These was a gathering at the house my across-the-street neighbors who have their house up for sale. Soon after, the coronavirus scare hit and I’ve only seen them at shouting distance since, except for yesterday when they delivered groceries. Sweet guys. Everyone was so photogenic that I had to share.
Stick with this one to the end!
Go here to read how Coronavirus might have been stopped before it became a pandemic:
https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-u-axed-cdc-expert-202454983.html?.tsrc=notification-brknews
I spotted this bloom peeking over the wall. I planted it so long ago on the outside of my wall that I can’t remember what it is, but I appreciated its visit.
For Cee’s FOTD
This is a gentle and wonderful reflection on the world dilemma we are all sharing at the moment written by a long-time blogging friend in Switzerland. I had to share it with you. I think you’ll be glad you read it.
There is a lot to think about lately. Our main parts have been detached, and so we must reorganise our thought process. That is not easy when you are a golden oldie and have worked all your life until the day when you are retired and the others do the work. We are left with […]
via FOWC with Fandango: Contemplate — Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss
Image by fusion medical animation. Amazing that something so beautiful
could cause such devastation. As beautiful mankind has, as well.
The Big Lesson
Though isolation is the pits, illness is much worse,
so I must think of things to do while dealing with this curse.
I’m drinking lots of water, blowing hot air up my nose,
disinfecting doorknobs, washing all my clothes.
I have to pass on going out on dinner dates with friends
and make do with freezer food until this virus ends.
I clean out all my cupboards, dig into dusty files
and sort my poems from years ago neatly into piles.
I cancelled out on reading poems at our bi-monthly gathering.
Instead, I overhaul old poems and set about the lathering
of all suspected surfaces: computer, hands and phone.
(The cats both head out for the door, thinking “Leave us alone!”)
I spend all the time with me I used to spend with friends.
When I run out of toilet paper, stock up on Depends.
I eat lots of veggies, wear gloves to read my mail.
Read Facebook obsessively for each new detail
of what they tell us that we must and we must not do
to increase the odds that we will not catch this flu.
This virus has us isolated—true without a doubt,
so I guess I’ll look within since I can’t look without.
I’ll think about past lovers, then drag old albums out
to try to find more memories for me to think about.
While contemplating doomsday and plotting out our ends,
we might as well survey our lives and think about old friends.
Forget that crazy orange fool who tweets and issues orders
concerning odds and planes and ships and hands and gloves and borders.
Go back to where we should have been, listening to sager folks
with science degrees and doctorates who are not human jokes.
And when the world’s restored to order, when walking past Trump Tower,
try to remember and take heed that nature has the power!
Give her due respect. Mind the oceans and the bees.
Stop fracking and pollution. Earth’s not there for you to seize.
Protect other species, for everything’s connected.
We are not meant to seize and own each thing we have selected.
If nature turns against us, it’s written in the plan.
When creating the natural world, the last thing made was man.
So less depends upon him in the natural way of things.
The world can do without the reordering he brings.
Already wild animals are taking over towns
as a single virus topples presidents and crowns.
We cannot use the atom bomb or missile, drone or gun.
If we wage war with Mother Nature, she’ll be the one who’s won!!!
Writing prompts for the day are looking within, pass, isolation, overhaul and water.
All photos were posted on Unsplash and are used with permission.
Please click on first photo and arrows to enlarge photos and to read the story of my day.
Nearly 2 a.m. now and Forgottenman says it’s time to go to bed. I’ll use this as an excuse to free you from a longer recital of my day’s labors. What did you do during your first day of voluntary isolation??? Stay safe. See you tomorrow. (Uh, later today, I guess.)
They never made chocolate Jell-O????
(What I think about at Midnight)
Word Processing
Lightning flashed,
sparking the current which fueled the dream.
Letters zinged across a field of white,
waiting for justification to join other letters
in neatly-spaced rows of words.
For split seconds between thought and white space,
they danced into the dream.
Smoothly, straight-backed l’s and i’s
slid together in magnetic minuets
while b’s and d’s bumped heavy bottoms,
vying for position.
Into the dream they went,
and then,
their brief dances over,
they froze into equal rows upon the stage
to watch the choreography
of each new letter as it joined them,
for the dream was of
entire dictionaries of words––
syllables holding hyphenated arms with syllables,
antonyms crowding synonyms in tight ironic cliques,
articles moving in swing rhythm
toward their appointed nouns.
Four rows of tables
faced the stage,
one fat spectator sitting on each table,
third row back,
surveying the white screen of the dream.
Applause issued from the table-sitters,
pushed out in broad solid farts––
brief ovations as they jumped from table to table
in swift movements
so that they themselves
seemed dancers on hot pavement.
When they paused,
it was to hover lightly over each table
before pounding short applause
with their fat rumps
and moving on.
Yet their applause was indispensable,
for it fueled the dream.
When lightning flashed again,
the dream stood still.
The dance over,
the spectators vanished
like the single-fingered ghosts they were.
Rain tapped the window,
adhering to the spider web
which hug like an intricate rope ladder
between the bougainvillea
and the window frame.
A distant alarm clock
burred into the silence.
A door opened,
and a woman
entered the empty room.
The dream called out to her from the screen,
but she did not heed it
as she disconnected the cord
that ran from the machine to the wall,
destroying its memory of the dream.
And so the poem died.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 