Click on photos to enlarge and see details.
The bottom six photos were all taken of clouds. Taken by me from a plane flying between Guadalajara and Houston on July 2, 2021.
For Tourmaline’s Color Your World White Prompt
For Cee’s FOTD
Well-Armed
Folks who are idolatrous
have deified the octopus.
The Durga of the watery world,
with her many arms unfurled,
when she suffers from upheaval,
she turns dangerous and evil.
Don’t underrate this ocean creature—
a lethal underwater feature.
Rankled, she exacts revenge,
her disturbed leisure to avenge,
for warfare is the medium
with which she relieves tedium.
A predator from dawn to dawn,
I could write an essay on
the sustenance she preys upon.
First they’re there and then they’re gone,
turned into impromptu feast
by this many-suckered beast.
This queen of the underworld
is lethal with her arms unfurled,
so if perchance you come upon her,
do not think that you can con her.
For if you try, I have a hunch
you might become her choice for lunch.
Durga is a fierce warrior goddess. She is depicted in Hindu art as riding on a lion or a tiger. She has many arms and is always brandishing a variety of weapons.
Prompt words today are octopus, essay, upheaval, rankle and medium. Image by Serena Repice Lentini on Unsplash.
Fourth of July
The sky’s effervescent with bubbles of fire
rising ferociously higher and higher.
With a new surprise every minute or so,
where are the cowering animals to go?
The dogs bark their distress and squirrels in their trees
burrow down deeper into the debris
of nut shells and pine needles, avoiding the grief
of loud explosions, seeking relief.
Meanwhile, on the borders between land and skies,
children look on with wide saucer eyes,
waiting for each pyrotechnic surprise,
ooohing and ahhing as rockets arise.
The patterns they make as they rise ever higher
are finery formed from gunpowder and fire.
Their beauty paid for by distress to the ears,
first from the explosions and then from the cheers.
Forget the poor animals. Have your loud fun,
but my days of fireworks I fear are now done.
Snap me some photos and send me a card.—
I’m spending the Fourth right here in my backyard.
Wordle Prompt Words: fire, poor, surprise, rising, card, finery, sky, form, , effervescent, border, ferocious.
For theJuly 4, 2021 Wordle Prompt.
Update Fatigue
I’m frenetically trying to dance to the beat,
determined that I don’t become obsolete.
I try not to repeat the historical me,
but I fear I’m as modern as I’m going to be.
This deluge of new things to learn and to do—
updates to look up and new settings to view—
leaves me no time for just simply living,
for petting the cat and for chatting and giving.
There’s no app for real life and so I’m less queasier,
finding my off-line life to be much easier.
Rules don’t change in a confusing whirr.
Positions don’t shift. Things remain where they were.
I’m simply not fit for the internet crew.
Too often I’m swamped over what I must do
to keep up with the changes and so I’m retiring.
All my accounts are slowly expiring.
Amazon, Facebook, WordPress and Skype
I’ll leave to the more agile changeable type
of online explorer who likes daily derangements,
frequent repositionings and rearrangements.
I’ll sit here on my porch that remains where it was
with my laptop unopened simply because
without viruses, hackers and updates and spam,
I can just rest and remain who I am!
So my instant updatesI think I’ll turn off.
imbue view queue cue do dew few hue Jew knew loo moo mew new pew rue sue too view woo eschew sue two too to view whew woo you zoo
Word prompts today are deluge, repeat,frenetic, obsolete and plea.
For Cee’s FOTD
For Cee’s FOTD
Upon Running into a Former Best Friend
Don’t give me cause to regret our reunion.
Don’t bring back to mind our former disunion.
Don’t lament my profession or cuss at my kids—
those actions that once put us into the skids—
dissolving our friendship and our former ties
when I’d had enough of your conniving lies.
Don’t inveigle or bemoan your lack of a pension.
Past times I’ve come through I won’t bother to mention.
And if you’ve a reaction and want to explode,
do me a favor. Take it on the road!!!
Prompt words today are inveigle, lament, reunion, cussed and reaction.
Looking Out, Looking In
I feel that Stuart’s decision to spend the afternoon with us is symbolic of his final acceptance of me after all these years. He’s been married to my friend Sarah for twenty-five years, helped raise her sons after their father’s death, but has always been suspicious of me. We have, however, spent the afternoon trading quips and now he is trying to show us the stars.
Sarah’s messing with the connection between the Smart TV and Stuart’s computer may serve to disunite their long union. He is frantically trying to undo whatever she has done so he can show us his video of the Grand Design Spiral Galaxy as well as a number of globular clusters .
Once he succeeds in showing it to us, our reactions to this amazing display are varied. He explains that the globular cluster comprised of hundreds of thousands of stars that is attached to our universe is perhaps the core of an old galaxy.
The present day galaxies he shows us are designated by a capital M followed by a number. Our reactions to this amazing display are varied. One of the galaxies looks like fireworks to my friend’s oldest son. I think M3 looks like the venation on a leaf and the other son sees M5 as a flower with the stem cut off. In the middle of M51 there is probably a black hole, Stuart tells us.
“Where does something go when it vanishes into a black hole?” I ask. “Matter can’t be created or destroyed, right?” That’s not especially true, says Stuart, who as a scientist is not accustomed to our level of ignorance about the workings of the Universe.
Nonetheless, he is patient in his attempts to show us the wider world, and this visit, I have begged him for a second nighttime viewing. The first time he showed me the world of our universe in his high powered telescope, I was amazed, feeling as thought I had perhaps had a new religious experience. As it is without, so it is within, I thought. Is there a black hole at our center? Is it going to swallow us? We are like two opposite ends of the spectrum, Stuart looking out and me looking within, each of us with a spot to fill that is suddenly a speck in a complex world.
Words of the day: venation, symbolic, frantic, disunite and reaction.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 