Category Archives: friendship

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playing telephone

If they whisper from one end to the other, does it get garbled before it reaches the other end?

Isn’t gossip a sin?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: chaos.

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daily changes

Some days this beach is mostly sand. Yesterday it is rocks and more rocks, pebbles, stones, sand, beautiful. We are having lots of cliff collapse and new rocks are washing down. I was walking on North Beach last week when I heard bits of cliff fall. I turn and look and a nice one foot by 8 inch boulder falls from the top and rolls towards me, very fast. I stumble backwards and trip over a big boulder in the sand. I don’t hit my head and get knocked out and I don’t get hit by the falling rock.

The black toes are mine, so this is a stealthie.

I start back a little and another section of cliff rains rock. The tide is fairly far out, so I walk near the water until I am back where there is no cliff. Scary. Sometimes large sections collapse all at once. Death occurs by blunt trauma rather than suffocation.

I worry about seeing shoes or feet when I see a newly collapsed section. Happily none so far.

My emotions are like the beach. Some days clear and sun and sand. Other days LOTS of new rocks. Other days stormy and the tide is very high and pulling at the sand and clay cliffs.

I receive a valentine from my daughter. She says she loves me. She says she misses the beach and the water most of all.

I find agates and they are beautiful. Some are clear and some are not and new ones keep arriving.

This agate lights up when the sun is out or a light is behind it.

Let the light shine through, in spite of the weather.

________________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: pebble.

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his steady light

Dreaming of the Sun
whose warm rays surround her
and caress her
daily

she orbits him
and he pours his love on her
steady
constant
joyous

occasionally he flares up
and that might hurt
some of the small cells
on her surface

but she sheds
dead cells
they are reabsorbed
and she basks

in his warmth
with joy
ecstatic
orbit

she is alive
turning
whirling
so her small children
are not overcooked

like mercury

are not frozen

like uranus

mars is a rival
but the seas are dead
at least

her small children
think so

and venus
swelters
and is clouded
all the time
toxic

she turns
dancing
full of joy

in his steady light

___________________

written January 8, 2022

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gristle for my mill

I think
you are my muse

another muse
in a series

like the men
who have young girls
in series
muses

I think
you are gristle
for my mill

I will grind your bones
to poetry

you don’t like my poems
I don’t care

hopefully you won’t read them
your bones
ground

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Spring, summer, fall

I visit my friend Amy in Portland. We are friends from medical school at the Medical College of Virginia, now VCU, Richmond, Virginia.

Her mother is Nancy Clough and lives nearby. Amy’s house is surrounded by bronze sculptures, because Nancy Clough works in bronze and pottery.

This series is in Nancy’s house. She says that she sold winter and needs to pour another. More than one set is out there.

I love the joy in these sculptures.

Years ago I bought a vase from Nancy Clough, when I was visiting Amy on the west coast. I still have that vase and now a new one, from this trip. I bought the smallest vase back years ago, because it was all that I could afford. My mother was an artist, so I know how much it means to artists to have people buy their work. And anyhow, I love the flowers on the vase.

I tried googling her and find her on LinkedIn. She can be reached regarding her sculptures, just message me. I want to photograph more of the sculptures in the yard, so I will have to plan another trip. Heads up, Amy, I am coming back.

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Valentine

I am thinking of you
my love my valentine
on valentine’s day
at two in the morning

two to too
much to bear
I want to be a tiger
not an ox

disabled
but still strong
I settle into the traces
again

the load is placed
I look at my path
gather my strength
turn on my oxygen
and pull

no one expects
an ox on oxygen
to be able to pull

you don’t either

why do you think
so little of me
why do you scorn
what I do

when you return
you find
traces of the wagon wheels
on the ground

but once I am on the road
you can’t follow
you can’t find me
any more

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt slender, as in slender hope.

The photograph is neither an ox nor a tiger, but a sea lion, off of Marrowstone Island, Washington.