Couldn’t crop out the bird on the telephone pole. This glorious autumn tree was spied on the road between Sheridan, Wyoming and Billings Montana.
Sunday Trees 311, Oct 29, 2017
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Author Archives: lifelessons
Bird of Paradise: Flower of the Day, Oct 29, 2017
This closeup was actually taken months ago in Mexico, but couldn’t resist using it as it goes so well with Cee’s flower of the day.
You can’t beat this combination of orange and purple.
You must see Cee’s flower HERE.
CFFC Challenge: The Letter “J”
Judith
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week directs us to post a photo of something beginning with the letter “J” that contains at least six letters. Believe it or not, it took me a good ten minutes to come up with such a word! I was about to resort to the dictionary when I spied this photo on my desktop. I had used it just a few days ago, but earlier, when I went to put it away, my eyes fell on the purse and I started to wonder what I would have carried in a purse when I was three years old. It seemed like a good subject for a poem, so I left the photo there to remind me to try to do so after I did Cee’s “Fun Foto” post. It didn’t occur to me for a long time, that since my name is Judith and it was a photo of me, that I could do both at the same time.
Church Purse
What does a three-year-old put in a purse she takes to church?
Held primly on her lap as legs swing freely from their perch.
Feet dangling from the pew above the varnished floorboards where
fifty years of townsfolk have walked enroute to prayer.
Small straw purse grasped tightly in two nail-bitten fists,
too little for a lipstick or store receipts or lists.
If perhaps the sermon stretches on too long,
what can she find inside this purse that she has brought along?
Black plastic strap she’s twisted securely ‘round a finger—
once she has unwound it, how long will the marks linger
pressed into her chubby flesh, like four little rings
she surveys as she unsnaps her purse to view her “things?”
A single piece of Juicy Fruit in case she gets a cough.
A snap bead and a single bud that happened to fall off
the rosebush of that big house as she ran ahead to linger
on their way to church and squeezed it with her finger
(and perhaps her thumbnail) until it finally snapped.
She’d peel off its petals later as she napped.
She knew she shouldn’t do this. They’d told her this before,
but her parents walked so slowly, and those naps were such a bore.
God may have seen even the smallest sparrow fall,
but were single rosebuds seen by him at all?
That lady they belonged to was so bossy and so haughty
that she provoked the saintliest children to be naughty!
A single plastic wrapped-up toy she worries to and fro
from her last night’s Cracker Jacks bought before the show.
She softly rustles cellophane between her restless fingers,
then sniffs them to determine if the caramel smell still lingers.
Mama gently elbows her to say she should desist––
fluttering her hand a bit, loosely from the wrist.
She looks for things much quieter in her little purse.
Her snap pistol is noisier. This marble would be worse,
dropped upon the church floor where it would roll away.
If she caused such a ruckus, what would the preacher say?
Something at the bottom feels so round and sticky.
Probably a Lifesaver gone all soft and icky.
A little lace-edged hanky that Grandma tatted for her.
She said that she would show her how, but she’s sure it would bore her.
A folded piece of paper. Crayons––one blue, one red.
If the sermon goes too long, she can color instead.
Mama will not mind and neither will her Dad.
Sister will be embarrassed, but she cares not a tad.
Later on her Daddy’s eyes will start to close,
but she’s sure her mom will nudge him before he starts to doze.
That’s why she is sitting right there in the middle
to correct his snoozes and her daughter’s every fiddle.
Sister is so perfect she needs no reprimand,
so she sits on the outside, removed from Mama’s hand.
After the sermon’s over, the collection plate
passes here before her, certain of its fate.
She’ll unsnap the little purse and reach down far inside it
to try to find the quarter where she chose to hide it
stuck in her silly putty in a little ball.
Now she wonders whether she can remove it all.
The people farther down the pew look in her direction
to try to see the cause of the collection plate’s deflection,
so her quarter is surrendered to join the coins and bills
piled there around it in green and silver hills.
It is the only quarter blanketed in blue.
It is a nice addition, this unexpected hue.
Sister looks disgusted, but her parents do not see,
That quarter cannot be traced back to her now, luckily.
Church will soon be ended with a prayer and song,
and when the music starts up, she will gladly sing along.
She still dreads church but she gives thanks, for it could be worse.
She could be forced to live through it without her Sunday purse!
Blasts from the Past: Past Preferences
I foud a number of posts from the past five years that were about preferences, but chose to share these with you:
Rum Dumb
Beer is tacky. Wine’s a joke.
My preference is Rum and Coke.
Squeeze a lime in. Take a sip
to cool your throat and wet your lip.
My favorite form of inebriation
is always Cuba Libre-ation.\
Lick for Lick
Ice cream is my weakness—my favorite sort of sweet.
A flavor that I don’t adore is one I’ve yet to meet.
Mandarin orange or licorice, tequila or dill pickle?
I am not true to any of them, for I fear I’m fickle.
When choosing ice cream flavors, it’s impossible to pick.
I simply am incapable of choosing which to lick.
And so I’d like a flavor that has a bit of each:
chocolate and vanilla and a little touch of peach,
strawberry and mango and lime and toffee crunch—
why choose just one flavor when you can have a bunch?
Throw some tangerine in and some pineapple sorbet.
Licorice and banana? Who am I to say nay?
This flavor would be popular with those who cannot choose
whether they prefer the flavor of pickles, fruit or booze.
Though some of you may scoff at it and laugh in your derision,
the name of my new flavor? I call it “Indecision.”
How I (Don’t) Lay Me Down to Sleep
At 2 AM, when others sleep,
computer solitaire I keep
in front of me on lap or chest,
for part of me decrees it best
to put off sleep an hour or so.
That precious time I often blow
on playing Spider Solitaire.
At my computer screen I stare,
moving little clubs or hearts
here and there in fits and starts,
trying to beat my own best time,
this silly game becomes sublime.
I know not why I love it well—
and so I cannot really tell
why I prefer it over all.
Deluxe Free Cell can be a ball,
In fact, I play it hours on hours
trying to deplete those towers
of mismatched cards, quickly I bring
them from below, from Ace to King.
Card by card, I pile them high—
my laptop balanced on my thigh—
until the cards become hypnotic,
my moving of them now Quixotic.
Too sleepy to beat my own time,
my need for rest becomes sublime.
Then sleep fills up my empty cup
till seven or eight, when I wake up
to spill night’s cards clear of my screen
so this day’s daily prompt is seen.
And this is how I start my day.
This time, it’s words I choose to play!
The prompt word today was: prefer.
Large Leaf Jade Plant Buds: Flower of the Day, Oct 28, 2017
Well Rounded
Autumn Pastels: Flower of the Day, Oct 27, 2017
JNW’s Halloween Prompt: Werewolf
Well, I know this is a photo prompt, but I can’t resist posting this poem as well. Just too appropriate to pass up:
The Moon Is Full and Waiting
The moon is full and waiting, but the night is full of chill,
though my true love expects me over yonder hill.
His ardent calls invite me to join him for the night,
and yet I dread the cold cold wind and the night air’s bite.
If I were only twenty I’d have no choice to make,
but I have guests arriving and sweet bites yet to bake.
My true love lies waiting over yonder hill,
but he’ll return another night. I’m confident he will,
for he has no other to overlook his flaws:
the roughness of his ardor, the power of his jaws.
His embrace often bruises, though this isn’t his intent.
In the excess of his ardor, only tenderness is meant.
The warm cave of our meeting still carves out yonder hill,
yet tonight I may not join him, and perhaps I never will.
Tomorrow night the full moon will partially be spent.
and tonight as time fills up the moon, I vow to not relent.
Perhaps I’ll find another closer to my kind,
though an equal to his passion I’m unlikely to find.
A mild wind blows the clouds away to clear the shrouded moon.
My guests will be arriving. I know it will be soon.
I stir in leavening powder. I stir in heavy cream.
Across the hand I stir with falls the moon’s broad beam.
I drop the spoon and go again to open up the door.
I hear the gentle song of wind, my lover’s beckoning roar.
I answer with a beat of blood. A spasm in my thigh
invites me to be climbing over distant hill and high.
The crumbs fall from my fingers as I run into the night.
I do not feel the bruising stones or the wind’s cold bite.
My lover calls me onward, and once again I go.
For when the full moon calls me, not once have I said no.
Jennifer’s Halloween prompt today is werewolf.
You Can Have All the Oranges
You Can Have All the Oranges
Pink’s been reserved for babies. Black and blue are much abused.
You need only look at nature to see green’s been overused.
You would not like the fuchsia, it is gaudy and distracting.
And yellow’s like an ingenue who’s been caught overacting.
White’s not really there at all and scarlet is too flashy.
Tan can be depressing. Gold lamé is simply trashy.
Silver strands among the gold by some are found distressing.
Flesh a color that’s best seen only while undressing.
Gray is simply nondescript. It looks like white that’s dirty,
and day-glo colors best reserved for people under thirty.
Deep purple is too moody and mauve is also glum,
as are other purples like heather, puce and plum.
Taupe’s a mousy color—too boring to be worn,
and gold they’re holding in reserve for bankers (and for corn.)
But you can have the oranges from tangerine to peach—
all the tints and shades and tones that are within your reach.
Pluck oranges from the color tree a dozen at a time.
I’ve no use for a color that has no words that rhyme.
This silly poem came about as a result of a family story much-told. When my mother and father made a trip to Appalachia, they were waiting at a train station and saw a woman with a number of children. One little boy was especially fussy and kept pulling at a lumpy and heavy-looking bag that his mother was carrying in the arm that wasn’t holding the baby. The train was pulling into the station and that little boy was balking and holding up their progress toward the train platform when the mother called out to him in a harried voice, “You can have all the ahr-anges you wants when you git on the train!” It has been a much-used family saying ever since, especially useful when someone is holding up the act!
My ending line actually came about as I was trying to find a word to rhyme with orange and realized there weren’t any. I believe it is somewhat famous for this fact. Well, that and the sunset!
And koolkosherkitchen brought this other “orange” poem from two years ago to my attention as well: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2015/03/22/hue-bris/
The prompt word today was orange.
Lush Night (Erasure Poem for dVerse Poets)
Lush Night
That delicious
middle
of the gravel road.
Safe sun coming up.
The first time
pleasures
of a night owl—
finding time
everyone else was wasting
on dreams.
An aficionado of night
ever since.
Poems written
in the dark
while cities slept.
Time for yourself
with magic happening.
Ever afterwards,
you have survived
on as little sleep as possible.
Party years,
dancing and drinking until three,
then breakfast with the single crowd
and driving straight to school at six.
Invulnerable.
Even married,
sneaking out of bed
to your basement studio
all night long,
back to bed before he awakened,
feeling that little terror,
like a vampire caught by light.
At 54, with no more husband,
above ground,
no longer hidden,
watching light go out
as you sat piecing art—
until suddenly,
impossibly,
light after light went on again
so you were going to bed
as your neighbor was arising
to start his day.
Romance at 62
entered your midnight afterworld.
Serenaded by a night-addicted lover bard,
Skype your love letters
and your trysting spot.
Night that intimate invisible union
through the magic
which now joins you
in that single space
within you
you keep separate
from the world.
At night,
you know exactly
what it is you want
and live it
with no world
to lead you elsewhere.
This poem was written to a prompt by dVerse Poets. The idea is to take a found poem and to erase parts to create a new poem. I used my own poem, Lush Night. This is what it looked like before the erasures:
Lush Night
Remember that delicious
walking, arms linked,
down the middle
of the gravel road
in your pajamas
at five in the morning
when you were twelve?
That first slumber party
in your safe small town
when you all stayed up all night
for the first time in your lives?
That eerie first sight
of the sun coming up
when your head had never hit a pillow
since it went down?
And then you knew for the first time
the pleasures
of being a night owl—
of finding time
that everyone else was wasting
through dreams.
And you have been
an aficionado of night
ever since.
All of your term papers
and exams studied for
at the last minute,
all night long.
Books written, poems written
mostly in the dark
while towns and cities around you slept.
That power of having all of your time for yourself
with not a chance of phones ringing.
Some magic happening
once you had the world to yourself
so ever afterwards
you have survived
on as little sleep as possible.
During your party years,
dancing and drinking till three,
then going for breakfast with the single crowd
and driving straight to school at six.
You were invulnerable.
Even married,
sneaking out of bed once he’d fallen asleep
and working in your basement studio all night long,
sometimes sneaking back to bed before he awakened,
at other times caught.
“It’s nine in the morning! Have you been up all night again?”
Feeling that little terror, like a vampire caught by light.
Then at 54, with no more husband,
no more job necessary,
with a new country and a new studio
above ground,
guilty pleasures no longer needed to be hidden—
watching light after light go out
as you sat piecing art together
in your studio—until suddenly,
impossibly,
light after light went on again
so you were going to bed
as your neighbor was arising
to start his day.
Then, improbably, at 62, internet romance
entered your midnight-and-after world.
Every night serenaded to sleep
from 1500 miles away
by an equally night-addicted lover bard
at two or three or four a.m.—
or whenever pillow talk led to it.
Skype became your love letters
and your trysting spot
now and then all day long;
but still, night better swaddled
that intimate invisible union
through the dark air
that has always been magic for you,
but which now joins instead of
sending you into the single space
where you unite with that within you
which you keep separate from the world.
At night, united or alone,
you know exactly what it is you want
and live it,
with no world
to lead you elsewhere.
