For Cee’s FOTD
Enforced Reflection
I’m keeping my composure and compensating for
the fact that they won’t let me venture out my door.
Given lemons, I make margaritas—take the opportunity
now that I can’t wander about in the wide community,
to revel in the riches that abound right here at home,
watching Jesus painting murals all around my dome.
I’m baking lots of cookies, although their fate is sad.
After painters ate just one or two, Diego was so bad
that he raced into the kitchen and made off with all the rest.
One friend suggested delicately it might have been best.
Would I have eaten any that remained? Yes, it’s true, I might.
I must admit my waistbands are getting sort of tight.
Perhaps it’s lack of exercise. Perhaps it’s medication.
Since I so rarely don street clothes, I have no indication.
I avoid the scales because, you know, they are so changeable.
Up one day but rarely down. (Wish they were more arrangeable.)
With nature as our trainer, perhaps we will be changed
in other crazy pastimes in which we’ve become deranged.
Fracking and polluting, casting all our trash
out there in the ocean, making a god of cash.
Nature has to teach us to change our foolish ways
by sending us all to our rooms to pass our “time out” days.
And perhaps now I’m sequestered and set upon the shelf,
Diego’s her reminder to take care of myself.
The image of Diego with a cookie in his mouth is from a retablo/art collage I’m making that is recording my time spent in Mother Nature’s Time-Out period. Why don’t you join me? Mine was finished but then I have to keep adding to it. At least a story a day. Diego was that day’s.
Prompts for the day are composure, compensate, opportunity, revel and trainer.
And, for dVerse Poets Pub prompt: Solitude.
For at least 15 years, I’ve been trying to get a decent photo of this flower which grows like a weed all around the edges of my garden. This morning, I came the closest to doing so so far. The flowers are from 1 to 1.5 inches (~2.5 to 4 cm) across and come with a warning. They are so invasive that it is illegal to plant them in some states in the U.S. Wish I’d known this before planting them. Thanks to Forgottenman for finally identifying them for me.
A week later, and we are still trying to deal with the bees that have so infested the spare lot next to my house that we can’t clear out the brush. Carlos the bee guy visited again yesterday to check on the hive box he put out hoping to attract the bees into it. Some did move in and he removed them yesterday, but this morning the humming of the remaining bees was so loud I could hear it from the pool. Carlos told us to stay inside and for me to move dogs to the front yard, as bees are attracted to black, but we had no problems when Morrie and I took a nap in the hammock late this afternoon. Above is a photo of Carlos with his dreads exposed. Interesting gentleman.
The Voice of Music
Click on photos to increase size.
Someone just commented that there should be sound on this post, so here is Christina Anfossie’s musical rendition of my poem “Naughty little Pleasures.” https://judydykstrabrown.com/2018/04/03/set-to-music-naughty-little-pleasures/
For Cee’s Fun Foto: The Sense of Hearing.
Fist
It was that night, as they lay choking in the stench of jasmine,
that he unmasked his rage. Their whole life, it seemed,
was a cipher that obscured his former truths.
Now he seemed socked in by this sudden swirling fog of memories
that suddenly parted, giving him access to his rage.
It was his mother, not her, he said later, that he had struck out at,
but in trying to confront his past,
he had obliterated any hope for their future.
Prompts for the day are unmask, rage, jasmine, cypher and sock.
For Cee’s FOTD
The 2020 Photo Challenge #18 has to do with light and shadow. Here are my contributions: (Click on photos to enlarge.)
Photo by janko Ferlic on Unsplash. Used with permission
Funny Man
He invented silly. It began with how he looked.
His eyes were slightly bulbous and his nose was long and hooked.
But he had such charm within him that it really didn’t matter.
Choosing between Brad Pitt and him? I would choose the latter!
For dverse poets quadrille prompt: silly and Here is where you can read more poems on the subject. A quadrille is a poem that contains exactly 44 words.
