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For Bushboy’s Last on the Card
Sunny Day, Starry Night, For Last on the Card, April 30, 2025
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Category Archives: Night
Moon Tricks, for Last on the Card, Apr 1, 2025
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These are the last 4 shots on my phone, taken standing in my pool a bit before midnight on March 31, trying to capture the crisp crescent moon, which was all I could see with the naked eye. Unfortunately, my camera insisted on capturing a fuzzy full moon partially in shadow. My first April 1 trick, a few minutes early.
For Last on the Card.
Monochrome Nightscapes
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These photos were taken just prior to our first good night of rain. The arty shots were created with Luna.
Nightfall, June 8, 2024, 7:35 to 8:54 for Cellpic Sunday
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For Cellpic Sunday
These photos were all taken from my patio and pool between the hours of 7:35 and 8:54 on Saturday, June 8, 2024. I couldn’t resist including the one where the moon looks like it is sitting on the electric pole.
Night Sky from 10:30 to Midnight on July 31, 2023
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I was in the pool taking these for 1 1/2 hours. Amazing skies. San Juan Cosala, Jalisco, Mexico.
For Bushboy’s Last on the Card.
These are the very last photos I took in July, ending precisely at midnight. Sorry, Brian, I couldn’t separate them. They want to stay together, so you get them all.
Sub-tropical Skies: Open Book
Open Book
Here beneath the Tropic of Cancer,
the sky is a book opened to the wrong pages.
The Big and Little Dippers?
Pages ripped from the spine.
Orion a well-thumbed page,
held directly overhead like a book
read lying on my back.
And is it fact or fantasy
that once I saw the Southern Cross
stretched on its back
near the horizon
to the south?
Floating half-asleep with mists
of water hot from the volcano
rising around me,
was it a dream or real,
those four twinkling stars
seen just once before that night our boat
slipped over the equator?
Then, as now,
all time seems wedded—
afloat in a universe
of stars and water—
tiny no-see-ums
forming their own active constellations
as they whirl up over the water
and back down in clusters.
Wee moving
stars.
HALLOW E’EN
The Prompt: Trick or Trick—It’s Halloween, & you just ran out of candy. If the neighborhood kids (or anyone else, really) were to truly scare you, what trick would they have to subject you to?
They pound upon my door and wait outside my wall.
One climbs a tree to peer within. I hope he doesn’t fall.
I cower here within my house. Perhaps they’ll go away.
Though I am not religious, eventually I pray.
Their little voices raise a pitch. They start to bay and howl.
There’s a flutter in my heart region, a clutching in my bowel.
I purchased Reese’s Pieces and miniature Kit Kats
just for all these masked and costumed little brats.
My motives were unselfish. The candy was for them,
for I don’t eat much candy in efforts to grow slim.
And yet that bag of Reese’s, those small Kit Kats and such
called to me from where they were sequestered in my hutch.
It started with a whisper, hissing out their wish:
“We would look so pretty laid out on a dish!”
I knew that they were evil. I knew it was a trap.
I tried hard to resist them, my hands clenched in my lap.
I turned up my computer, listening to “The Voice.”
Those candy bars would not be seen till Halloween—my choice!
My willpower was solid. No candy ruled me.
(If that were true, no kids would now be climbing up my tree.)
Yes, it is true I weakened. I listened to their nags.
I took the candy from the shelf and opened up the bags.
Their wrappers looked so pretty put out for display
in one big bowl so colorful, lying this-a-way
and that-a-way, all mixed and jumbled up together.
No danger of their melting in this cooler weather.
I put them on the table, then put them on a shelf,
so I would not be tempted to have one for myself.
When people came to visit, I put them by my bed.
Lest they misunderstand and eat them all instead.
Then when I was sleeping, one tumbled off the top.
I heard it landing with a rustle and a little “plop.”
I opened up one eye and saw it lying there
just one inch from where I lay, tangled in my hair.
Its wrapper was so pretty—foiled and multi-hued.
Some evil force took over as I opened it and chewed!
This started a small avalanche of wrappers on the floor
as I ripped & stuffed & chewed & swallowed more & more & more!
This story is not pretty but has to be confessed.
My only explanation is that I was possessed.
They pound upon my door and wait outside my wall,
but I have no candy for them. No treat for them at all.
Surrounded by the wrappers, bare bowl upon my lap,
I think I’ll just ignore them and take a little nap.
I hear them spilling o’er my wall and dropping down inside.
I try to think of what to do. Consider suicide.
They’re coming in to get me. Beating down my door.
They are intent on blood-letting—the Devil’s evil spore.
I guess it’s not the worst death a gal could ever get.
I’ve heard of much worse endings than death by chocolate!
Nighttime: Dia de los Muertos
This week’s photo theme for WordPress was “Nighttime,” but it was too hard to pick one of the many night scenes I was considering, so instead I chose a series of shots from last year’s Dia de los Muertos in Patzcuaro. Dancing, graveside ceremonies, refreshments and general revelry go on all night long. Our boat broke down half way to the island and so we had an especially long night of it as men opened the bottom of the boat to try to free the fishing nets that had been securely wound around the propellers.
Away
Written in the morning, long before the day
sneaks in like an intruder, intent to have its say,
words born in the nighttime flower on their own,
bursting into bloom as soon as seeds are sown.
Truth is there behind us before it ever shows—
in words before they’re spoken, in wind before it blows.
Once recognized, I free these words to flow over the world—
off on their own to have a life wherever they’re unfurled.
Sent swiftly to their different spheres to live a life apart
from one who followed after, like a horse without its cart—
I like to set my words loose to canter on their own,
to feed upon wild grass that also roots where it has blown.
The Prompt: After an especially long and exhausting drive or flight, a grueling week at work, or a mind-numbing exam period — what’s the one thing you do to feel human again?
Laughter Schmafter
I used to roll with laughter most every day or so.
My parties were all riotous. No one would ever go
back home again till two or three or four or five or six.
And some would stay for breakfast, prerhaps hoping that I ‘d fix
my special chocolate waffles or orange berry strudels
or curried eggs or cheesy pie or strata made with noodles.
We’d story-tell and play charades and I admit, we’d drink
and stage our paper yacht races within the kitchen sink.
The guests might come in costume and some might bring a friend
for I had grown notorious for parties with no end.
When I was a teacher, I’d invite the whole darn staff.
Away from school, our hearts were gay. We dearly loved to laugh!
But this was years ago, my friend. Our hearts were young and gay.
Now that we’ve lived past sixty, we live a shorter day.
When I have my friends over to play a game or dine,
some find the spices don’t agree and others shun the wine.
Some have little dogs at home they have to feed by five.
Others have eye problems and find they cannot drive
after dark at all and so they have to leave by seven.
I guess our laughter’s done on earth. Perhaps we’ll laugh in heaven.
Daily Prompt: Roaring Laughter—What was the last thing that gave you a real, authentic, tearful, hearty belly laugh? Why was it so funny?
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 