HAPPY INTERNATIONAL CAT DAY!!!!!
Please click on photos to enlarge.
I love this bronze sculpture of a cat looking into a mirror which is one of dozens along the streets and in the parks in Sheridan, Wyoming. This one is on the corner near the cinema.
For Cee’s Photographing Public Art Challenge
And, it seems like this would be appropriate for Travel With Intent’s “Reflections” prompt, as well.
My sister calls this flower Mexican Hat and although it is very different from other Mexican Hat flowers online, I did find one photo that identified it as such. I think someone will have an opinion about whether is is correctly identified or not. I’m open to suggestion. I think they look like Black Eyed Susans!
For Cee’s FOTD
Knackless
Whether you have talent is a subject that is moot.
So far you’ve written nothing that has won you much repute.
All the latent talent that you’ve meant to expose
has turned out to be nothing but the emperor’s new clothes.
Your instruction manuals have ended up intractable,
and all the plays you’ve written have turned out to be unactable
All your readers joke that instead of a word user
you’ve proven repeatedly that you’re a word abuser.
Nature’s Tithe
Cold drafts inspired carpet and swift winds gave birth to walls.
Thus, human folk keep warm and dry in their shopping malls.
A transcript of the weather might reflect our evolution.
Good turns to bad and bad to good with each revolution
of a world that seems to extract her scheduled tithe.
Nine days in ten we celebrate. The other day we writhe.
And yet we find solutions to all of her disaster.
Trials affecting change to make development go faster.
Prompts for today are inspired carpet, transcript, keeping, tithe and affect.
Advice to Self and Others
If your writing is inciting
civil discord and inviting
calls to action
by reaction
of one faction
or another, become a brother
by listening to one another.
Try a blend
of words that mend.
Work upon a pending rending
of ill thoughts you’ve been extending.
Try to start a happy ending.
Choose a task that takes you higher.
Shed your mask and bend your ire.
Anger’s such a bitter pill
that words can poison, bite and kill.
Still your vitriol and follow
kinder thoughts into that hollow
where the gentle grass is waving,
where we go to still our raving,
heeding nature’s gentle call
to save ourselves before our fall.
Here to raise the cup of peace.
That fragile glass that brings surcease.
And by that small sip that you sample,
you can be the good example
that draws another to slake their thirst
and start the journey to best from worst.
Oops.. nearly missed last week’s Wordle prompts. Here they are: writing, civil, bend, pill, mask, follow, glass, still, call, save, blend, sample.
Putting the Bucks in Starbucks
First they grind the beans and last they add the foam
to create the very coffee that you could have at home.
Countless cups thrown in the trash adding to the glut
of paper cups collected from every coffee hut.
How can I articulate the excess that I find it?
How prudent is this mania when you could simply grind it
and put it in a cup you save to use again tomorrow
to save a tree and save a planet reeling from the sorrow
of all the disposables thrown daily in the trash
in a world that’s populated by the blindly rash?
Every time you buy a cup of fad-inflated joe,
remember where the cup it’s in will ultimately go.
Then think about the money that you’re using up
simply by your refusal to brew your daily cup.
If you don’t believe me, read the facts below
before you leave for Starbucks to have a cup of joe!
“Depending on where you live and how you prefer to take your hot caffeine water, if you’re buying coffee, you’re spending between $1 and $5 per cup. Meanwhile, brewing a cup of coffee at home costs you between 16 and 18 cents per cup.”
The average cost of a cup of coffee purchased at Starbucks is $3.15 and, while $3.15 a day may not seem like much, what if I told you that cup really costs $13? Read on: https://avgjoefinance.com/surprising-amount-starbucks-costs/
Prompt words today are grind, foam, articulate, prudent, trash.
Flower boxes and hanging planters along Main Street are filled with flowers, including these moss roses.
For Cee’s FOTD
After reading Dwight Roth’s ekphrastic poem on Vincent Van Gogh, I had to consider it as a challenge. I wrote this poem over 25 years ago. Couldn’t resist publishing it as an answer to his.
Mulberry
Vincent, who scratched your sky
And put tormented souls into your tree?
Who pushed white waterfalls
From gray granite
and ran white water purple down to these words,
etched into a marker by the stream.
Vincent, who scratched your sky
And fired the dying branches of your tree?
Who carved white steps
From living hillside?
What figure yellow-robed ascends
To cast a scribbled shadow down to green?
Vincent, who scratched your sky
and set the worm to work your tortured tree?
Who hid the bad boy
In the brush,
Then set his white soul down
To weather on the gravestone of a frozen dream?
For dVerse Poets
Entente
In recrimination’s marathon, we must forge an accord
to cease our constant bickering and pass the drinking gourd.
Sustain our forgiveness and forget ills of the past.
To pass around the platter and share a fine repast.
So many ills done to each other but to stem the scarlet flow
of blood we’ve spilled for ages, we must find that place to go
where brother meets with brother in spite of faith or creed.
We must put away our prejudice and put away our greed.
What we share in common must supplant our differences.
We must concentrate on styles that take us over fences.
With all of our advances in technology and mind,
surely we can find a way to unite humankind.
Prompt words for the day are accord, scarlet, sustain, forgiveness and marathon.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 