Category Archives: Beloved

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in the air

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: ebullient.

I took this at the Great Port Townsend Bay Kinetic Sculpture Race. This is not part of the race, but our local school Robotics team, showing how many balls their robot can shoot into the air. I think the yellow balls look ebullient and the small observer is entranced. She is probably writing programs by now.

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And she’s walking as if her feet hurt

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: crepitus.

I wrote this poem thinking about my sister in 2009. I was writing on everything2.com and they had a “masked poetry ball”. We put up a second identity and part of the contest was guessing who was who. My brother in law and my sister had been on the site for far longer than me. While I was masked, my brother in law sent me a message that the poem reminded him of his wife. Yes, I thought, that poem worked, because I wrote it about her.

And she’s walking as if her feet hurt

And she’s walking as if her feet hurt
Each first metatarsal hits the dirt
Each joint feels like it’s full of grit
Bone on bone and all that shit

And she’s walking as if her feet hurt
Each first metatarsal hits the dirt
It’s no surprise, in fact it grates
To know she carries all those weights

Please rest your feet sometimes my dears
Those silly joints must last for years
One of the many dark deep fears
To walk in pain for years and years

And she’s walking as if her feet hurt
Each first metatarsal hits the dirt
I wish that she could go on home
And put her feet up all alone

I took the picture, of my sister and my son, in 1993 in Portland, Oregon. My sister injured her knee fighting fires when she was 22. Her knee worked after the surgery, but with crepitus within ten years. And her feet started to hurt.

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kitchen window

My mother had plants all over a shelf running the length of their kitchen. She did a pen and ink drawing of the riot of flowers and pots and leaves. She then did a second one but this time the snapdragons were dragons and there were elves and fairies and monsters in all the plants.

My orchid is blooming riotously right now, with abandon, to the point where the pot barely stays upright. I love orchids, how long the blooms last, and how they would rather not be watered too much, and a flower that perches up on tree branches in jungles: how delightful and romantic is that? This one is in my kitchen window and makes me think of my mother.

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pair

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: partners.

My plumbing, from the 1930s, backed up yesterday. I pay for emergency service, but they came four hours after I called. I did damage control and then really wanted a shower. My boat is docked at the port, so I went and used the port showers. Whew. That felt better. Plumbing is fixed, hooray.

This pair were swimming in the port when I got there. Snapped with my cell phone. I think they are Barrow’s goldeneye or Common goldeneye ducks. Small diving ducks. They headed away quickly when they realized I was watching.