Day 1 of The Virgin of Guadalupe Festival
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Thunbergia, FOTD Dec. 1, 2020
This little Thunbergia vine is not growing out of the pot but rather into it from below. It has wandered all over my front and back gardens, then dies back and has to be untangled from the rest of the plants. It is fun to see where it is going to wander off to next. It somehow got from the front yard to the back without my help and with no clear pathway, as the house is in-between and paved with a stone terrace all the way around it.. One of nature’s grand mysteries. This fast-growing little plant is also called clockvine or black-eyed-susan.
The Course
The Course
All life falls
putrid
to the
forest floor,
or to
stream
bottom,
weighted down
by stones
rolled by the current,
daily farther
down.
Thus is life
flushed
from one form
to another,
feeding the earth
or worms
or trees
or insects,
burrowing through
the richness
of decay.
Crucial,
no matter
how we fight it.
Botox and fine needles
cannot stop it,
only cushion
its footsteps.
As we are
pursued
like all life,
around the course
we can
veer
off of
but never
escape.
Pomegranate Cluster: FOTD Nov 29, 2020
These pomegranates are actually still on the tree, surrounded by a dried Thunbergia vine nest.
For Cee’s FOTD
Red-Tailed Hawk
Red-Tailed Hawk
Through the air high up above the graceful soarer weaves,
his shadow cast against the wall and stones and grass and leaves.
Without a modicum of sound, he drifts and circles ’round.
If those below detect him, it will not be by sound.
He seems to simply levitate, on wings lacking in motion,
betraying not one sign of his means of locomotion.
Below small dirt volcanoes betray presence of prey.
Small denizens of tunnels emerge from them each day.
Opting for the light after so many hours below,
darting back to safety when a human comes to mow,
they steal the seed corn, sheer the roots, consume the tender shoots.
As often as the mounds are pressed flat by heavy boots,
the next day there’s another to take each burrow’s place.
Always another obstacle for opponents to face.
What act is fair for man to take in thinning nature’s riches?
What will I do to rid my lot of undersurface ditches?
The neighbors mount a protest, asking for an end
to creatures that usurp their space, and still I do not bend.
But here there is a creature who merely by its will
has the means to swiftly dip and fall upon its kill.
When the Red-Tailed Hawk dips low, watching from above,
I shudder as the claws surround the vole’s form like a glove.
Wings flapping for the lift-off, caught in sun’s early ray,
the bird with prey in claw now lifts and opts to fly away.
Their shadow soars onto my lawn over the wall between,
the prey it’s holding as it lifts too tiny to be seen.
Nature will deal with nature. It needs no intervening.
It is a way that our world has to deal with its own gleaning.
Image from Unsplash. Prompt words today are weaves, modicum, opt, blame and levitate.
Hummers at Sunset
Click on photos to enlarge.
The deck of my next door neighbors is a favorite hangout for hummingbirds. Near sunset is an especially busy time. These photos were taken on Thanksgiving when three lucky guests were invited to partake in David and Sergio’s feast. More photos of that event to follow.
We were to show photographs of something containing the letters R & S For Cee’s Midweek Madness Prompt
Testing Fido
Testing Fido
This test is good in ascertaining
if your dog recalls his training
and, further, it is meant to see
the extent of his fidelity.
In a fire or in a quake,
what action is he bound to take?
Will he quiver, cower and shake,
lose his head and run or quake
or will adrenalin make him faster
to locate and to save his master?
I do not wish to amplify
where your canine’s faults might lie,
but in times of peril he must
justify his master’s trust.
Just leave a burger in a pan
to start a fire if you can.
Feign sleep and see if he reacts
by waking you or if he acts
in his own interest first, and eats
the burger before he retreats
to give you ample time and warning
to view the damage before morning!
Will frenzy beat out appetite?
Or will Fido choose to bite
the burger, and the hand that feeds him,
forsaking the one who needs him?
I know this is a horrible poem, but for once the prompts defeated me. I was going to junk it, but will post it as testimony to the fact I tried. Sort of. Prompt words today were ascertain, fidelity, amplify and frenzy.
Talking Turkey
Talking Turkey
I’d rather be footloose, I’d rather be free.
No more will I languish on any man’s knee.
I’ll eat all of my gravy and none of my peas,
get up and retire whenever I please.
I’ll retrieve no one’s underwear off of the floor.
When I use the potty, I won’t shut the door.
I won’t cover my mouth when I burp or I sneeze.
I’ll open the window to enjoy the breeze
or shut my house up as tight as a drum,
eat all the cookies to the last crumb.
I’ll dine for a month on my Turkey Day turkey.
I’ll be selfish and weird and eccentric and quirky.
For as much as I love human interactions,
living alone has its own satisfactions.
Prompt words today are: human, gravy, retrieve and footloose.
Pile of Kittens
I just can’t resist adding a pile of kittens to balance the adorable video of the pile of puppies I just posted. Here they are, Kukla, Fran, Ollie and Roo, days after they all climbed up the bougainvillea vine and over the wall, into my heart. I came into the guest bathroom that they had claimed as their own and found them all piled up on the lid of the kitty litter pail. What’s a mom to do other than grabbing a camera? 
Southern Cross for dVerse Poets
Southern Cross
Spread low on the horizon,
stars stretched on a rack of sky.
Star-crossed lovers that we were,
standing sternward at midnight,
sea spray whispering our names,
sleep sacrificed for starlight,
secure in each other’s grasp.
For dVerse Poets: Pleiades Poem.
Dversepoets.com We are to write a Pleiades Poem. 1 word title, 7 lines, each 7 syllables beginning with the first letter of the title. Photo by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash, used with permission.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 