This little green anthurium plant has been blooming for 14 months since Brad and Dave gave it to me for Xmas last year. When I got home, three of the flowers had turned yellow. I trimmed off the brown edges and repurposed them!
For Cee’s FOTD prompt.
jdb photos: Click on photos to enlarge.
I should have balked when I saw that the manicurist had put crown of thorns blossoms into the soak water for my manicure, but instead I decided she must know what she was doing. Yes, I let her soak my hands and only when I got home and developed the sores on my hand that still haven’t healed weeks later, did I make use of Google to reaffirm what I already knew—that crown of thorns sap is poisonous and possibly lethal when ingested by animals, caustic to eyes and skin. I’m sure she just added it because it was pretty, but its effects are not.
For Cee’s FOTD prompt.
Thanks to Martha Kennedy for identifying this flower. Click image to enlarge.
For FOTD
For Cee’s FOTD prompt.
Midnight Tryst at the Horticultural Society Ball
In spite of our earlier indecision, when our eyes met in passing on the dance floor, they sealed the tacit agreement that we would slip into the garden at the set hour. Later, we would try but fail to furnish an adequate excuse to our spouses of the reason for our mutual midnight escape. Even our shots of the night-blooming cereus could not adequately explain our defection. It was as though we carried the scent of our desire-—as heady as the scent of that rare flower-—back to the hall with us. A universal blanket of dispraise settled over the crowd, in spite of the excitement over our viewing of the rare bloom. Everyone knew. Our mutual fate was sealed.
The prompt words for today are garden, tacit, dispraise and desire. I also made use of Cee’s FOTD flower prompt.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/19/rdp-tuesday-garden/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/19/fowc-with-fandango-tacit/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/19/your-daily-word-prompt-dispraise-february-19-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/19/desire/
https://ceenphotography.com/2019/02/18/fotd-february-18-2019-crocus-2/
February 13
This morning, upon waking,
I kissed my pillow and imagined it was you.
There was no sadness in the act.
It was a simple act of adulation.
If there had been a real person here,
I would wish that it were you,
but I’m content here in my solitude—
writing tributes to past lovers—
a bit puffier (me, not you)
than even that last time we met,
when I waken, joints are stiffer.
The cat more crabby in demands for food.
I wouldn’t say time marches on.
It turns its pages, shifts its screens.
The world, more innovative since the Internet,
spins us a new tale second by second.
Vicariously, we speed through life.
Other people’s lives become our own.
We feed ourselves and perform daily functions,
our minds in one world and our bodies in another.
In that manner,
one thing substitutes for the other.
Over and over, like shuffled cards.
This reality and that one.
Tomorrow the busy street outside my bedroom window
will be full of vendors: hearts and flowers
marking half the world’s celebration
of romantic love.
Upon awakening, I kiss my pillow—
not a conscious act. Not one I will repeat.
A simpler act and one unplanned
to remind myself, perhaps, what’s in my heart.
Click on photos to enlarge.
The prompt words today are innovative, tribute, adulation and puffy.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/13/rdp-wednesday-innovative/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/13/fowc-with-fandango-tribute/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/13/your-daily-word-prompt-adulation-february-13-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/13/puffy/
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 