Please click on these to enlarge.
Does this seem excessive? Believe me, I tried to cull out as many photos as possible. This is just a third of what I shot. None of the color has been augmented. The only changes I made were in cropping and sharpening. Glorious. All were shot from my house or garden.
This doesn’t quite capture the beauty of the sunset tonight, but it comes close. Amazing. Click to enlarge the photo.
The corpse of another day lay spread across the horizon. A jet stream cut through gossamer clouds stained with its blood. If only those old men who made the decisions were teachable, she would bring them out here and show them this. Then any fool could see what they were putting more at risk every day. This beautiful, rare world. These unique sunsets. She bent to retrieve yet another piece of plastic—this time a brightly colored molded toy. They were playing with the world, and it was a tough game, she thought, as she tossed it into her collection bag.Â
The prompt words today are jet, corpse, gossamer and teachable. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/03/25/rdp-monday-jet/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/03/25/fowc-with-fandango-corpse/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/03/25/your-daily-word-prompt-gossamer-march-25-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/03/25/teachable/
jdb photos, 2018. To enlarge all photos, click on any one.
The prompt today is above.
jdbphoto 2/18
The sun has burned the day away
and set the sea on fire
turning a glowing pathway
into a funeral pyre.
She, too, has left her day behind,
shed like a soiled dress.
What tomorrow holds for her
She has no need to guess.
A quadrille on the prompt “burn” for dVerse Poets.
I put my new guitar to good use by loaning it out. These four strummed out the sun and to my great delight, their repertoire included “Snowin’ on Raton,” by Townes Van Zandt—my request as it is one of my all-time favorite songs.
The sunset was once again outstanding. This time I made no alterations to any of the photos other than some slight sharpenings and a few croppings of the musicians.
This was a very good day, starting with meeting Patricia for coffee and to discuss possibly setting up a group home where friends could join us for support during our codger years, then home to write, a nap in the hammock, a few gin games with Tess, an hour swim and exercise in the ocean, chats with the sunset advisory board and convincing the musicians in the crowd to give us a few tunes. My harmony was working, as were my percussive additions via various objects rapped against other objects.
More talk with Patricia and Daniel concerning constructing a beach bar out of the thousands of cobalt Corralejo bottles Daniel has collected over the years thanks to the nightly sunset tequila consultations on the beach in front of his home/business. Plans are being made as I type this..or will be soon. Patricia is in charge of nagging.
Following are way too many photos of the sunset and musical accompaniment. If you see which I should cut, I will take it under advisement. I have already trimmed down to fewer than half of what I took.
You know you can enlarge these by clicking on them, right?
Beat this sky, if you can!! One of the best of countless fabulous sunsets in La Manzanilla.
(Click on photos to enlarge.)
                       Sunset Rating Society of La Manzanilla, Beach Bar Chapter.
World I Cannot Hold Thee
The dolphin tail of the wing cuts into the orange sky.
Brilliant deep orange fades to gold with dark islands of clouds
rising like trees above pale blue, medium blue, dark blue fading to black.
A thumbnail moon,
one star bright like a planet just far enough above the horizon
to be set in the darkest shade of blue.
Scenes like this break my heart. I don’t know what to do with them.
I’ve moved to the window seat now,
unable to resist that first flash of orange revealed over the shoulder
of the man who now sits in front of me––
that vivid sunset with no one looking at it
such a waste, yet now here I am, watching yet still wasting it.
I used to feel like this holding my sister’s child––
tiny newborn baby, so beautiful, so in my power.
I wanted to hug him tighter to hold on to this––
to do something to express this feeling
that I knew was vanishing even as it happened.
Yet this fading sunset now flares more brightly than before
as we keep catching up with it, flying west.
It may be that the dolphin wings, jets protruding like fins,
will swim for hours into the orange sea with all of us,
kin inside of her, waiting to be born.
Sleep. Read. Move to the bathrooms and back again
shepherding children––small brown sheep and black sheep,
eyes like berries turned toward windows reflecting back fire.
I want to run to the cockpit to feel orange wrapped around me,
cannot get enough of these colors, want to paint something significant––
colors like vivid embers against ashes, firey colors bleeding into blue
like fire staying alive as it bleeds into ocean and then into deeper ocean.
All of these things that are––what are they for?
Their purpose lost as soon as light has faded into darkness
through that incredible palette that means nothing, but is everything
above us all and under us and in us swelling us,
reminding us to hug the world tighter.
Squeeze life into it or out of it.
Hold it closer, needing no meaning except
being of it, with it, in it, having it in us.
“Oh world I cannot hold thee close enough!”
Understanding that.
The prompt word today is miraculous.
Everyone keeps asking if the earthquake and hurricane had any effect on our weather here. Â I can’t notice that it has, other than a week of rain during earlier hurricanes and tropical storms last week, but this sunset two nights ago is perhaps the result, somehow, of bad weather farther away. I have not augmented the colors. They were really this brilliant!!! These photos were taken over a 15 to 20 minute time period from my deck.
(Click on photos to enlarge.)
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 