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.

Open Hand

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Open Hand

Wings held lightly without crushing
survive to join the world’s wild rushing,
while love held by a tight-clenched fist
quells half our reason to exist.

Some laud passions most rapacious—
grasping, volatile, tenacious;
but this is not the love I feel.
I do not seek to swoon or reel.

The tenacity of a skin tight glove
might stay my soaring to heights above.
I need your love like an open hand.
Not for me the wedding band.

The bond I seek from you, my dear,
is not the gauntlet that I fear
but rather, fingers whose sensations
are left free to life’s elations.

Butterflies kept in a jar
lose that beauty seen from afar.
That grace of movement caught on air
is what makes their beauty rare.

I love it when your arms enfold,
but if you love me, loose your hold.
The measure of my tenacity
is that I’ll come back to thee.

jdbphoto

The prompt word today was tenacious.

Banana Blossom Detail: Flower of the Day, Apr 8, 2017

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I love this detail of a banana tree bloom.

 

For Cee’s Flower of the Day Challenge

The Wheel: NaPoWriMo Repetition Poem, WP Daily Prompt

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jdbphoto

The (Wh)eel

We sail through life on an even keel,
solving every small ordeal
until one day, it turns surreal
as death slides in like a slippery eel,
our place in nature to firmly seal,
our invulnerability to steal.

It’s true these thoughts were never real,
but still, we feel what we must feel.
In youth, our lives are stainless steel,
Our pains are solved, our wounds all heal.
Then death slips in like a slippery eel—
gives no second chances. Does not deal.

A carnival barker with his spiel,
death lures us with unfettered zeal,
to spin us on the ferris wheel—
all our accomplishments to peel
and all our woe and all our weal
to cast from us, reel after reel.

On a ride that nothing can repeal,
it’s our turn to be nature’s meal.
The surreal now becomes the real,
and we join the universe’s wheel.
The organs keen, the bells all peal
as death slides in like a slippery eel.

 

jdbphoto

The WP Prompt today is “heal,” and the NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a poem that depends on repetition.

Flower of the Day: Another Audacious Heliconia

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There are so many varieties of Heliconia and some of them are often confused with Birds of Paradise, but each of the flowers in this photo, other than the red ginger, is a heliconia. From my friend’s garden in La Manzanilla, Mexico.

For Cee’s daily flower prompt.

NaPoWriMo 2017, Day 7 and WP Daily Prompt: Outlier

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Outlier

Born to privilege, propelled to fame.
Everybody knew her name.
Medals and trophies filled her shelves.
Her friends regretted they were themselves,
not wanting to be who they were,
wanting to be just like her—
noted for her style and grace—
slim of figure, fair of face.

Yet all her silver, all her gold
could not dispel the biting cold
of her mother’s distant smile.
She could not purchase or beguile
or win that thing that she most wanted.
With craving it, her dreams were haunted.
The lack of it cut like a knife.
She could not win her father’s wife.

 

For NaPoWriMo, the prompt today is to write a poem about luck or fortune. For WordPress, it is “outlier.”

Party House Doors: Thursday Doors, Apr 6, 2017

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When the traffic cone lights are lit, it is party time in this house!
Click to enlarge photos.

For Norm’s Thursday Doors prompt.

Heliconia, Flower of the Day, Apr 6, 2017

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Love this more fragile red variety of heliconia in my friend’s garden in La Manz.  Home now where the jacarandas are in full bloom and I’m sneezing and hearing, sort of, through blocked ears.  They are beautiful, though.  Other than that, nice to be home.

https://ceenphotography.com/2017/04/05/flower-of-the-day-april-6-2017-helibore/

There’s No Denying Nature, Daily Post Apr 6 and NaPoWriMo Day 5

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There’s No Denying Nature

There’s no denying nature, it surrounds us one and all.
Each time the palm tree shudders and its blossoms start to fall,
they cloak the water of my pool and cover every stone
that paves my outer terrace as though they must atone

for some ill that must be covered up, some sin they’re meant to hide.
It cannot be I who have erred, for I am safe inside.
Yet who am I, denying these early April showers?
I come to float upon my back, surrounded by the flowers.

Though they might create problems with the pool drain and the filter,
throwing all our man-made systems more or less off-kilter,
yet each year I must admit I suffer a few qualms
as I call the men to come and trim the refuse from the palms.

There’s no denying nature, be it human or a tree.
Each day as I look up at them, they, too, look down on me.
They see my foibles and excesses—the errors I have sown
And like forgiving neighbors, cloak my messes with their own.

 

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The WordPress prompt today is “denial.” I’m also combining it with the NaPoWriMo prompt for April 4.  That prompt is: a slice of the natural world that you have personally experienced and optimally, one that you have experienced often.

NaPoWriMo 2017, Day 6 Capital Punishment

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Capital Punishment

She fancies herself a raconteur while others find her boring.
Just when they should be laughing, too often they are snoring.

The topics that she chooses are usually wrong,
and the details she finds scintillating just strung out too long.

When she speaks in public, the chairs empty out fast.
Even sell-out audiences simply do not last.

She could have done much better if she’d studied elocution,
As it is, her listeners vote for electrocution.

 

Prompt: write a poem that looks at the same thing from various points of view. http://www.napowrimo.net/day-six-5/

NaPoWriMo Day 4, 2017: Number 9 Blues

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Number 9 Blues

Those eyes,
that song,
a bird the color
of the moon
we met under.

The wind
a ribbon of sadness.
Cold hands,
broken heart—
all the hue
of a trumpet’s lonely staccato.

http://www.napowrimo.net/day-four-5/ The prompt was to write an enigma poem.  Every line in this poem has something in common. Up to you to make the connection.