Except for the photos of La Manzanilla beach, all of the photos are from my yard. The first photo is of the fin of a needlefish near sunset. You can see it again in the second to last photo. At a certain stage of darkness, my camera tends to translate darkness as rose pink. Thus the pink glow in the photo of the palm tree.
A Day at the Beach
My hairdo is unraveling in the ocean’s spray,
and the men are talking fishing so I haven’t much to say.
I do not know their language and the sea breeze makes me cough.
My skin’s at risk in sunlight, but a stone-throw’s distance off,
in the shelter of a palm tree, I find shade, at least,
open up my backpack and partake in a small feast.
Then after I have eaten, when the sun has reached the rim
of the far horizon, I finally have a swim.
For once the sun’s not flaming, it creates a lovely glow,
sinking toward the ocean and vanishing below.
The sea has pleased the fishermen all day, cast after cast,
but as the sun sinks into it, it’s pleasing me, at last.
This week’s Wordle words are language, eat, feast, fish, unraveling, spray, shadow, flame, stone, risk and off.
Love’s Blindfold
The sunset painted you and me
against a bright raspberry sea.
My eyelash pressed against your lips,
I missed the passing of three ships.
Such freedom does enchantment bring
to cancel every other thing.
to pull the wool over our eyes,
all else but love to exorcise.
Here is the NaPoWriMo prompt that led to the above poem:
And now for our prompt. This one is a bit involved, which is why I’m giving it to you on a Saturday. Today, I’d like to challenge you to make a “Personal Universal Deck,” and then to write a poem using it. The idea of the “Personal Universal Deck” originated with the poet and playwright Michael McClure, who gave the project of creating such decks to his students in a 1976 lecture at Naropa University. Basically, you will need 50 index cards or small pieces of paper, and on them, you will write 100 words (one on the front and one on the back of each card/paper) using the rules found here.
Don’t agonize over your word choices. Making the deck should be fun and revealing, as you generate words that sound “good” to you. The fact that the words are mainly divided among the five senses should be helpful in selecting words that you like the sound of, and that have some meaning personal to you. For example, my deck contains “harbor,” “wool,” “murmur,” “obsidian,” and “needle.”
Once you have your deck put together, shuffle it a few times. Now select a card or two, and use them as the basis for a new poem.
In lieu of choosing just two cards, I kept drawing more cards and choosing one of the words on it, front or back, to include in my poem.The words I chose were paint, raspberry, eyelash, lips and sea. For
La Manzanilla sunsets are always spectacular, but tonight’s ranked right up there with the best. (Enlarge photos by clicking on them.)
Click photos to enlarge.
I put my new guitar to good use by loaning it out. These four strummed out the sun and to my great delight, their repertoire included “Snowin’ on Raton,” by Townes Van Zandt—my request as it is one of my all-time favorite songs.
The sunset was once again outstanding. This time I made no alterations to any of the photos other than some slight sharpenings and a few croppings of the musicians.
This was a very good day, starting with meeting Patricia for coffee and to discuss possibly setting up a group home where friends could join us for support during our codger years, then home to write, a nap in the hammock, a few gin games with Tess, an hour swim and exercise in the ocean, chats with the sunset advisory board and convincing the musicians in the crowd to give us a few tunes. My harmony was working, as were my percussive additions via various objects rapped against other objects.
More talk with Patricia and Daniel concerning constructing a beach bar out of the thousands of cobalt Corralejo bottles Daniel has collected over the years thanks to the nightly sunset tequila consultations on the beach in front of his home/business. Plans are being made as I type this..or will be soon. Patricia is in charge of nagging.
Following are way too many photos of the sunset and musical accompaniment. If you see which I should cut, I will take it under advisement. I have already trimmed down to fewer than half of what I took.
You know you can enlarge these by clicking on them, right?
Beat this sky, if you can!! One of the best of countless fabulous sunsets in La Manzanilla.
(Click on photos to enlarge.)
Sunset Rating Society of La Manzanilla, Beach Bar Chapter.
Annie Goes on a Beach Vacation
To read the poem that goes with these photos as well as to enlarge the photos, you must click on the first photo and then on each arrow on the right hand margin of each photo. If you are viewing via Facebook, you won’t see all the photos or the captions/poems unless you click on my URL or the name of my blog first. Facebook only shows a few of the photos unless you do this.
This post is for forgottenman, who asked for it!
On the west coast of Mexico, sunset is indeed a golden experience. I especially like the way the ocean tides reflect the colors of the sunsets. You’ll need to click on the first photo to see these all in a larger size and in better detail.
For the A Photo a Week Challenge
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 