My Yucca tree is almost as high as the lower branches of my neighbor’s palm tree.
Go here to see more Sunday Trees: https://beccagivens.wordpress.com/2017/04/30/sunday-trees-285/
Yucca Tree: Sunday Trees Apr 30, 2017
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Monthly Archives: April 2017
The Dogs Are Barking (May 19, 2013)
Several people have suggested I reblog earlier posts. This one is one of my first, written when Diego and Frida were still with me and before Morrie made his appearance. Below is just a partial copy of the poem. To read it in its full version, click HERE.
The Dogs Are Barking
They break the morning––a daily rite.
It’s just a warning. The dogs won’t bite.
Two strangers talk but pass unseen.
I doze, they walk, with a wall between.
I lie here posed between thought and sleep.
My eyes still closed. I’m swimming deep.
I resist the trip––that journey up––
preferring to sip from the dreaming cup
whose liquid darker and bitter thick
reveals a starker bailiwick
than schedules, crafts, menus, schemes.
Much finer draughts we quaff in dreams.
I try to sink back into sleep,
once more to drink of waters deep;
but the dogs still bark. They leap and pace.
My dreams too dark for this morning place.
Those dreams lie deep and intertwined,
wanting to creep back up my mind.
But its slippery slope is much inclined
and provides small hope that I will find
again, that world well out of sight
where truth…
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Not Backsliding
I know, I know. I just posted my swan song a few days ago, but that was concerning compulsively posting to prompts. I hereby recant to the degree that I will occasionally publish, perhaps, something I’ve written of my own accord..can’t wipe writing entirely out of my life, but it is taking a back seat for awhile. Meanwhile we are planning the next kid’s camp, I’m getting a book published, editing an anthology and I’m playing with my friend Jane who just arrived. Some little trips, game sessions, shopping trips, hammock lounging, swimming and art activities will take precedence. Getting this compulsive behavior dealt with.
So, adios. Sort of!!!!
Daniel’s Beach Bar
A La Manzanilla tradition is the gathering each night to watch the sunset on the beach behind Daniel’s real estate office and home. I happen to rent the house next door and so nightly, even if I don’t always join them, I am still party to the sounds of laughter, talking and glug glug of tequila being poured into shot glasses. On those rare occasions when there is phosphorescence on the water, the “Ohhhhhhhhh’s” come in loud waves and I run out to share the spectacle. Daniel’s beach bar is only one of the aspects of this special place that make it special, but it is one so familiar to me that I wanted to share it with both those who know it well as well as those of you who don’t. Not written to any prompt, this one is written from the heart and memory:
Daniel’s Beach Bar
The wormwood planks above the sand,
set on pillars by his hand,
form a bench twelve feet or so
where every night townspeople go
to watch the sun sink in the ocean
and (if they should have the notion)
to share a tequila shot or two,
to chew the fat and share the view.
He is a solitary man,
tall and skeletal and tan.
Shirtless and shoeless, he sits among
the friends, like him, no longer young,
who choose this life of sand and sea
where they can be what they want to be.
A bottle cap sufficient to stub
his cigar smoked down to nub,
he leaves the ones who gather here,
and grabs another bottle of beer
to stroll back to his office where
for another hour, he’ll type and stare
at the screen where other friends abide,
locked securely there inside.
Tomorrow morning, the town asleep,
the village vagabond will sweep
the sand for butts of cigarettes,
his luck compounded when one forgets
a pack with one or two inside.
And though there’s no one there to chide,
still, he quickly palms them and
moves through last night’s littered sand––
past empty glasses and one or two
tequila bottles devoid of brew.
Last night’s spoils in light of day,
give last night’s revelries away.
(Click on any image to enlarge all)
A legation of legs? Daniel gives his cigar a rest as he takes a cigarette break.
Adios
Adios
I’ve been an avid blogger, in fact it is inane
the hours I devote to it. I fear I am insane.
I only slept three hours last night for I was agonizing
about the state the world is in, never realizing
that hours I could have spent in sleep I spent in speculation
of how giant guns in hands of fools leads to eradication
of larger numbers of the human race we’re meant to love,
but instead of arms embracing, we use arms to push and shove.
There’s such incentive now I fear for these fools to abuse them.
Why spend so much on weapons if we’re never going to use them?
It’s thoughts like this progressively that fill most of my thinking.
I cannot help believing that our ship of state is sinking,
bringing the whole world with it. In fact, I am obsessive.
With so much to be thankful for, I have become depressive.
I know I must pull out of it for what life we have left
should be enjoyed for soon enough it may be we’re bereft.
These are the thoughts that constantly roil within my mind.
I fear for breath, I fear for life. I fear for all mankind.
The more I write about it, the more morose I grow,
and so I think I might quit blogging for a month or so
and see if I can concentrate on things a bit more cheery,
for I’m growing so reclusive that my friends are no doubt leery.
I could fade from sight before the big guns do it for me,
so my resolution on this day is that I must restore me
back to the hum of daily life, throwing down my pen
to try to remember how my life was way back when
I suffered from a writer’s block that kept my words inside,
milling about disorganized until they up and died.
And since I do not think much ’til I see what I have written,
I’ll grab the serpent by the tail before I have been bitten.
So adios for now, my friends, you’ll hear no more from me.
I need a small vacation where I can simply be.
The prompt today is avid. I really didn’t know where this poem was going when I set out, but after a sleepless night spent having to deflect another asthma attack–or at least fearing one–and unable to find my oxygen machine, I think maybe I really do need to stop thinking for awhile and just live. Perhaps this will be a time to get a book together or to finish the 71 bracelets I designed and compiled at the beach that I need to find a way to finish off. Or perhaps I’ll just swing in the hammock and read upbeat books. Any suggestions? My friend Jane arrives in a few days and that will help. It’s true we should all be concerned with the state of our world, but when it blinds us to its joys and beauties, it is time to affect some changes. With a week to go on NaPoWriMo, I may delay for a week, and may change my mind tomorrow, but for now I need to deflect my thoughts elsewhere. If you still desire a daily dose, I’ve posted 3,042 blogs over the past four years, so please go back and perhaps start at the beginning, or pick a topic to search by and read random blogs from the past. It has taken awhile to grow a readership so I’m sure there are many blog entries very few of you have ever read. And, I’d still love to hear your comments. Doubt that I’ll be able to resist checking now and then. Or daily. But hopefully not hourly.
Three Elevenies: NaPoWriMo 2017, Day 23
An elevenie is an eleven-word poem of five lines, with each line performing a specific task in the poem. The first line is one word, a noun. The second line is two words that explain what the noun in the first line does, the third line explains where the noun is in three words, the fourth line provides further explanation in four words, and the fifth line concludes with one word that sums up the feeling or result of the first line’s noun being what it is and where it is.
Here are mine:
Minds
collect facts
in your head
for remembering when needed,
perhaps.
Heads
collect hats
that they store
on racks, dreaming of
outings.
Clouds
hoard drops
meant for seedlings
but rain on parades
instead.
Flowers of the Day, Apr 23, 2017: Tabachine and Bougainvillea
Here is my backyard and studio, taken yesterday, plus a closeup of the tabachine. You’ve seen plenty of closeups of the bougainvillea in the past. Click on either photo to enlarge both. it’s hard to remember what season you are in in Mexico as there is always something blooming. The bougainvillea bloom year round and the tabachine a couple of times a year. I just heard the first rainbirds (actually an insect–cicadas) this week so the rainy season will soon be upon us. Then those hills behind my studio will be verdant green.
See Cee’s flowers of the day HERE.
Sunday Trees, Apr 23, 2017
I planted this Royal Poinciana tree sixteen years ago. It now shades 1/3 of my front garden as well as a good bit of the street. These seed pods grow to a couple of feet in length.
See other Sunday Trees HERE.
Planting Seeds: NaPoWriMo 2017, Day 22
Planting Seeds
My father planted row on row,
straight furrows where the wheat would grow
nourished by the winter snow.
He knew the how of planting, and when.
He’d watch for all the signs and then
plant his yearly crops again.
Though farming’s in my family tree,
the seeds I plant are furrow-free.
I scatter seeds, then let them be.
Fanned out by an erratic hand,
they grow wherever they may land,
or thirst and wither where they stand.
If planting were a matter of need––
if I’d a family to feed,
of course, I’d plow and water and weed.
But as it is, the mystery
of what might grow means more to me
than the science of agronomy.
And though he worked from dawn to dark,
Dad’s life was anything but stark.
He paused to watch the meadowlark
and trace its flight from post to limb.
He watched the clouds catch light, then dim––
and a single drop course down one stem.
The NaPoWriMo prompt today had to do with planting a garden.
What Is of Value
What Is of Value
Now that the grass is freshly mown,
the sparrows can’t leave it alone.
Though we prefer the lovely green,
they prefer what’s gone unseen.
The dry grass underneath is best
for weaving into this year’s nest.
What has value for you and me
is not the same for all, you see.
For the way the world’s devised
is that everything is prized.
The NaPoWriMo prompt today was to compose a poem out of overheard conversations, but since I’ve been in a solitary mood lately, I went down to eavesdrop on the birds and other sounds of nature. Hearing a loud chirping in the huge cactus near my hammock, I noticed birds making repeated trips to the planter full of grass I put near the pool so my Scottie dog Morrie could have a place to lie to drop his tennis ball into the pool for me to retrieve and throw back down into the garden for him to chase after. The long grass was pretty, but constantly being torn off by his repeated jumps up to and down from the planter and making a mess in the pool, so I’d had the gardener trim the grass. Earlier, I’d noted how ugly it now was as the grass underneath had turned brown, but upon closer observation, I realized that it was now a treasure trove for birds building nests.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 