Men in Trees
If you took an expedition to my favorite tree,
you’d find it’s convoluted as a tree can be.
It’s encrusted with lichen, but I’ve found that for a fee
an ornamental arborist can scrape it lichen-free.
They’ll do artful jobs of trimming off the deadwood if they’re hired
by removing extra branches that look too dried-out and tired.
And if those earmarked branches contain nests of birds, perchance,
I’ve heard the trimmers merely move them to another branch.
In defense of ecology, no single squirrel has died
in this trimming of the branches, for they are safe inside,
nestled most securely with their babies and their kin,
thankful for the tree hollows that they take shelter in.
Prompt words today are lichen, convoluted, expedition, defense, and tired.
Ocean Truths
The oceans teem with sterling fish that stream above the sands,
working their ways through currents beyond the landward strands.
Particles of plankton sift down through the brine
giving all the silver streaks something on which to dine.
Stingy bit by stingy bit unites to make a feast,
for tiny flashing fish up to the ocean’s largest beast
that slams the surface of the sea to leap into a scene
far above the plankton that streams through its baleen.
Since those depths that nourish it do not provide breath,
that which brings it life may also bring it death.
So while tiniest fishes float safe within their lair,
the giants of the ocean must come up to find air.
Prompt words today are sterling, work, particle, teem, slam, stingy. Image by Todd Cravens on Unsplash.
Love the variations in color of these poinsettias. They will eventually lose the green cast in these upper bracts.
For Cee’s FOTD
Childhood Games
Hide-and-seeker, breathing hard, pressed up against the ledge,
her tracker stealing closer around the garden hedge.
“Allie-allie-oxen-all-in-all-in-free”
releases other hiders from behind rock and tree.
Boys and girls together, playing a childhood game.
He tosses up a basketball, showing off his aim.
She braids a dainty daisy chain and lays it on his head.
He shakes it off and tosses it to ring her locks instead.
Each meadow is a jungle, each brook a raging sea
within these childhood cravings, these yearnings to run free.
That house they think is haunted and face with certain dread—
will entry show an empty room or the walking dead?
Some pleading not to open it, others saying, “pull!”
with excitement and with terror, their hearts equally full,
thrilled with excitations or with terrors fraught,
opposite emotions crowd their every thought.
Do you not remember when you felt the same?
How many other childhood games are you able to name?
Red Rover and Parcheesi, Jacks and Kick-the-can—
memories like this reveal the boy within the man.
Prompt words for the Sunday Whirl Wordle # 580 are: ledge dead chain boys doors will crave sea free games steal
Open to Doubt
(The Breakfast Caper)
Your dubitable alibi concerning the French toast
that vanished when I turned my back to play the perfect host
and pour you one more coffee is hard for me to swallow
That the kitten snatched it simply doesn’t follow.
The rhythm of your fingernails moving on the table
betrays your anxiety concerning your small fable.
The kitten looks so innocent and you’re the one that’s doing
all that heavy swallowing and that excessive chewing.
When I served the French toast, I made sure to give you four,
and give myself two slices, because I had no more.
So, to steal my slices was surely in poor taste,
not to mention how you might have choked in all your haste.
So, while I’m cooking me a waffle and pouring me the dregs
of this pot of coffee, please don’t commandeer my eggs!
I find your manners lacking and your ethics purely awful,
but if you lay off my breakfast, I’ll cook you your own waffle!
Prompt words today are moving, anxiety, alibi, dubitable, rhythm and French toast. (Images from Unsplash.)
Have you ever slept on / in a hammock?
Yes, frequently for short naps in my own gazebo.
Do you find it easy to maintain friendship with other people?
Yes, although the older I get, the less time we seem to spend together. It has to do with the amount of things there are to do and the longer time it seems to take to do them. Plus, friends are moving and, sadly, passing away. I maintain them in my heart and thoughts.
Are you a person of ethics?
I hope so.
If so, how does that impact your daily life?
I think I’m more aware that when things are wrong, I can do something to change them–by volunteering or at the very least by donating.
Are you decisive or indecisive as a person?
Decisive
Why do people hold double standards?
Because it is easier to think something and/or to believe in it than to do it.
Inspired by Kristian and That Really Burns my Biscuits #10
What is your most unhealthiest but guiltiest pleasure and why?
Cheetos Torciditos, because they are practically the only thing that tastes good to me anymore.
What is your process of writing a new post for your blog?
It is the first thing that I do when I wake up, after feeding the dogs and cats. I get back into bed and don’t leave it until I’ve written at least one poem to the prompts and posted a new photo of a flower for Cee’s prompt. I’ve done this every day for nine years now. I usually come back and read and do more blogs as well.
If you were asked to create a Top Fifteen Book List holding books that you felt everyone should read at least once in their life and would never regret reading what titles would you include?
Becoming (Michelle Obama) nonfiction
No One Can Pronounce My Name by Rakesh Satyal
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (Trevor Noah)
The Delight of Being Ordinary: A Road Trip with the Pope and Dalai Lama (Roland Merullo)
The Brain that Changes Itself. (Norman Doidge M.D.). nonfiction
Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries (Kory Stamper) nonfiction
The Midnight Library (Matt Haig)
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely fine: A Novel. (Gail Honeyman)
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand (Helen Simonson)
The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Club (Sophie Green)
The Grand Sophy (Georgette Heyer)
Secrets of a Charmed Life (Susan Meissner)
Crazy Salad and Scribble, Scribble (Nora Ephron essays)
The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion (Fannie Flagg)
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane (Lisa See)
Fourteen: A Daughter’s Memoir of Adventure, Sailing and Survival (Leslie Johansen Nack)
Anything by Anne Tyler or Barbara Kingsolver
The Seven Sisters series by Lucinda Riley
Anything by Jane Austen or the Brontes
Logical Family: A Memoir (Armistead Maupin)
Simon the Fiddler (Grover Gardner)
How important is it for you to know a person’s real name? [Be this online, off line, social media or blogging]
I like knowing their real name. I always have this feeling that if I did, I would find some connection between us that otherwise we would never discover.
When at school what were your top five subjects that you were passionate about?
Literature, Composition, Botany, Chorus, Math
Why was this – what did you love about them?
I loved reading literature and creative writing and also studying grammar. I liked Botany because it was a science where we didn’t have to dissect animals and because I love plants. I enjoyed singing in the chorus. I loved the puzzle aspect of math but never really discovered what it was for, short of multiplication, division and addition. I could do the geometry and trig and I actually won the math award in high school without ever actually learning any practical applications!!!
Are those five subjects still present in your life today in any form?
I still write for hours every day and always have a book going, although I now listen to them on Audible as my eyes give out by the end of the day. Luckily Alexa and my phone now help me with math as I’ve lost my facility for doing math in my head. I am still crazy about plants without having to dissect them and have lots of plants and flowers and trees in my garden and I do daily photos of flowers for Cee’s blog. I no longer sing much as I’ve lost my voice but all through school and college I sang in church choirs, duets, girls chorus, mixed choirs and in the chorale in college.
Are you a photogenic person?
No. At least I certainly hope I don’t look like any of the recent photos that have been taken of me.
Are you eager to appear in family of friend snaps?
No. I am always the one taking the photos so I rarely appear in them.
Are there many photos taken of you in the various stages of your life?
Yes. tons of them thanks to my older sister when I was younger and because of friends and family taking them later.
With regard to the paranormal do you choose to not believe because there is nothing to believe or because you feel it is safer to not believe?
I do believe in the paranormal to some extent.
Are you a non-believer or a believer?
Non-believer in organized religion. I do, however, believe in some spiritual element in the world.
How are you with meeting strangers/new people who might or could become new friends?
I have traveled so much that I feel I’m good at meeting and befriending people.
Is there a process you adopt to identify if they are the right fit for you?
If it feels right and easy and fun and natural, we are the right fit.
Click on photos to enlarge and read captions.
For the Six Word Saturday prompt
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 