A few weeks ago, I published a photo of my pistachio tree in bloom. I’m sure you’re all on the edge of your seats wondering how those nuts are doing and if the birds have eaten them all, so snapped this photo from the hammock yesterday. Now, what other minute detail of my life would you like to know about?
All News is Not Bad News
Would each person who reads this please post one kindness that one of your neighbors or even a stranger has done for you in this time of great national and world pain and link it to comments on this post? I have had three neighbors call me and say that they were going to Costco and Walmart and offer to shop for me. My housekeeper’s son came at 9 o’clock at night after getting off work to replace the battery in my car and then called the next day to see if there was anything else he could do. Next, please. Let’s show each other that we are not our president and that we are keeping caring and decency alive in the world by our actions.
Two years ago, when the cats knocked over both of the huge precolumbian replica statues my husband and I bought to go on our entrance pedestals the day we bought our house 19 years ago, I decided to turn them into planters. The male has ferns planted in him and the female these moss roses. They decided to bloom for Easter. Happy Easter, everyone.
For Cee’s FOTD
Easter Hunts
My toy cannon muffled by an egg stuffed in its snout.
Easter grass and sugar eggs hidden inside and out.
My parents’ Easter soirees were things of grand design.
The pink nests were sister’s and the yellow ones were mine.
One disappeared behind the mirror, one behind father’s chair.
At the end, still one nest to be found, I knew not where.
Suckers, Peeps and sugar eggs, jelly beans and gummies—
sought out and stuffed in Easter baskets, then stuffed in our tummies.
My folks went to such bother, whereas I must say in truth,
If I’d been asked, I’d rather have just had a Baby Ruth!
Prompt words this Easter Sunday are truth, soiree, disappear, cannon and mirror. (You didn’t make it east this time, folks!)
With Workmen Here
The cats have flown, I know not where.
They’ve chosen to remain aloof.
They don’t await me on the stair.
The cats have flown, I know not where.
Not one to steal my favorite chair.
I do not hear them on the roof.
The cats have flown, I know not where.
They’ve chosen to remain aloof.
The NaPoWriMo prompt today was to write a triolet. A triolet is an eight-line poem. All the lines are in iambic tetrameter (for a total of eight syllables per line), and the first, fourth, and seventh lines are identical, as are the second and final lines. This means that the poem begins and ends with the same couplet. Beyond this, there is a tight rhyme scheme (helped along by the repetition of lines) ABaAabAB.
Holding Back the Moon
Standby. I think I love you, though I’m not completely certain.
But when I see the ship of moon through my bedroom curtain,
then watch it disappear as the sky takes up its space,
as though its crew has moved it to another time and place,
I hope that you can moor yourself and stay your bullish pride
while you wait for my decision. Please stem restlessness. Abide.
Prompt words today are standby, moon, disappear, crew and pride.
Click on flowers to enlarge photos.
Every Flower
Who dares to press a flower to one meaning?
When one is in love, every flower is full of passion.
When love dies, each flower listens to your grief.
They pick up your thoughts by some telepathy,
soak up meaning through the air,
are watered by your grief or joy.
Hope, regrets, solitude?
Flowers do not signify.
Flowers only serve as balm.
Any flower head in a baby’s fist, held out to her mother.
Hibiscus petals strewn across a reunion table,
rose petals on a marriage bed.
When I die, do not look for the me in the roses
blanketing my grave or the bougainvillea
fallen to the ground in which I lie.
Look for me in the blue thunbergia,
hearty and profuse and growing ever upward,
insisting on being seen. Me, here! Me.
To read another poem on the significance of flowers and memory, go HERE.
TheNaPoWriMo prompt today is to write a poem about the meaning of flowers.
Also, for Cee’s FOTD.
Memory Management
I’ve finally calculated the amount my head can hold—
sorted, classified and filed, folded, stacked or rolled.
It’s just enough to get me by and leave room there for me.
If you want to learn some more, you’ve got to leave space free.
Don’t jump to the conclusion I don’t prioritize.
One’s got to be selective in what they memorize.
Keep the best stuff handy in your mental cache.
Put some stuff on a higher shelf and throw away the trash.
Heads do not get bigger like hips and waists and ears,
so if you are forgetting things, let me calm your fears.
It’s nature’s way of making room for more important thought.
Emphasizing what we are, erasing what we’re not.
Prompts for today are finally, head, jump, cache and amount.
