My plumeria just keep on blooming this year, so here they are again. Fresh crop.
Blind Potential
This trail of salt reveals to me you’re led by superstition.
Eyes shut tight, you stumble on, following tradition.
Like a deer in headlights, you are blinded by the light
that others cast, refusing to be guided by insight.
There is a light inside you that will lead you much more surely.
That little nudge that prompts you will guide you more securely.
Trust that spark within you to tell you what to do.
You need not fear those instincts you carry within you.
They are the wisdom of the universe, trying to get out.
If you do not heed their whisper, you may later hear their shout.
What you deem as accidents might be communication
from that inner part of you, prompting your education.
Although those outer voices may continue to deride,
trust your inner voices. They are firmly on your side.
What you find within you may be genius that’s unknown
that won’t come to fruition until it has been sown.
You are its only guardian. Only you can plant and tend
and bring these new world miracles to their fruitful end.
Do not let superstition or fear of the what could be
keep you from that within you that is your destiny.
The Ragtag prompt is superstition.
Fandango’s promt is fear.
This tiny fellow was hiding out in the front garden. Not quite a flower, but….
I Just Can’t See Infinity
If my life was infinite,
no doubt I’d make a mess of it.
It’s hard enough to get it right—
to be law-abiding and polite—
for eighty or one hundred years.
We need time off for shifting gears.
Tyrants must get tired of
ruling the world with fisted glove,
and perfect folks must need deflection
from their lives of stark perfection.
Reincarnation is just right
for exchanging one life’s plight
for another set of woes.
For trying out some different clothes!
For giving us another chance
to trade in Omaha for France!!!
Let us be mortal. Let it be.
We do not need infinity!!!
The Daily Addictions prompt is infinite.
Stormy Thursday Doldrums
I awoke to thunder all around,
skies clad in gray, no other sound.
My whole world tucked into itself,
the white cat on the bathroom shelf,
cuddled into once-folded towels.
The old cat hidden in the bowels
of my closet, seeking peace,
wishing this thundering would cease
so all the other cats could go
outside again so she could know
some peace of mind free from the rankles
of other cats around Mom’s ankles.
Now a lightning bolt that shakes
the house until it groans and quakes.
Unaccustomed to this morning storming
and these dense clouds so closely forming
cover that screens out the sun,
the cats and dogs wake, one-by-one,
but do not clamor for their food
as though this dense dark interlude
bonds us all within its shell,
each thunder clap a warning knell.
Safe within our selves we dwell,
these fears of nature there to quell.
The calicos are on the couch,
accomplices in ready crouch.
The dogs still in their beds, awake,
but still no breakfast demands make.
I fill their bowls and all awaken,
Kibble given. Kibble taken.
Shadows through Virginia creeper
reveal that each noisy cheeper
is now taking to the wing,
as in my waking everything
now comes to life and morning’s born.
Hibiscus opens to adorn
the greenery it’s held up by,
yet still the thunder fills the sky.
This rainy season’s thunderous might
was once sequestered by the night,
but now it’s taken over day,
sealing half the world away
under covers, wrapped up tight.
A car alarm now sounds its plight.
Dogs howl. The whole world now seems bent
on furnishing accompaniment
to that long timpani rumble—
constant loud and rolling mumble.
Perhaps this entire morning with be
a constant natural symphony.
In rain’s surcease, the young cats go
outside again to spots they know
where they can shelter from the rain,
knowing it will be back again.
The old cat remains, safely hidden
in her tumbled closet midden
of shawls pulled down from hangers for
a nest she’s built upon the floor.
We stay inside, protected from
this storm’s pelt and constant drum.
Time for snuggling close in bed,
pillows cushioning my head,
computer balanced on my knee
to furnish me with company.
The rain now beats on ceiling dome.
I’m glad that I am safe at home,
fortunate in its protection,
safe from this stormy day’s detection.
Safely here within my groove,
I will not stir. I will not move.
Only fingers softly tapping.
Later, perhaps, a bit of napping.
The Ragtag prompt was groove.
Fandango’s prompt was accomplice.
U.S.A.
Have we any doctrines? Have we any rules?
Are creeds and regulations simply meant for fools?
Has our common decency been voted away?
What of our Constitution? Has it become passé?
What would our founding fathers think, and what would they say?
Will loss of their declarations be the price we pay
for taking it for granted that liberty would thrive
so long as all our citizens managed to survive?
We always saw the threat outside—all those foreign men.
We never thought our country would be lost to those within.
Tell our air and water. Tell each foreign son.
Our doctrines and our principles seem to have come undone.
The Daily Addiction prompt is doctrine.
This is a very special posting as this cactus indigenous to Arizona and the Sonaora desert blooms only once a year for one night. As I was leaving Viva Mexico tonight with a young man I’d brought there to consult with Agustin–a very emotional event for us both, Tia Lupita, Agustin’s aunt, came running out of the restaurant and up the block after us. She put two of these blooms in my hand, telling me to put them in the refrigerator tonight and tomorrow night they would bloom fully. They are so gorgeous now that I can’t imagine their improving overnight, but I have minded her, after taking these photos.
I have been waiting my whole life to see this flower which I have read about so often and it means so much to me that she sought to give them to me. How I love Mexico and the people in it! The bloom as pictured is about 6 inches across. Click on any photo to see all, enlarged, as a slide series.
Coincidentally, Cee also published a photo of an incredible cactus bloom. See her flower HERE.
Don’t miss the video below! It is priceless. The kitten in the headset bag above is Annie, 16 years ago.
https://www.facebook.com/video/embed?video_id=10200387320826253
The Wings of Hummingbirds
They break my heart,
these delicate wings of hummingbird
strewn on my porch
with a tiny head displaying one beak,
one eye.
Stripped of adornment,
one slight hummingbird
would hardly make a meal for a cat—
especially one recently fed at my kitchen door.
Where was I when this travesty
was committed,
carried out by a cat
true to its nature
and therefore bearing no sin?
I was out back,
filling the hummingbird feeder left by guests,
though I prefer the natural sight
of hummingbirds feeding at the aloe blossoms
or thunbergia or frangipani.
In the fenced backyard,
the dogs create a territory safe from cats,
but what am I to do about the obelisco plant I love so much in front—
the one spied every day with a new bloom
as I walk past it to my car?
What’s to be done for the royal poinciana,
seventeen years old,
spreading its shelter over street and wall and front garden alike?
A dangerous draw in a yard frequented by cats.
What’s to be done?
Defrock the area they roam in to make it hummingbird-free?
That double-pronged nature of cats—
their beauty and their savagery––
displayed so vividly in man himself of late––
can it be anything but plan?
And to what purpose?
We love the ways of nature but turn our back on half of them,
hoping they will not be demonstrated in our lives.
Until that one last fatal claw of fate descends upon us
and we fall into that scheme, resisting,
but our efforts futile.
Why are endings necessary?
Why must our hearts be broken
time and again
before they themselves are the breaking thing
and we pass into nature,
undivided, part of a whole both savage and tragic in its beauty.
Here is the hummingbird whole.
The cat whole.
Here are we, whole, observing them.
That has to be enough.
The now. This look.
This touch. This satiation for the moment.
The hummingbird before the slaughter,
the bone before the break.
