For Cee’s FOTD
Click on Tump’s Magic Word above to read commentary.
When friend and neighbor Cleo Hengstebeck turned 99 on May 19th, 2020, Mexico as well as most of the world was exercising sheltering-in-place. This did not deter her many friends from staging a drive-by celebration with 35 cars participating. Sadly, she passed away two weeks later on June 4, exactly 6 months after the death of her husband John Wester, who died at the age of 96.
When they married a few years ago, John, already in his nineties admitted he was marrying “an older woman.” When they applied for their marriage license, they were told they were the oldest people to ever apply for a wedding license in the state of Texas and were granted the license without a fee. R.I.P. Cleo and John. You were both well-loved.
Here are a few photos of Cleo and the decorated cars full of friends that drove by her house on her birthday. Click on photos to enlarge.
Posted for Friday Fun Memorials
O Come All Ye Faithful
One who worships fashion puts all her faith in clothes.
Each item of adornment is something that she chose.
She displays it from her earlobes to her well-shod toes,
expressing her devotion everywhere she goes.
Who dares impugn her simple faith? Is it more inane
than a ranting prophet, increasingly insane,
expostulating, raving, posturing and vain—
using his religion primarily for gain?
The artist paints his testament and proudly signs his name
to truth he has depicted on canvas, in a frame.
The truth he finds is holy, he means not to defame
the belief of any other, and he hopes we do the same.
Those who protest the loudest their faith’s the only one,
in worshiping the moon may overlook the sun.
Faith cannot be enforced with a rule book or a gun.
A true faith takes in all the world and seeks to make us one.
Prompts for today are protest, frame, impugn, worship and clothes.
Click on flowers to enlarge.
This is another first blooming of my newest hibiscus–just a baby as you can see by its proximity to the ground. It is just as fertile as the others, as you can see by today’s bloom. I just can’t stop buying hibiscus. My only vice. (?)
For Cee’s FOTD
Guru
So many worship at your shrine you should consider syndication.
You could make a pretty penny if this queue’s an indication
of how many have decided that you are a modern prophet.
I believe you’ve found a sure way to turn prophet into profit.
Is it central to their growth that your followers contribute
all their worldly goods for their guru to distribute?
We’ve listened to your bark, so now we’re ready for your bite—
that you need a bigger mansion to bolster your insight.
If only you had taught your hordes to look through their own eyes,
they might see their Messiah as a shyster in disguise.
Prompt words today are: bark, central, worship, decide and indication. Photo by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash. Used with permission.
I decided I liked this plant with all its warts exposed. These ladies grow in profusion from large round black seeds hard enough to go through wood that were once used successfully as shot when troops ran out of ammunition. The next year the battlefield was covered in India Shot Lilies, thus giving them their name. What nature does with what we do to it…amazing. (Also called edible cannas.)
For Cee’s FOTD
Rain
Gives an excuse
for that bright orange umbrella
and yellow overshoes
toppled over in the hall closet,
yet it is nighttime and I am old.
I lie under blankets on the sofa,
content with its comforting
rat-a-tat
on the plastic skylight
overhead.
It is a friend knocking
insistently,
calling me out to play.
Six years old,
Imprisoned by summer,
we were given occasionally
the refreshing release
of a hard summer rain.
Bare feet splashing,
we raced dry leaf boats
manned by our imaginations
through the caves of culverts,
down to those ultimate puddles
magnificent in their magnitude.
Sixty years later,
I am caught up in the currents
of that sudden rush downwards
and backwards to
a plastic umbrella
abandoned on the sidewalk
as we opened like flowers.
Rain
hides tears.
Forces growth.
Cleans up our messes
and provides glorious new ones.
Washes away today
and grows tomorrow.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 