed out. The water was just grand.

But when I finally came to land, folks there on the beach
told me that a croc passed by, well beyond my reach.
And since I, too, was out there as handy as could be,
I sure am glad that crocodile had no taste for me!!!!

Today’s prompt word is flavorful. This poem found in my archives was written so long ago that I had forgotten it.  Hopefully, you have, too. The beautiful photo of ceviche was snapped in La Manzanilla, as was the photo of the croc. The event described in the poem was true, by the way. Since then I’ve instructed friends to call me in out of the water no matter how far away the croc is!

Cracking Open the Time Capsule: Sept. 14, 2016

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This was my blog ten years ago on this date:

Absentee Ballot

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For the past fifteen years, I’ve voted by absentee ballot in Mexico. This year I had particular problems with getting registered and thought I’d failed when suddenly, as if by magic, I received my absentee ballot via e-mail.  My good fortune, as I’m presently visiting in the states and I can just mail it in this year and it will get there in time!  So, I connected my laptop to my friend’s printer and pressed the “print” button.  This, truthfully, was the result.

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Absentee Ballot

When I  went to print the ballot out,
minutes later I had to shout
“Stop!!!!” when minute after minute
the printer always had more in it!
It printed out ream after ream
no end in sight—so it would seem.

To vote for president was simple,
but that just seemed to be a pimple
on the ass of all the choices
for which they sought to hear our voices.
Senators for state and nation,
congressmen, then more frustration:

water boards and State Assembly,
then measures ’til my hands grew trembly.
Statements by  candidates to rate,
endorsements, ballot measure debate,
instructions, warnings, declarations
occasioning more perturbations.

School bonds, statutes, legislation,
reeled out with no hesitation.
Tax extensions,cigarette tax,
laws that we were asked to axe.
School laws that were multilingual,
laws prophylactic, cunnilingual.

Initiatives on marijuana,
and fire protection made me wanna
rip my hair and cuss and scream.
Still out they rolled, ream after ream.
When I got to number sixty-seven,
it made me want to pray to heaven,

“Please, dear God, not one measure more
or I’ll soon be at heaven’s door!”
I gave the ballot one more poke
as with one sure determined stroke,
I banned the plastic bag, then broke
my pen over my knee–a joke,

for then another page popped out
as victory smirk turned into pout.
District initiatives, then county
made me rue this voting bounty.
For when I thought that I was done,
I discovered I had just begun.

Pages? Thirty-seven in all
are printed out, before they  fall
fluttering, onto my floor.
The printer burps, pops out one more.
“Oath of Voter” said this one.
And so I cussed.  And I was done!!!

 

 

Welcome to The Numbers Game 135. Today’s Number is 752!

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To play along, go to your  photos file folder and type the number 752 into the search bar. Then post a selection of the photos you find that include that number and post a link to your blog in myNumbers Game blog of the day. If instead of numbers, you have changed the identifiers of all your photos into words, pick a word or words to use instead, and show us a variety of photos that contain that word in the title. This prompt will repeat each Monday with a new number. If you want to play along, please put a link to your blog in comments below.

Here are my photos. Click on photos to enlarge and move on to next photo. Anxious to see yours!

In Balance
Four hours later, my blouse is almost dry.

“Grab Bag” for The Sunday Whirl

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Grab Bag

A firm wind blows the words around.
It cares not where they go.
They spiral here around my head,
where I seem to know
which words are worth saving
and which should blow away
for someone else to use them
to say what they must say.
Words may be used for good or vice––
either to wound or heal.
The world cares not, it seems to me,
to steer an even keel
when it delivers words to us.
It’s up to us to pluck
the words that form our poetry
and which of them to duck.

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 774, the prompt words are: firm vice world wind cares someone worth wound word here seem spiral 

Let’s Hit Rewind: From my Blog on Sept. 11, 2016

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More ladies photographed at the Alexander Graham Bell Museum in Nova Scotia.

https://ceenphotography.com/2016/09/10/flower-of-the-day-september-11-2016-wildflowers/

On This Day, Sept. 10, 1016

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Ten years ago today, I was in Nova Scotia and this is the post I made:

Cosmos Flower and Will o’ the Wasp: Flower of the Day, Sept 10, 2016

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I couldn’t decide which of these two very similar shots I liked best, so I’m posting both of them. If you have a favorite, let me know.

img_5281img_5280I photographed these Cosmos along the walkway to the Alexander Graham Bell Museum. A man asked me to identify several of the flowers and said he, too, had photographed them. I asked if the museum was interesting and he said, “About as interesting as watching paint dry!” He turned around and walked back toward the museum with me, but I veered off to take photos of a little boy flying a kite he’d made in a kite making workshop in the museum. Wish I’d been there for that!! In the end, I left without going into the museum. I decided with so little time left here that I’d rather drive along the bay and then go back to my motel and sit by the water in an Adirondack chair to write my blog.

For more photos, look here: https://ceenphotography.com/2016/09/09/flower-of-the-day-dahlia-11/