The apples at the store were soft Their crispness was long gone Too long sunsets were early And too late was the dawn
Snuggling with her Tigger-Tiger Kept little Molly warm As outside snow swirled and blew Another winter storm
“It’s almost March! When will this end?” Mamma wailed and whined The blinding blizzard hammered down Of Spring there were no signs
Molly hugged her Tigger-cat And cried, “But Mommy look! Since we can’t go outside today Let’s read another book!”
This is my response to Val’s Winter Scavenger Hunt‘s second prompt: Use the following words in a poetry form of your choice: apple(s), sunset, tiger, hammer.
Yesterday, I walked on the track listening only to Queen. I had this idea that I could put together a whole play list of Queen for my senior walkers. My concern was that Queen may not appeal to the 70-year olds, but when I asked a few of them, they were in favor of it.
So I was walking on the track listening only to Queen. Their music is great: Somebody to Love, Another One Bites the Dust, We Will Rock You, We are the Champions, etc.
When Bohemian Rhapsody came on, I couldn’t help but think of our local summer opera company — Glimmerglass Opera — and how cool it would be to hear them perform that song. Can’t you picture it? Do opera companies ever do anything like that?
Anyway, back to walking on the track, a song came on that I didn’t recognize at first. I was a good way into the song before someone sang the words “under pressure.” Of course, I knew the song then.
Of course, I came home and watched the video, which I had never watched before. The chaos that they show — so appropriate for today. The whole song is so appropriate for today. The chaos, the scariness, the need for love.
So here you go — a little Queen and David Bowie.
I know Linda Hill wasn’t thinking of pressure as a starts with ‘pre’ word when she suggested that for the SoCS prompt, but I had the song running through my head when I saw her prompt.
Rubbing fuzzy leaves Releases distinctive smell Pink geranium Awakening memories Mom’s thriving houseplant green thumb
I’m late to the scavenger hunt (thanks, Val, for sharing it with me) but here’s my response to the first prompt: “Write a poem inspired by leaves (dying ones or newly emerged). For bonus points use a Tanka to express your feelings about the leaves…”
Since the scavenger hunt started in the fall, I’m sure it was intended to inspire poetry about the beautiful colors of autumn. However, I’m writing in February, and immediately thought of my sad geranium. It’s the one plant that I’ve been able to keep alive for multiple years. That alone tells me that it’s an easy plant.
Its leaves turn crispy brown starting at the edges when I forget to water it — which happens more often than it should. Now I’ve placed the plant in a place I walk past all the time so I’ll see it.
“Oh, yeah, you,” I say to those brown-edged leaves. “You need water.”
So I give it water and the whole plant perks up.
Once, when I went on vacation, my son was taking care of the house for me. He remembered to feed the cats but forgot to water the geranium.
Priorities, right?
Anyway, I thought the geranium was a goner that time — but just add water and it’s back.
I do love the smell of the leaves when I’m dead-heading and dead-leafing. They make me think of my mom who, I’m pretty sure, never killed a plant in her life.
This is a photo from a few summers ago. The geranium, on the left, is still alive today. Nothing else in the photo is.
You hide, avoiding spotlight and regard, Let others have their moments in the sun Small talk, large groups for you are both quite hard Thus you oft eschew the words, “Well done”
What creature, then, can I compare with thee? An earthworm making soil in the dirt? Or detritivore cleaning up the sea, Hard-working anti-social introvert
A hoverfly works hard to pollinate The lovely flowers everyone enjoys Yet no one pauses to appreciate The busy flying workers of no noise
Some people never see, will never know The one who does, and doesn’t seek to show
W3 Challenge this week: write a love sonnet to yourself.
Let this line guide you:
There is in you something that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in Yourself … that is the only true guide that you will ever have.— Howard Thurman (1899 – 1981)
For Christmas, my brother gave each of his surviving siblings a mug with a QR code on it. My QR code leads me to a trivia question each day. My sister gets the bird of the day. Another brother learns a little history from his. The gift-giving brother learns about an unusual creature each day. The other day his creature was a Sea-Pig:
This high definition video framegrab was taken from MBARI’s ROV “Doc Ricketts” aboard the R/V Western Flyer at a depth of approximately 1260 meters on March 9, 2010.
Scotoplanes globosa, commonly known as the sea pig, is a species of sea cucumber that lives in the deep sea. It is considered a detritivore, or something that eats detritus, decaying organic matter. These kinds of creatures are crucial to the ecosystem, but we seldom consider them.
Soooo… I’m looking for challenges or prompts to inspire me.
You understand, right? I wantto post on a regular basis, but the question is what to post!
Dawn, a blogger that I follow, posted a photo that she called Triptych Crop. Her photo reminded me of a photo I have on my desk (someday I’ll post a picture of it) that is from Varde, Denmark, circa 1900. It’s the kind of photo that pulls you in. I followed Dawn’s rabbit trail which led me to a photography challenge called Unusual Crop.
Well, after looking at 60+ year old photos of my brothers playing chess, I went back to that album and cropped photos of each of my siblings (and me) from that same time period. I don’t know if the crops are unusual, but here’s what’s left of the photos I cropped:
I had put out a request asking for seniors who would be interested in playing games after school with the children who come to the facility where I work.
A man stopped in my office. “I’d like to teach kids to play chess,” he said.
He had a magazine that showed a large group of children playing chess on the cover.
“In a lot of places,” the man said, “kids start learning chess at the age of 6.”
I immediately thought of this series of photos of my two older brothers. It’s from 1963 or 64, which would mean my brothers were probably 6 and 9.
Twice a week for the past few months I’ve been leading a walking workout up on the track at the facility where I work. The walking workout is for our seniors, and my goal is to get them to walk for 30 minutes. We do it on Mondays and Thursdays. I’ve got a small but dedicated group that attend.
Here’s how it works: I make a playlist and assign exercises to go with the different songs. We do grapevine, or side-steps, or bicep curls with weights while walking, etc. We even walk backwards, which is great for balance!
On Thursday of this week, I decided to look for love songs with an upbeat tempo for my playlist. The warm-up song was “Walking on Sunshine.” Afterwards, one of the ladies told me that was one of her favorites. “It’s the song I used to use as the first song when I would go running,” she said.
She doesn’t run anymore, but she be-bopped around the track and sang along as she did. It made me smile.
Now, as I explained, I have the walkers do different things while walking. I’ve tried having them do lunges (only four at a time!) which isn’t popular. I had them balance something on their head while walking. (I thought it might help with posture.) I thought about having them walk backwards and toss a football to a forward-walking walker who then would have to walk backwards — but it seemed complicated and I wasn’t sure if the idea was workable.
For the second song on Thursday, though, I tried out a new cock-a-mamie ideas.
The song was The Proclaimers’ song “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” (see below). I wanted them to try walking at the same pace as someone else. I explained that when I was taking care of my father, one of the hardest things for me to do was to walk at his pace. I also explained that it was a drill I used to use occasionally when I coached swimming where I had the swimmers try to swim in synchrony with another swimmer. I’m not sure that it made them faster, but it did make them aware that they were not the only person in the world, which is a better life skill than being a fast swimmer.
Anyway, I explained this to my walkers and then I watched them as they tried to walk in step with someone else. The more I watched, the more I thought about my father and how hard it was to walk with him through those last years but how he had set the example by walking with my mother through her last years.
Mom and Dad — 2015
I wouldn’t trade any of it for anything.
The next song that came up was Queen singing “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” We did the grapevine to it.
In my head I was still back at how walking with another person at their pace is an act of love. I would walk 500 miles like that. Crazy little thing called love.
This is my response to Linda Hill’s Stream-of-Consciousness Saturday prompt: Love..
Oh, to pocket time It flies one season to next Simply catch a star
This is my response to this week’s W3 challenge which is to create a haiga by pairing a haiku (traditionally about nature) or senryu (traditionally about human foibles) with a visual art form of my choice. The theme: the long-awaited shift from winter to spring.
I think this is a senryu? It is a human foible to think we can control time, right?
The artwork is a little self-indulgent. It’s a collage I made at Christmas. I also made a few ornaments along the same theme, but never did anything with them.
Basswood tree with holes drilled by a yellow-bellied sapsucker
Detailed? Abstract? Both?
I was searching for blogging challenges this morning. Having a challenge keeps me posting. The challenge of Detailed or Abstract — or both came from Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge (CFFC) which, it appears, has been taken over by Dan Antion. Cee Neuner started the long-running challenge. She encouraged blogger/photographers to take photos or go through photo archives and post photograph(s) based on the prompt. Mostly, she said, to have fun.
This was a photo I took in the Adirondacks. I was there with a friend who is very knowledgable about nature. If you’ve never walked in the woods with someone who knows them well, make it a bucket list item. My Adirondack-loving friend knows the common names and Latin names of all the trees. He know the birds. He knows the stories and the lore. I love hearing it all.
The yellow-bellied sapsucker pecks holes in horizontal lines in basswood trees because they like the soft bark. Apparently they also like apple trees, birch trees, maples and more. They drill their rows of holes then leave them for the sap to ooze out. Later, they return to eat both the sap and the insects trapped in it.
To me, I just liked the look of the tree with its vertical bark lines and the horizontal sapsucker lines.
In my quest for blogging inspiration, I found a poetry challenge: frozen water that called for using synonyms for the famous “frozen water” in Minneapolis without using the word for immigration enforcement. I’m way over the word count for the challenge, but I’ll put it here FWIW
Winter walk Snow and cold Past a tree Many holed
Does sap freeze? (Water will) Sap won’t run In this chill
What do birds Who eat sap Dine on now Sap’s the trap
People use Something worse [sideways move in this verse]
Intimidation Immigration We are lost As a nation
Take away Legal status Now they are Called non-gratis
They are NOT All worst-of-worst [unintentional outburst]
I sigh a sigh ‘Cause I don’t know How to help Or where to go
At the feeder There’s a jay “BULLY, BULLY GO AWAY!”
I start every day with reading. I’ve done that for most of my adult life, although what I read has changed over time.
These days I have four different books that I’m reading. It’s a weave, pulling threads from four different sources, and letting them intertwine. Sometimes it’s amazing how it works sometimes, the similarity between two disparate books.
This morning I was especially struck by that. I’ve been reading William Willimon’s book Aging: Growing Old in Church. I finally finished a very long chapter called “With God in the Last Quarter of Life” which was subdivided into topics like Grief, Church Participation, Being a Burden, Economics, etc. The last section was on Memory.
I cared for both of my parents as their memories shape-shifted and deteriorated. This section of the book hid hard and hit home as I remembered that period of time in MY life. Here are a few quotes:
One reason the aging remember is to preserve a now disintegrating sense of self. We remember selectively, even desperately, defiantly, having lost a job and some of our friends and family. Remembrance is an act of defiance against injustice, recalling the lives of past victims in order that their witness may not be lost. …
And yet some of our feverish attempts to hold on to our memories may be a sign that we fear we are being forgotten. We may have bought into the widespread American notion … seeing ourselves as the sum of our efforts rather than as a gift of God’s love and vocation. …
The elderly… can be living bodily reminders to us all that our lives are not the sum of our attainments, never our sole possessions, but rather, from birth to death, God’s gifts.
Compare/contrast/weave those words in with these words from Brian Doyle. I’m reading his collections of essays called Eight Whopping Lies and other stories of bruised grace. Today’s essay was “What Were Once Pebbles Are Now Cliffs” in which he remembers his sons when they were the size of pebbles; now they are cliffs.
Time stutters and reverses and it is always yesterday and today. Maybe the greatest miracle is memory. Think about that this morning, quietly, as you watch the world flitter and tremble and beam.
It’s good to be reminded that I am not the sum of my efforts, my attainments, my possessions. Every day is a gift. And memory is also a gift.
Hot Dogs and Marmalade 