It’s been raining a bit…
Tag: nature
taste combos
Rainy day,
peanut butter on
whole-grain toast,
lentil soup.
Waterside cabin,
fried eggs,
syrupy pancakes,
bacon dikes the syrup.
Chore day interrupted by
grilled cheese
sandwich
dipped in ketchup.
Warm breezes,
cold-cut sandwich,
cheap potato chips,
airborne laughter.
Hot-off-the-grill
basted shrimp,
salt-air seasoning,
rosy sunset.
Fully packed car,
open road,
charcuterie lunch
eaten while driving.
Opening Day,
roasted peanuts
(shell on),
Yuengling Traditional Lager.
Salty tears,
wedding bells,
niece/nephew giddiness,
families-becoming.
20/100
I’m writing a poem a day (sometimes two), and now I’m 20% there. It’s causing me to rethink poetry and my approach to it, when and how I’ve written it in the past.
a mid-day walk
Every major city seems to have a botanical greenhouse where tropical conditions have been created to foster the growth of orchids, bromeliads, and such—or “July” as a resident of the American South might call it. I left just past noon today for a 25-minute sojourn around the neighborhood. When I returned, our weather gauge reported a temperature of 81.1°F and a relative humidity of 88.8% (now registering an even 89.0% 30 minutes later). Lighting was poor: completely overcast, the sun approaching its zenith. That’s okay. My poetry attempts have been poor today, also. This is my second try, the first being filed in the “maybe-it-can-be-saved” bin. This really isn’t poetry, more poetic prose, artfully arranged—unless it’s true what a friend said, that poetry is what I say it is!
Every Southerner learns gradual
acceptance of sweat, wears loose
garments, overlooks each other's
spreading stains. "Only mad dogs"
indeed. Why walk now? Surely
my Fitbit will multiply steps
taken in such weather?
Escaping my climate-
controlled cocoon,
black-eyed susans cry
welcome. They're sprinkled
beside rattlesnake master,
goldenrod, butterfly
weed. Abiding our warmth,
humidity humbly, they
suggest I follow their lead.
Minutes later brings one
patriotically-colored
whirligig, neglected,
spinning madly with each
new breath of hot air,
much like my country
does these days. Inured
to these new great divides,
I just see [whirligig;
patriotic] as I pass.
One neighbor's mailbox
decoration swings madly
with each puff of air. Its
caretaker keeps it small:
Chinese fringe flower
usually towers twenty feet.
Where once I wandered scrub
woods (leftover nature long
subdued), newer years brought
townhouses, all units clad
in ubiquitous white,
(accented with charcoal trim!)
Townhouses get
young magnolias,
crafted ever-so-
perfectly by your
local nursery, while
everyone else
nurtures what
such abnormal
specimens become.
Headed homeward I give
friend Crow midday greetings,
reflect upon our tree-bound need
for vegetables in front
(sunlight dictates placement),
admire still-red maple leaves,
register my soaked T-shirt:
its limit of three-quarters mile,
exceeded by my four.
18/100
Ghosts
I think a poem/day will be all I can muster.
Ghosts, slipping
treelike through forests
populated by people
looking just like they
once did. Slowly
dissolving, windborne
gossamer, 'til people
look through them.
Haunting not others,
but themselves with
each mirror-ward glance.
Remembering when
they treated ghosts
similarly, in
youthful vibrancy.
14/100
Failing, with photos
I’m just not going to make a poem today. My brain feels so scattered, I think the only thing holding it together is my skull. Heat? Maybe. More likely the increasing difficulty with being older and watching the world change into something we envisioned only not like this. (non sequitur? no.) Life now resembles a city’s marathon, only you’re not in the race anymore, in fact, you’re not even on the sidewalk watching. You’re up in your apartment looking down and saying, “I wonder what they’re doing down there?”
In lieu of posting nothing, I took a walk around the yard.
There you have it. Perhaps my melancholy intro will produce a poem later tonight. Time to get down to the pub.
The oyster
A meditation on what makes a couple
Oyster
sits and spits.
Mollusk-as-grass,
rooted, muted,
colored in
good enough,
in sedentary.
Snail
glides by:
mollusk-movement.
Purposefulness
imbues her,
stubbornness, her
going-ness.
Can these opposites
attract? Or,...
What if Crab
tiptoes past
them both?
What then?
Who pines for
legs? Who clings
stubbornly to
Life As It Is?
12/100
Poem one: Scotland
A friend from the blogosphere is publishing 100 poems in 100 days. I’ve decided to at least try to do that, and I’m going to try to catch up with her by publishing multiple poems per day for a week or so. While in Scotland just about 30 days ago, riding along in a tour bus, I marveled at the ubiquitous sheep and the beautiful landscape out the window.
In Southern Scotland
Sheep dot grassy fields,
Their sides shagging wool.
Clouds scud through skies,
Like inverted sheep, woolly
sides down. Dark ones
Sprinkle naturally holy water:
Priests of nature, they
Remind all—sheep, cows,
Tourists in buses—of our
Divine brotherhood.
Bodnant Garden
A funny thing happened on the way to this post a week ago: all three monitors started blinking on and off rapidly for 20 seconds and then my video driver software said it had crashed. Since I thought I had installed it only two months previously, I swore and deleted said software… Not a good idea. After rebooting I had only one monitor functioning and it displayed smaller fonts/icons and a fuzzier image. Turns out I had only updated the driver a couple months before. Two days later I’m humming along with three glorious monitors again, but not enough time in each day to complete this post. Wherewith…
After experiencing Edinburgh, Scotland, and England’s Lake District on our recent tour of the United Kingdom, we headed toward Llandudno Bay, Wales. Just before we arrived, though, we took in the Bodnant Garden, a National Trust property near Conwy and Llandudno Bay. The five generations of one family developed it, and Henry McClaren donated it. I got that from Wikipedia mostly, and would recommend a quick tour over to that page because the photos capture it very well. It’s 80 acres present all sorts of habitat from well-manicured English garden to “nearly wild” and has exotic species like the American sequoia. (Hey, it’s exotic there.) We started walking in a summery rain shower but the sun soon overcame it; we regretted layering for rain as we sweated our way into a steep gully and back out.
The couple above were gazing into the gully (when not gazing into each other’s eyes, I presume). If they had turned around they would have seen…
The light varied. As we descended into the gully, cut by a fast-moving stream, it grew dark—not because the clouds had obscured the sun, but because the foliage had. As we walked along the stream, it got lighter. We found some old stone buildings, repurposed into a refreshment center. We however needed to head back to our bus and Llandudno.
Wooten Meadows
In the past 50 years or so, a “walk around the block” has a different meaning. Streets meander, dead end, and lead to yet another meandering street, not to the nearest arterial. Thus, a walk around the block entails much more walking! With my brother in town, I chose to walk to a nearby park, Wooten Meadow. If my measurements are correct, the around-the-block part equaled roughly two miles. Add in the stroll through the park to make it 2.5 or so. Regardless, we had a fine time in this very small park which locals once knew as a horse pasture, according to my friend who grew up here.
Tucked alongside a bustling arterial, one sees the remnants of the horse pasture:
Half of the open area of the park is shown above. It’s not a large park. A figure-eight path leads one beside ponds which serve to handle high water during heavy rainfall when Hare Snipe Creek overflows its banks.
At the back of the meadow (middle left in the first photo) we discovered an unpaved trail which led into the woods. Spying a park bench, we gained assurance we were allowed to be there. No other people followed us, nor did we see any ahead of us. We saw instead several bucks sprouting antlers.
Half of “the block” remained, so we headed toward home.
Moth becoming
Two weeks ago I’m walking the path along the front of our house when movement in the dead leaves caught my eye. I saw an amazing insect squirming around, kind of walking in little circles. Examining the photo, I figured it to be a moth with wings not yet dry and fully erect. Regal Moth was the closest I could come (only having a photo of a female). The wing markings don’t seem to be correct, but they might change when they are fully deployed.
A couple hours later it had disappeared.
all the voices in my head 