Erasures Impossible–Unless
If you are writing in a jiffy,
it may be your spelling’s iffy.
So, unless it doesn’t hurt
to have to scratch out and insert,
It would be wiser, don’t you think,
to write in pencil and not in ink?
For the Three Things Challenge the words were: INK. INSERT IFFY
We’re calling her Daisy, at least until her former owner reclaims her or I decide I can stand to give her up to a new home. She was a very good girl while Yolanda bathed her, but we found out that her coat must have been really matted before, as after she dried off, she really required a brushing. I discovered this when I took her along on a shopping trip to see how she’d do in public and made the mistake of wearing all black. Afterwards, I, too, required brushing! She was a good girl both at the store and in the restaurant afterwards.
For more info on who daisy is, go HERE.
Enough
At six o’clock, glib comments start to fill the air.
We’re hungry for frittata, but the table’s bare.
Darkness fills the kitchen, for mama’s gone on strike.
She’s gone off to the city. Alone, on papa’s bike.
It’s dicey whether she’ll return. She says she’s tired of cooking.
She’s in need of a vacation and so she made a booking
at a posh hotel that has its own cafe
where she will dine on coq au vin followed by crème brûlée.
For once, serving the rest of us will not be her fate.
Someone else will wait on her and she’ll just sit and wait.
In the morning she will order service in her room
where she’ll not even make her bed or wield dust cloth or broom.
Her note says then she might come home, or she might just wait
and find a nice seaside resort where she can cogitate
for another day or two. She says we shouldn’t worry.
The pizza place delivers if we’re not in a hurry.
Her recipe book’s on the shelf. The stove is under it.
Her apron’s in the closet and she’s sure that it will fit
each and every one of us while she is on vacation.
She says that fending for ourselves will be an education.
She says to wash the dishes even though it is a bore,
for if she sees a messy kitchen when she walks in the door,
she’s going to walk right out again until we prove we’ve learned
that things will be real different after Mama has returned!
Word Press’s “Blast from the Blog” asks that we reblog a post from a certain date from an earlier year. I published this poem on June 25, 2021–tomorrow’s date, as they publish the challenge a day before the prescribed date. The poem was supposed to include the five words seen below.
Prompts for today are six, glib, frittata, dicey and darkness.
Two years ago I helped a group place baby sea turtles into the ocean for their long voyage into life. See photos and a poem about that voyage here:
https://judydykstrabrown.com/2014/12/05/putting-the-tiny-sea-turtles-into-the-sea/
Recently, WordPress has started sending reminders of past blogs published on the current date. Here was a blog I published ten years ago on June 22:
Why don’t you do the same ? If you do, please put a link to this blog in comments below.
To play along, go to your photos file folder and type the number 747 into the search bar. Then post a selection of the photos you find that include that number and post a link to your blog in my Numbers Game blog of the day. If instead of numbers, you have changed the identifiers of all your photos into words, pick a word or words to use instead, and show us a variety of photos that contain that word in the title. This prompt will repeat each Monday with a new number. If you want to play along, please put a link to your blog in comments below.
The Toast
He never lost his swagger, even toward the end.
As life tried to break him, the most he did was bend.
When death twisted its cruel blade and his life met its turning,
unholy thoughts consumed me and set my mind to churning.
Will the dead rise up again in search of former love,
or do our dear departeds find more holy lips above?
Does past love wave its banners and proclaim itself in spite
of the fact that one love stays below, completely out of sight?
Love’s table where we feasted has found another host,
and though I hover ’round its edges and listen to the toast
of another bride and bridegroom celebrating love that’s new,
instead, my lover who once was, I lift this glass to you.
For the Sunday Whirl 762 the words are: wave turning unholy lips swagger lost dead rise twist blade feast edges
Stop and Go
My goals in life were nebulous. I didn’t know quite what
it was that I most wanted—except out of my rut.
A picket fence and cottage were never my dream.
I didn’t want to produce children by the ream.
I only wanted travel and to see who I could be
if I could search far enough to discover me.
I finally found a part of me everywhere I went,
but had to keep on traveling to know the full extent
of who I wished to grow into—how much I wished to find—
how much I could reveal of me and still have peace of mind.
But now I’ve seemed to settle. I’m content with what I’ve found.
The place where I have come to seems like holy ground.
Perhaps true wisdom really comes from knowing when to stop—
knowing when we’ve climbed enough because we’ve reached the top!
The Weekly Challenge is “Stop.”
WP has started sending out notices every day of all the blogs we have done on the same date (In this case, June 20) for the entire time we’ve been blogging. In my case, I had posted 36 blogs on that date during the past 10 years. I’m sharing the oldest one, published in 2016.
Summer Evenings Turn to Fall
Back when we drank summer through paper soda straws,
we played at being cowboys, hiding out in draws
that we imagined wilder. Our hearts beat with fear
of fictional opponents who might be drawing near.
We had no euphemisms for our enemies.
We only knew our fear of them, silent, on our knees.
Little did we know then, during childhood games,
imaginary enemies would assume other names.
No ditch big enough to hide, and no night dark enough.
No more cops and robbers. No more blind man’s bluff.
Strange that in those peaceful times the games we chose to play
were a mere foreshadowing of what is real today.
Back when summer filled our cheeks with melons and with berries,
why didn’t we fill balmy nights with princesses and fairies?
Back when life was summer smooth, we lusted after roughness,
as though we’d gain maturity through violence and toughness.
Feigning valor not yet gained, we knew not that tomorrow
we’d have the fears we’d feigned for real––the terror and the sorrow.
Childhood evenings filled with shouts and laughter interspersed
were in reflection adult games that we just rehearsed.
The picture is my sister Patti and her best friend Karen. Note the real saddle placed on the makeshift “horse.”
Here’s one of mine from 2019! A bougainvillea trio.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 
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