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.

Forgotten for MVB

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Forgotten Dreams

All night long I follow scripts written by some hand
perhaps belonging to a self that consciousness has banned.
Fresh from dreams, I feel released from tasks committed to
as I remember other jobs that I’m obliged to do.
Who knows if dreams are showing us those things we could have done—
those things we have forgotten with the dawning of the sun.
If only I remembered that world that fades away,
perhaps I’d face a very different sort of day.
Instead, I slip into the role my life has led me to,
like forcing naked feet into a more confining shoe.

 I wonder if these dreams were brought to light if they’d show more
of potential lives where I live closer to my core.
Perhaps these stories I concoct, labelling them as lore,
are simply other lives I live on a lower floor.
When I descend into my dreams, maybe I go to ponder
all those other me’s whose gifts I have chosen to squander.
Could it be in death that I’m released to find a goal
in the bargain basement of the building of my soul—
to find another path where I may once more start a quest
towards a self just one step closer to my very best?

 

For MVB Blog prompt: Forgotten.

If I Were. . . for NaPoWriMo 2024, day 18

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If I Were Water and You Were Air

I used to be restless water—
only the froth and currents
of a moving life.

Now I am still water,
sinking down to where
I can be found
by anyone willing to stand quietly
and look.

Is it true that moving water never freezes?
Is it true that still waters run deep?
Is it true that we are wed in steam?

“What if, caught by air,
it never lets me go?” I ask.

“But even water
turned to air
must fall at last,” you say.

“And what if I fall farther from you?”
I say. “Or what if I never again find banks
that open to contain me?”

I used to be swift flowing water.
Now I am a pool that sinks me deeper every year.
So deep, so deep I sink
that on its way to find me,
even air may lose its way.

 

For NaPoWiMo 2024, Day 18

Beholding Beauty, for dVerse Poets, Apr 17, 2024

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Click on Photos to Enlarge.

 

Beholding Beauty

You are more beautiful than you think you are,
but we don’t tell you because
it is such a pleasure to see you unaware of it,
doing everyday things in such graceful ways.

You are the Burmese cat, stepping high
over the small sculptures
on the wall where he is fed,
his tail curving into a delicate hook.

You are vibrating leaves on the hibiscus tree
adding the contrast of green
to the one exquisite yellow bloom
with its fuchsia sunset middle.

You are a child whose violet eyes
open wider to each wonder––innocent,
never knowing yourself to be more beautiful
than what you observe.

You are music, harmonious, played
on the spur-of-the-moment with no rehearsal,
fingerpaints on the wall in an incredibly wild pattern
that could not have been planned.

You are the gourmet meal
made of leftovers from the fridge,
the wonderful costume gathered
from hangers at the thrift store.

You have a beauty
you were not born to––
one that is an amalgam
of every choice you make in life.

Beauty is in the eye
of the beholder, many say,
but it is impossible to imagine
a beholder who couldn’t see it in you.

 

I hope this follows the prompt for dVerse Poets–Poem of Address.

To see more poems written to this prompt, go HERE.

For Cee: A Non-Floral Offering for Non-FOTD

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Here is an offering non-floral for Cee, suffering from the pollen in all those flowers!!! I share your pain. The Jacaranda and Primavera trees are in full-bloom here. Achoo!!!)

“Make Your Own Kind of Music” For NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 17

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This is actually a true story. When I was at the beach a few years ago, I had a house right on the beach and it got so I never knew who I would find on my porch when I woke up in the morning. In the end, they set a number of my poems to music and recorded them.

Make Your Own Kind of Music

One and  two and three and four.
Four little music makers pounding on my door.
One beats a rhythm, one toots a horn––
wild and sweet––sort of forlorn.
One hums a tune behind his teeth––
a sort of descant underneath
the melody on the steel guitar.
The gulls reel in from near and far
to add their screams to the refrain,
then fan their wings, silent again.

Four musicians at my gate.
I wait for their music to abate.
Then I go and let them in
to add my music to the din.
I sing my lyrics fast and slow
first soft then loud, my lyrics go
up and over the drums and horn–
out into the sandy morn.
Over the rocks and out to sea,
setting all our music free.

When the drummer leaves my porch,
he leaves just three to loft the torch.
Too soon the horn, too, fades away
but the hummer’s here to stay,
and the steel guitar swells out to fill
the morning air until until
the morning fades into full sun
and our melody comes done.

Soon guitar and singer fade,
their morning share of music made,
and I fold my songs away.
I’ll bring them out some other day.
With music left behind I wind
only words around my mind.
They weave their spell with me along.
I lose myself in their noisy throng.
Wander aimless, round and round,
in getting lost, this poem is found.

For NaPoWriMo 2024, day 17.
Thanks, Mama Cass, for making your own kind of music!! Go here to hear her:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mraLsg-G4wA

Plumeria Branch, For FOTD, Apr 16, 2024

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For Cee’s FOTD

Interlopers, For NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 16

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Interlopers

The little dog sleeps nestled.
No elbow room, even though
just two of us in this big bed.
A truck’s roar  from the road
a mile away. Last night’s near
partiers now gone to bed, but
at 5 AM, the strains of music
from below, Sounds lifting up the mountains
like clouds to float above my bed.
For 15 years, I surrendered
my side of the bed to you.
23 years after, I still
sleep on
the

                                                   other side.

For NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 16

Plumeria for Cee’s FOTD Apr 15, 2024

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For Cee’s FOTD

DNA for NaPoWriMo Apr 15, 2024

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DNA

A piece of you came enclosed in your letter.
Not your heart but still a part of you,
concealed as usual,
this time between the envelope and stamp—
trapped forever as the rest of you departs,
taking all of you except
for that remainder—one last kiss of tongue
before you sealed the stamp upon the envelope.

For NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 15

The Numbers Game #17, Apr 15, 2024

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Click on Photos to Enlarge.

Welcome to “The Numbers Game #17”  Today’s number is 138. To play along, go to your photos file and type that number into the search bar. Then post a selection of the photos you find under that number and include a link to your blog in my Numbers Game blog of the day. If instead of numbers, you have changed the identifiers of all your photos into words, pick a word or words to use instead, and show us a variety of photos that contain that word in the title.

This prompt will repeat each  Monday with a new number. If you want to play along, please put a link to your blog in comments below.