For Cee’s FOTD
Traveler
I always took the long road home, hoping to take full measure
of all the things along the way in which I could take pleasure.
When life did all its best to make me speed along its road,
I simply switched to unpaved trails to find the mother lode.
My gains were not substantial when measured against gold.
Most of what I’ve acquired cannot be bought or sold,
but the bounty that I gathered will stand me in good stead
as I plan more journeys from my dying bed.
With all my riches gathered, with all my unseen gain,
I will have booked a ticket on the astral plane!
The prompts today are road, speed, substantial and astral. Here are links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/05/rdp-sunday-road/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/05/fowc-with-fandango-speed/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/05/your-daily-word-prompt-substantial-may-5-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/05/astral/
Lost
Lost my dolly, don’t know where.
She’s got no clothes and got no hair.
She’s somewhere out there lost and bare,
thinking that I do not care.
I’d go out looking, but don’t dare.
That babysitter over there
(My mother calls her our au pair)
came by foot and ship and air
from a country named Zaire
to sit here on her derriere
and watch me with her icy stare.
I open up our Frigidaire.
Could my dolly be in there?
I climb up on a bedroom chair
and go through Mommy’s underwear.
I do not think that she would care.
I find my brother’s whistle there,
hidden in that lacy lair,
and think it really isn’t fair.
It’s every mother’s cruel nightmare.
My dolly isn’t anywhere!
I had to stop the car to take this photo. I wish I knew the true story behind it. I can’t imagine any little girl throwing out her doll, and the lot was surrounded by a barbed wire fence. Someone must have tossed it in there. A mean boy? A jealous brother? Was it unwanted loot from a burglary? My mom and I once rode all the way back out to the dump from town to retrieve a doll’s head we’d thrown away. All the way home, we’d both been thinking about it, sitting there amidst coffee grounds and broken light bulbs. We had pulled into the garage when my mom turned to look at me and said, “Do you want to go back out and get that doll’s head?” I nodded. We did, and I have that head to this very day. If my mom had been with me, one or the other of us would have gotten through that barbed wire somehow. As it is, this image is the only part of the doll that I was able to rescue.
Oddball
You don’t follow instructions. You will do as you may.
No matter what the plan, you always had another way.
No one could ever force you to form an even line.
You’d veer this way or that way and say that it was fine.
You waged a constant battle and staged a constant fight,
as though causing dissension was your main delight.
But it the end, it turns out that the others were the fools,
for they’ve labeled you a genius and are following your rules!
The words of the day are may, battle, force and delight. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/rdp-saturday-may/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/04/fowc-with-fandango-battle/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/your-daily-word-prompt-force-may-4-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/delight/
When I drove into town this morning for the writers group reading at the Nuevea Posada, it looked like one of our formerly dormant volcanoes on the range between where I live lakeside and the road to Guadalajara had gone active again, and was erupting!
(Click on all photos to enlarge.)
What I was actually seeing, however, was a huge fire that has been burning for a couple of days now on the other side of the ridge. As I left the reading and went east on the Carretera, I could see that between the hours of 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. the fire had jumped over the ridge in four places and spread to the Ajijic side of the mountains.
As we pulled into the Centro Mall parking lot, we heard helicopters. They were scooping water out of the lake and flying it overhead to dump on the fires.
All-in-all, an eventful couple of days for lakeside and environs. I can’t see the fire from my house, but last night I was well aware of the smoke and had to close all the doors and windows up tight. Here’s hoping all the firefighters remain safe and that the winds do not mount during the night.
These fires happen every year around lakeside when brush and grass is tinderbox dry, often prompted by farmers burning off their fields before the rainy season. One year, much of Mt. Garcia across the lake was on fire. (go HERE to see and hear about those fires.) Another year, it was the whole range behind my house.( Go HERE to see photos of this fire.) This is the first time I’ve seen a fire of this magnitude in the hills above Ajijic, however. It has some distance to go before it reaches any dwellings on this side of the ridge, but if a high wind were to kick up tonight, it could spread fast. Crossed fingers.
Divine Plan
He could wed his boards so smoothly that you could not feel a seam,
or carve a massive sycamore into a ceiling beam.
His benches were the strongest and most beautifully turned out.
He was the finest craftsman in the region, without doubt.
From a very early age, his folks could not explain
his prowess with a chisel or gouges or a plane.
He could carve a wooden ball, a slingshot or a dreidel.
He carved his wife a mixing spoon, then built a tiny cradle.
It seemed that he was born to it, like birds are born to fly,
but not even Joseph could discern the reason why
until the baby in the cradle who lay so sweetly curled,
turned into the young man who grew up to save the world.
Prompt words today are bench, finest, region and seam. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/03/rdp-friday-bench/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/03/fowc-with-fandango-finest/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/03/your-daily-word-prompt-region-may-3-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/03/seam/
I took several photos of this incredible large bloom in my neighbor’s yard, but don’t know what it is.
The Reappearance
A luscious former lover that I haven’t seen in years
takes my quiet life by storm when he reappears.
He showers me with flowers he says are in arrears
for all those times he should have stayed to dry my tears.
Of course it’s an unsuitable last-minute love affair
that simply manifested like magic from pure air.
For well nigh on a dozen years, he wasn’t even there—
this Lochinvar who now insists we are the perfect pair.
Dare we try settle accounts so long overdue?
Dare we stir those embers to kindle love anew?
Or might our purple passion have assumed a lighter hue?
At this late date how can I know the proper thing to do?
Why so wan and pale, dear lover? Are you drained by worry?
Why such a push to reconnect? Why such frenetic hurry?
Why suddenly are you intent my favors to thus curry?
Why all this sudden passion? This trial without jury?
Who put me in this role of judge, called to adjudicate
what might be our future–our destiny and fate?
Once I would have loved the task, but now it is too late.
Why would you wait until the eve of my wedding date?
The wedding cake is stacked and iced, the flowers hung in bowers.
The time until my union is measured now in hours.
In a backroom with his friends, my groom paces and cowers.
Bridesmaids fuss and bother and rearrange their flowers.
Now is not the time, my dear, to reassert your powers.
All of us have daydreams of lovers of the past,
intent in our belief that they were not meant to last.
The sea of love, once entered, is so wide and deep and vast
that we lose connection with lines formerly cast.
I see you now sequestered in the far back row
beside the aisle I’ll walk down, my troth to here bestow.
You should have spoken sooner. You should have let me know.
For now it is too late to reverse the status quo.
Your flowers were so lovely that you sent today.
As in the past, most exquisite—their colors bright and gay.
It would have been a dreadful waste to throw them all away,
so here they are, tucked into my nuptial bouquet.
Prompt words today are suitable, arrears, anew and luscious. Links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/02/rdp-thursday-suitable/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/02/fowc-with-fandango-arrears/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/02/your-daily-word-prompt-anew-may-2-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/02/luscious/
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 