Author Archives: lifelessons

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About lifelessons

My blog, which started out to be about overcoming grief, quickly grew into a blog about celebrating life. I post daily: poems, photographs, essays or stories. I've lived in countries all around the globe but have finally come to rest in Mexico, where I've lived since 2001. My books may be found on Amazon in Kindle and print format, my art in local Ajijic galleries. Hope to see you at my blog.

“Liberty” for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 659

Liberty

Birds find an opening in clouds to cross a languid sky,
their shadows sparking hope as I trace them with an eye
searching for some method, be it holy or black magic,
to dispel the shadows of an outcome I find tragic.

One waiting in the shadows by the font of holy water,
advances, clear in his intent to wed my father’s daughter.
Clear in my resolution that I will not have it so,
I ‘m resolute my troth to him would birth a life of woe.

As he greets me at the altar, I turn my foot to run
down that selfsame aisle, out into the streaming sun.
Let my father wed him if he’s so set in his plan
to bring into his family this workhorse of a man

so like himself that I well know that he would likely smother
all my dreams, just like my father did to my sweet mother.
In the woods there waits for me one other who can see
all those other selves I have it in my dreams to be.

Fleet of foot, I shed my heels and speed in my advance
ahead of those pursuers who would choose to foil my chance
of living my own life in the manner I would choose.
Thus fueled by my determination that I will not lose,

I speed into the forest where my lover waits,
my final summation to a lifetime of debates
about who rules my life expressed in action as I reach
to mount my waiting stallion and make off toward the beach

where his boat is waiting for my true love and me
to set out for our lives across a welcoming sea—
a new land for us both where we can come to be
whatever we might choose in a land of liberty.

Note: I’ve been waiting for 6 years to find an opportunity to use this photo I took from my porch at the beach in La Manzanilla.  Finally!

Words for The Sunday Whirl  Wordle 659 are: spark languid opening magic hope cross clear cloud holy birds 

@notebookmusical

no thoughts, just @Joy 🌞 performing #mydays from NotebookMusical. you’re welcome 💙 #joywoods #TheNotebook #notebookbroadway #ingridmichaelson #mydayscover

♬ original sound – The Notebook Tour

Behind the Action, for Lens Artists Challenge

Click on photos to enlarge.

For Lens Artists Challenge: Behind

Backgrounds add so much to a photo, either by contrast or by adding to the story. Sometimes just by their very blankness, they emphasize the main object. A vivid color may make the foreground object stand out. A pale color may direct ones eye to the object or person being presented.  The background may be an interesting pattern or something going on that builds the mood or plot of the photo. A friend says some of these photos do not belong. If you agree, let me know which ones. It is my feeling that each has an object or being in the foreground, some being farther in the foreground than others. And in all cases, I feel there is an aspect of the background that meets  the before-mentioned criteria.

No Skin, For dVerse Poets, June 15, 2024: Fragment Poem

No Skin

As it grows hotter year by year,
then month by month,
we hide in our caves for protection,
for there is no skin to our world.
The aqua sky?
Gone, my friends,
Replaced by  fire.
The mountains are obscured by fire,
obscured again by smoke that still, alas,
is not a skin.
No skin.  No.  No skin left for our world.
No skin.
Our water boils in its pipes. No cool succor there.
We are all caught in the too-long day
That  fades into inevitable night.
We lie awake,
our minds throbbing to music from the drum of the moon
that leads us into dreams
where we forget the large lie and remember, finally, that
the sins of the heart are not just theater
but reflect the sins of mankind,
who for purses of gold
have sold our world.
Now we all cook in the pan of their greed,
the protective skin of our world
sold off year by year
for yachts and palaces that share
the same vanished sky of the houses
where we cower for protection from that once-benevolent sun
under which in the past we spread ourselves to receive those rays
now turned lethal in this skinless world.

 

For this dVerse Poets prompt, we were to write a new poem that included 13 lines from a famous poem or one of our own old unpublished poems. I based my poem on  these fragments from a poem I wrote years ago entitled “Evil World Scenario.”

No skin there.
The aqua sky?
Gone, my friends,
Replaced by  fire.
No skin.  No.  No skin left for our world.
No skin.
We are all caught in the too-long day
That  fades into inevitable night.
We lie awake,
Our minds throbbing to music from the drum of the moon
That leads us into dreams–
Where we forget the large lie and remember, finally, that
The sins of the heart are just theater.

 

To read other poems written to this prompt, go HERE.

Canna Lily: FOTD June 15

Thanks, Rita!!!

For Cee’s FOTD

Echeveria Blooms: FOTD June 14, 2024

 

For Cee’s FOTD

June 15 is the last day to download your Free E Book!!

My friend Laurie Devine has just published her bestselling hardcover book Nile as an e book and as a special promotion, is offering it free to download on Amazon Kindle for two more days. Directions are below.
Go here to download an Amazon Kindle version of Laurie’s book: https://www.amazon.com/Nile-Laurie-Devine-ebook/dp/B0D6PPG7L8/

See more information on this and Laurie’s other books using the above link.

For Fibbing Friday, June 14, 2024

This week’s  Fibbing Friday puzzlers are:

1. What is a nincompoop? A bathroom pass for a Ninja.
2. What is a Tory?  What your mommy tells you at bedtime.
3. What is a gonk?  A cross between a geek, a dork and a nerd.
4. What is a pom-pom? A rhymed poem that consists of two stanzas with no “e”s in them.
5. What is a hanging basket? The basket they carry the rope in on the way to a lynching.
6. What is micropore? One of the tiny holes in the mouthpiece of a microphone.
7. What is a posy? A barely audible release of the breath.
8. What is a barometer? Police slang for a  breathalyzer.
9. What is a cable?  A mini taxi.
10. What is a fib? A misspelled federal crime detection agency.

Natural Pastels

 

FOR SUNDAY STILLS: PASTELS IN THE GREAT OUTDORS

Four Threes–For Thursday Trios

For Thursday Trios

Polka Dot Addendum for RDP Wednesday

In this morning’s post, I mentioned a polka dot prom dress my oldest sister wore and that my middle sister wore as a costume for her birthday costume party the year she turned 13. She is the last one on the right in the first photo. She even has a dance card tied to her wrist! I just found a picture of her in it as well as a picture I’d forgotten of me in a polka dot prom dress as well!  Except I think I was just dressing up in my sister’s because although it was four years later, I was just 13 years old as well.  That said, here is my polka dot addendum.

Click on photos to enlarge.

RDP Wednesday – POLKA DOTS