My plumeria (frangipani) tree has stayed lush for so much longer than usual this year. I think it has actually bloomed twice, probably due to the early rains. Thought it deserved a post of its own, but the dogs photobombed at the last minute.
I love these centers of flowers, like a thousand little additional flowers. This gerbera daisy was in a huge bouquet of dozens of different flowers given to me by Pasiano and his family for my birthday. Gorgeous in its entirety as well as the individual flowers and their details. Go HERE if you want to see the entire bouquet.
For Cee’s Flower of the Day prompt.
The Mystery of the Vanishing Red Tennis Ball Lids!!!!
My small dog is a fetcher, but oh, at what a cost.
I swear for every twenty balls I throw, one shows up lost.
I’ve been buying tubes of tennis balls for many years,
yet within a few months, our supply is in arrears.
I go to buy another lot that vanishes the same.
Where are these balls? What eats them? What ambitious tree’s to blame
for hoarding them like fruit up high in assorted branches
where they are invisible, thwarting all our chances
to retrieve the orbs that are so vital for my throwing,
and in his pursuit of them, for Morrie’s come and going?
There is another mystery surrounding this adventure—
one that is more serious, occasioning my censure.
These tubes of tennis balls that come packaged in neat threes
so I can loft them from the pool to reside in trees,
happen to have covers that I find indispensible
and when you know the reason why, I’ll think you’ll find it sensible
that I hoard them like diamonds, a utilitarian treasure—
for it just so happens that they fit, measure for measure
my cans of open cat food, and dog food, too, precisely.
No tops bought for this purpose can seal the cans so nicely.
Since I feed seven animals two times every day,
there are always half-full cans I have to put away.
They have four different diets, and for every one I feed
I need a different can of food, so you can see my need
for those red tops that seal them up, free from any smell
that makes a fridge with human food smell like cat food Hell!
For my odor-free fridges, I’m fast in Wilson’s debt,
for I’ve had Morrie for four years and in that time, I bet
I’ve purchased 15 tubes of balls for him to chase and chew.
So I should have 15 red tops. Still, I have only two!
Where can these tops be going? Is my dog-walker purloining them
to sell on the black market? And have tennis balls been joining them?
Are they being used as Frisbees by some child of a friend
who snatches them when I am not there to apprehend
this purloiner of cat food lids, this wily thief of tops,
knowing that no sane person would dare to call the cops
over a piece of plastic, no matter how securely
it hugs the tops of dog food cans–so snuggly and so purely?
Are dogs stealing and chewing them and burying them after?
Have the cats purloined them and stowed them in some rafter?
I’ve questioned sweet Yolanda who must think that I am crazy.
She only shakes her head at me, looking somewhat hazy.
“Donde estan mis tapas rojas?” Pasiano, on a breather,
does not seem to have a single clue of what I’m saying, either.
They point out other pet food lids. I’ve purchased quite a few,
but not one fits securely. Only tennis ball lids will do.
Each life contains its mysteries—mundane or scintillating—
concerning who put dents in cars or whom our kids are dating.
Things break, get lost or vanish by means less than pernicious,
and yet the regularity of my thefts is suspicious!
These valueless little objects to me are indispensible
and so I find the loss of them especially reprehensible!
Roll on the floor and laugh at me. Deride me if you must,
but I still view these petty thefts to be vile and unjust.
I’d like to solve the mystery. Stop the crime spree. Put the skids on it,
so I can solve the crime and literally put the lids on it!
Ragtag’s word of the day is clew.
Fandango’s word of the day is scintillating.
And, the Daily Addiction’s prompt is ambition.
Quintessential Gentleman
He was the quintessential gentleman with tie correctly knotted.
Whenever he entered a room, the women were besotted.
Every Grande Dame had him on her dining list,
while all their daughters secretly were yearning to be kissed.
Little girls adored him and their mothers preened and fussed.
When they knew he’d be there, even grandmas showed up trussed.
Artists painted his portrait. Sculptors sculpted his form.
Everywhere he went, slavish attention was the norm.
Every woman on the subway seemed to hope he would accost her,
and every social circle had him topmost on their roster.
All in vain, for every single mother, grandma, sister
was not even in the running, for he preferred a mister.
Fandango’s prompt word today is quintessential.
Reading Each Other
The book I’ve chosen for the plane ride
sits open on my lap
as the stranger on the plane
opens himself—
his life pulled leaf by leaf from his family tree.
His words come faltering and sputtering at first,
like water from a tap newly opened,
then rush out cool and even,
telling of a life that is a richness
of jobs held, wives loved, children raised.
He is going back to Mexico for the saints day
of the small pueblo where he was born.
The parade. The effigies. The life-sized santos
standing in their boats to tour the lake like kings.
I’ve been to this celebration; and as he speaks,
I sit like an honored guest beside him,
reading my memory as well
“Come,“ he tells me, giving me directions and a date.
I do not tell him I have been to that fiesta years ago.
“Perhaps,” I say, sliding his instructions to his family’s house
to form a bookmark in the book now closed upon my lap,
then go on, listening.
What were we born for
if it was not to read each other?
In the rush from the plane, that old man falls behind
and it is you I see as I come out into the world of Mexico,
leaving the plane ride, immigration and customs
in its place behind the swinging doors.
This flower that you give me is a mystery book.
I read it—stamen, pistil and corolla—
as well as the hand that holds it out to me
and then the warm embrace that you enfold me in.
This is a rewrite of a poem written three or four years ago. The Ragtag prompt for today is embrace. V.J. also invited me to link this with her Weekly Prompt on books.
Coffee With No Ceremony
I lived in Addis Ababa adjoining Mexico Square.
I ate injera every day. Had cornrows in my hair.
I thought I knew it all, and though my language skills were poor,
I knew enough Amharic to get by in any store.
Seated in a circle, on low stools around a flame,
We watched Demekech fan the fire—this ritual the same
in every house and every village all throughout the land.
The thick and sludgy coffee was always ground by hand.
Boiled in a clay carafe, then set aside to brew
as in another little pot, some corn kernels she threw.
The popcorn taken from the flame, the colo nuts were next.
Except—we found that we had none, and we were sorely vexed.
The coffee jug was sealed up with a fresh-wound plug of grass
ready for the pouring, but one aspect of our mass
was missing, so I said I’d go to buy some at the souk,
lest our hospitality give reason for rebuke.
These little shops were many, lining both sides of the street;
and at each one, I knew the custom—always did I greet
the owner with proper respect, and always, he said, “Yes!”
when I asked if he had colo, but I couldn’t guess
why no one ever seemed to want to sell any to me.
Always the same reaction—first the shock and then the glee.
So, finally, I walked back home. My failure I admitted.
Departing, I had felt so smart, but now I felt half-witted.
What had I done wrong? I knew that every shop had colo.
The problem must have been that I had gone to get them solo!
Returning empty-handed, I felt I was to blame.
Coffee without colo was a pity and a shame.
But my roommate and our guests and cook were really most surprised.
I must have asked for something else than colo, they surmised.
What did I ask for? When I told them, they dissolved in laughter.
They said that I was lucky not to get what I asked after.
For colo had two meanings, depending on the stress
put on the first syllable, and I had made a mess.
Instead of nuts, they told me (and this was just between us,)
I had asked each souk owner—if he had a penis!
(This is a true story of only one of the gaffes I became famous for in the year and a half I taught and traveled in Ethiopia in the period leading up to the revolution that deposed Haile Selassie.) I published this four years ago but I think few were around then to read it, so here it comes again as I think it is a good example of how far I’m willing to go to extend a little hospitality.
The Ragtag prompt today is hospitable.
Objectification
Objects are dependable. Objects are the best.
Objects do not leave you. They remain there at rest.
They soothe the eye with beauty or operate as slaves,
for objects have served us since humans lived in caves.
Since the first stone hammer or flint carved to a point,
objects have helped to feed us or to pretty up the joint.
Carved into a cave wall, a bison or a bird.
Art lasts for millennia. That’s why I find absurd
those who say things don’t matter, for what I have to say
is that it’s art that lingers. People just pass away.
Fandango‘s prompt today was object. Before you start exclaiming in protest, I’ll issue the disclaimer that this is written a bit tongue-in-cheek. Albeit, I love art. Wouldn’t want to live without it. But I do realize people are more important.
Fandango‘s prompt was object.
Sweet Tooth
There are certain practices I’m anxious to curtail,
but I find my past attempts were to no avail.
Cookies placed before me vanish without a trace,
and if you’re toting donuts, you’d better bring your mace.
I should eschew both cake and pie, for I cannot afford it.
So just in case you plan to share, please change your mind and hoard it!!
The Ragtag prompt today is trace.
Fandango’s prompt FOWC is curtail.
And Daily Addiction’s is afford.
