Category Archives: Uncategorized

Nightly Visit

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Nightly Visit

Like those of a recluse aunt, both cloistered and suspicious,
her midnight visits to our house have hardly been auspicious.
Under the mask of darkness, she ends her nightly wait.
Inching along the garden wall to circumvent the gate,
far above the threat of jaws and the dog’s wild bark,
she comes for nightly dining in the protective dark.

The cats’ leftover kibble is her nightly fare.
She comes in brief installments, until the bowl is bare.
I hear her loud enjoyment, the bowl’s scrape and the crunching,
intent on my midnight screen, I can’t resist her munching.
I steal across the tile floor, shoeless in my glide.
How can she know I’m coming, sealed as I am, inside?

Furtive, I reach the door and hear her final mastication.
But all I capture when I look is her evacuation.
She cannot hear or see me, a glass door in between,
the whole room dark behind me, yet she remains unseen.
Just one time in the dozens I think that I may
have born witness to her shadow before she slipped away.

In the lamplight’s subtle glow, I thought I saw a tail
and a mounded body obscured my nighttime’s veil.
I snapped an unlit photo and it is it alone
that bears witness to the possum outlined against the stone.
She glides so silently away to some handy location,
waiting for my departure to resume her mastication.

I know that she’s no midnight dream, no figment of delusion.
She’s that shy part of our family who prefers her seclusion.
Within my nightly flood of words she’s a welcome diversion.
I welcome that slight mystery brought on by her incursion.
I don’t hold it against her, this  hide-and-seek revival,
as I pour a bit more kibble out to insure her survival.

Is it only my imagination, or can you, too, make out the mound of her body and a long, slender curled tail in the shadows of this photo—just behind the dish?

dPrompt words today are mask, auspicious, laud and family.

Reuniting with an Old Friend at the School Reunion

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Reuniting with an Old Friend at the School Reunion

You astound me with your gibberish. Where did you learn this stuff?
After just a minute or two, I feel I’ve had enough.

I pride myself on faithfulness, but nonetheless I fear
somehow over all the years you’ve turned a little queer.

I never pegged you for a fool way back in our youth,
yet I think you got shorter on wits as you got long of tooth.

Though friends of long duration are my favorite kind,
somehow I feel that you’re one friend I need to leave behind.

Word prompts today are peg, gibberish, astound and faithful. Image by Janko Ferlic on Unsplash.

 

Marigolds: Flower of the Day, Dec 14, 2020

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The 12 day festival for the Virgin of Guadalupe is finally over. There were LOUD fireworks every day and night, but on the last two nights they went off constantly all night long. Yesterday, only the floral tributes remained. In Mexico, that usually calls for marigolds, and in the churches, roses, as they play a vital role in the story of the appearance of the Virgin.

 

For Cee’s FOTD

Geminid Meteor Shower, Dec 14, 2020

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Is anyone else watching the Geminid Meteor shower tonight? I went out for an hour and twenty minutes and saw 13 meteors. The sky was always clear in patches, although most of it was cloud-covered. I could always see from four to a dozen clear stars and the meteors, which were supposed to all be emanating from the proximity of Gemini, instead all had completely different trajectories. Some were horizontal, some diagonal and some completely vertical in their paths and they seemed to come from different parts of the sky. It is a somewhat chilly night and I was sitting in my short nightgown with a warm top pulled over it, so now that I am in bed, it feels good to have the duvet over my frigid knees and toes. The boy cat is kneading the duvet cover by my shins. If it were the girl cat, she would be lying on my legs or on the space between them, warming me up a bit, but the boy cat lies by my side, extending his claws to pull at the duvet cover. If there were bare flesh exposed, he would not discriminate between the two.

I don’t know how the twenty minutes since I came in passed so quickly, but it is now 2 A.M. and the shower is supposedly at its height now so I suppose I’ll go out again, lean back in the padded metal chair, and get dizzy from bending my neck back to peer up at the sky. Earlier, Forgottenman kept me company via phone, but he has perhaps gone back to his program or to bed. Here I go lonely into the night to see what performance the universe has prepared for me. The count i presently at 13. I’ll give it one more go, but this time I’ll take a blanket along.

Back inside again at 2:40. In 20 minutes, I saw seven definite comets and possibly three others that were so faint that I questioned whether I really saw them or it was my imagination. So in the first hour and twenty minutes, I saw 13 and in the 20 minutes after 2 AM I saw 7. So much for scientific notation. I need to turn on the heated mattress pad to try to get my feet and legs warm. I still have on my warm top over my nightgown. Plans are to sleep in it. Kitty is curled up by my side. I’ve let Forgottenman off companion duty. All’s right with the world.

Cee’s Black and White Challenge: Birds

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For the CBWC Dec 12, 2020 Challenge

Travel Challenge, Day 7

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I was nominated by my friend Konstanze Venus to post one favorite travel picture a day for ten days without explanation, then to nominate someone else to participate. That’s 10 days, 10 travel pictures, and 10 nominations. I may not make it to the end of ten days, but for now I nominate  Marilyn Armstrong . Some people I nominate may be on Facebook and others on blogs. Just post wherever you wish but link to me so I know you have. If you are not interested, no problema.

Nowhere in the rules does it say you can’t guess where the photo was taken and that I can’t agree if you are right, or keep guessing if you aren’t. Or answer any other questions you might ask. It’s just that I can’t publish any explanation in the original post!

Go HERE if you want to see where I go on day 8 of the Travel Challenge.

Yin and Yang

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Yin and Yang

That energetic side of us prompts us to discover
what our lazier side prefers  we just keep under cover.
At different stages of our lives, one part assumes control.
That part keeps us busy, while the other takes the role
of hideaway and hermit—our protection from excesses
of “to do” lists, agendas, calendars and stresses.
So do our two selves partner up to execute a dance.
When one leads, we live safely, with the other, take a chance.
In this way we find a balance between “do” and “be,”
leaving room for “I” within the wider world of “we.”

Word prompts for the day are stage, discover, energetic and protection.

Yesterday and Tomorrow: FOTD Dec 12, 2020

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Yesterday and Tomorrow

 

For Cee’s FOTD

Why We Write

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And looks like I’ve changed my mind about not writing about this.

We write to share that part of us that might not otherwise be shared. The page is like a Fibber Magee and Molly closet where we store all those leftover parts of ourselves. Open the page and everything comes spilling out: organized, disorganized, jovial, sad, rational or irrational. Everything gets crammed into the page. We may not be lionized for it. Our words may be stolen and presented as someone else’s, but the important thing is to write them. Words are like a pressure valve, freeing pent-up emotions. They furnish a release that is somehow part of the solution to the problems they describe. 

A page written by Cervantes.

Prompt words today are write, lionize, share and jovial.

The Legacy of Donald Trump (From The Atlantic)

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Read this excellent summation of Donald Trump’s four years in office HERE.