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.

Moonshadowed

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Moonshadows

The rising moon between the hills gives nothing away,
but is a mute observer of the ending of the day.

Shadows moving through the grass eventually lie
quiet as the full moon ascends higher in the sky.

Then night birds weave a lullaby from their bill and croon
as broken clouds join shoulders to pass before the moon.

Space seems to reach its arms out and throw time away
as all of eternity comes to hold its sway.

We take a small vacation to join it in our dreams,
stitched into eternity within creation’s seams.

 

For the Sunday Swirl Wordle 572 the prompt words are: moon between throw time give nothing rising lull space broken mute shadow

Driven

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Driven

If only we had been more patient
when our child’s skills were nascent.
Hadn’t prodded, hadn’t shoved,
that young one we so dearly loved,
had not created goals irrational
local, regional and national,
vying for ribbons and for gold,
pushing for numbers over-bold.

If we had stressed an education,
built a stabler foundation,
put less zhuzh into her clothes
and more of it in what she knows,
the cyberbullies who mocked her fall
would have had no power at all,
to instigate the wounded pride
that led her to her suicide.
But as it is, it was our sin
that did our lovely daughter in.

 

Prompt words are ribbon, zhuzh, numbers, nascent,foundation,cyberbullying and irrational. Image by Kirklai on Unsplash.

The Floral Alphabet Challenge: The Letter “S.” Oct. 2, 2022

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Sedum
Shaving Brush Tree
Shrimp Plant
Society Garlic
Starfish Cactus
Statis
Stork’s Bill
Strawflower
Sunflower

Click on flowers for a larger view.

If you want to post your own “S” flowers, please post your link below in comments as well as in Cee’s FOTD.

Purplish

6 Replies
Yellow and Purple
Purple Seas
of purple blooms with saffron tongues
Purple Sweater
mauve, purple, blue
\
Tiny Purplish Invader
Purple Mountains’ Majesty
Purple Blush
Purple moon
Bruised Heart
Purple Thunbergia
Just an Accent of Purple completes the Palette
Purpleish
Purple Orchid

Click on Photos to Enlarge.

For Sue G and GC”s prompt: https://weeklyprompts.com/2022/10/01/weekly-prompts-colour-challenge-purplish/

Last on the Card, September, 2022

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For Bushboy’s Last on the Card Challenge, Sept, 2022

Culinary Differences (Coping with an Artistic Palate)

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Culinary Differences
(Coping with an Artistic Palate)

I’ll admit that I’m perplexed
for my spouse is sorely vexed
because he finds my menus bland
and untouched by artistic hand.

He finds my soup so pale and thin, it
needs a bit of color in it,
so I asked him how to do
more pleasing palettes for my stew.

He painted me a portrait of
a consommé he said he’d love
with so many veggies in it
and a ruby wine to thin it.

He’d like to wrap his mouth around
colors that are more profound.
to the point where I’m perplexed
over what I should cook next.

My color combination tends
towards browns and whites of various blends. 
Might I aspire to red and yellow,
with pickled beets in lemon Jell-o?

He says my taste in food is static
whereas his is more erratic.
But, tired of his bitch and moan,
perhaps I’ll let him cook his own.

Alternate ending:  (don’t read this one, Sam)

He suggests a novel dish
of tomato aspic around fish?
The thought of it makes my lips pucker.
Perhaps I’ll just divorce the -ucker!!!

 

Prompts today are red and yellow, pickle, perplexed, aspire, mouth, portrait and erratic. All of the images are from Unsplash.

Wallpaper for Flashback Friday, Sept. 30, 2022

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When Fandango asked us to reblog a blog from the past, I had over 9,000 to choose from, and for some reason I chose this one.

For Fandango’s Flashback Friday, we are to repost a blog from the past.

lifelessons's avatarlifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown

DSC09880

Wallpaper

Clinging to the wall
like an old wallpaper scrap
are the words
I want you, I want you, I want you, I want you.

Their refrain slides up and down
the musical scale—
an old country tune,
plaintive and clear.

Why do I want you?

The first time I met you,
there was something about the curl of your hair.
Your eyes, so familiar­—puzzled, as though
you, too, were trying to remember.

After that, it was
the set of your shoulders—
the arm stretched between your seat and mine
with your hand on the back of my seat.

All of your restraint an aphrodesiac.

The truth is
that I pined
for two days after I left,
then went on with my life.

Still, that scrap
of wanting
comes up early in the morning
as I waken

and my mind walks,
looking for someone to pin it to,
and every…

View original post 10 more words

Floral Alphabet Challenge, The Letter “R” Oct. 1, 2022

19 Replies
Rudebeckia

 

 

 

Please post a link to your R’s both below in comments and in Cee’s FOTD

Detente in the Animal Kingdom

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Detente in the Animal Kingdom

The queen of hippopatamuses feels a bit perplexed
for she crossed the hyenas and now she has been hexed.
They’ve jinxed her favorite swimming hole so she has to swim
in a muddy tiny pond with crocs around the rim.

When she lumbers from the pond to have her usual binge
on grass, her favorite supper, she feels a little twinge.
It seems like in the puddle where she most recently sat,
waddling through the bottom mud, dragging all her fat,

she must have nudged a bit too close to a crocodile
and snagged a bit of hippo fat on his croco-smile.
He’s swinging there behind her, his tooth hooked on her tush,
creating  a great disarray while crashing through the bush.

With her competing waddle, they’re an ecological threat,
destroying all the underbrush as they thrash and vet.
How will they resolve this problem that they cause?
First it’s necessary that they cool down and pause

to make peace with the hyenas so they can use their claws
to disentangle hippo skin from the croc’s sharp jaws,
thus restoring order and reinstating peace
so all this inter-species angst finally will cease!!!

Prompt words today are jinx, swing, perplexed,disarray, compete, twinge and hippopatamus. Image by J. Anders on Unsplash.

Floral Alphabet Challenge, The Letter “Q,” Sept 30, 2022

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Queen Anne’s Lace is bound to be the favorite this challenge.  Please link your photos both here in comments  and to Cee’s FOTD