they never saw it.

She never saw how big his nose was……

she was longing for his lips.

She never saw how he talked at people….

she was listening to his brilliance.

She never saw how he kept his hands to himself….

She was watching how skillfully he could build with them.

She never saw how he grew tired of waiting …..

She was keeping up with his skis.

She never saw how he turned his tongue to attack…..

She was looking for his sense of humor.

She never saw how he hoarded his time….

She was admiring his independent spirit.

SheI never saw how his heart wandered……

She was watching for his eyes.

She never saw how his decision was made….

She was alone.

the woman in the moon

see, full moon eclipsed
after longest night returns.
how brightly she shines!

what is the stuff all about?

“A room is not a person,”

said the voice.

Opening the door to find no one there,

but

the room was filled
with photographs of
faces, quilts and crocheted afghans,
boxes of clean books about cooking,
clothes bursting from the closet,

closing the door against the effort
of the crooked frame
and the stuck handle

decidedly,

the voice was right.

Scrooge Finds Love on a Rooftop

give it all to charity,
all the stuff we hoard
behind windows
walls and doors!

give it all up
if it ain't
needed
no more!

live without it!
but, need it, we think?
like a warm coat,
or a stiff drink,

even hugs, and talks
and some hot soup?
- trash it like ashes,
- like cat and dog poop!

but some lights pull you upward,
eyes lured like a fish
to a rooftop's lights
a target "X",... for a wish.

inside the house, mother
three children and dog,
who gave up to cancer
their dad and his love.

Don't give up on the light
don't tear up the cards
don't toss out the touch
don't hold back the words.

Sunday 160: rain heals (revised)

Hellish tears
shudderingly shed
spill over, damned
out my head

cleansing hands
of fear and dread
depressurize deepest
longings abed

to loving
forgiveness
ahead.





This is a poem in exactly 160 characters, including spaces.  This meme is hosted by Monkey Man HERE . post your own on Sunday, and let us know!

In 55 words 25 Gifts in 25 years, no charge, unreturnable.

Winking

Wading waterfalls

Laughing

Tenderly leaning
Listening to our days
Cooking side by side
Serving our family
Tasting your omelets

Puppies and kittens

Sewing Halloween costumes -
   character paired!
Sci-fi fascination
Skiing faster speeds

Sharing Pachelbel

Reviewing the Renaissance
Exploring space

Opening a gift –

   handmade!
Awakening naked
Touching pleasure

Electric currents

Gently

Creating

Offering

Admiring

(no refunds if thrown away or broken.......even if sorely missed?)

tear down the veils

Wish I had a time machine

Turn around and you’d be gone

Before I saw you through the curtains

Surrounding my life, shading my soul.

When I sink down in the fog

Blindness dogs me with it's veils.

Buried in my opulence,
It’s simply Clarity I crave.

I’d lost my mojo, further gone
More than you’ll ever know.
I know exactly when I found It,
Borrowed from a friend’s soul.
Boys are cute and men are strong

But seasoned souls have lived the song

What I’m seeing, never before

The colors are clearer without the veils

When they return I fight and moan

I writhe and run to arms or home,

To open expression of honesty and love

To find my way to the Clarity I crave.

It’s a Rent, a rent in the veil

You’ve torn a Rent in my veil

 
I posted this older poem before, but I've cleaned it up for the general public.  I'm dedicating it to the counselor I'm seeing for the first time today.  Today is a good day, one step on the path.......

New word of the year:

I know there's a poem in here some place,
I just feel like refudiating anything creative today,
...but I'm gathering up steam to work on it!
...

...




I repudiate
any refute
from you
and refudiate
condoning
your behavior!*

( The new word of the year, of those chosen by the New Oxford English Dictionary, is 'refudiate'

CBS news: "From a strictly lexical interpretation of the different contexts in which Palin has used 'refudiate,' we have concluded that neither 'refute' nor 'repudiate' seems consistently precise, and that 'refudiate' more or less stands on its own, suggesting a general sense of 'reject.' "the New Oxford American Dictionary said in a press release..........While Palin may have made “refudiate” famous, she is by no means the first person to coin the term. According to the New Oxford American Dictionary the Fort Worth Gazette was the first to publish the word in 1891. Nor is Palin the first politician to combine refute and repudiate; in 2006 Senator Mike DeWine asked “Fox and Friends” viewers to “refudiate” comments made by Senator John Kerry.)

 *ugh! Ha, told you so.

Give up?

Give it six months she said.


If we can’t feel

a warmer sun,

budding branches,

flowered gifts,

give it up,

and take Spring.





This is a poem/short story in exactly 160 characters.  Read more HERE at Monkey Man's blog.   Write your own post on Sunday and let him know!

friday flash fiction 55, Filling Space

all the stars

in the sky,

all the space
in between,

all the galaxies
hidden in telescopes,

cannot fill the void
in my heart once filled

by your voice,
once held in your hand.

Today, in full view
of the hollow room
empty words form a single
galaxy between us

a heartbeat
fills a universe.

This is a poem in exactly 55 words.  Post on Friday, and let our host G-Man at Mr Knowitall blog know it all.  Have a great weekend!  I'll work on the humorous edge of my writing from now on, this piece just sat on the keyboard waiting for me to turn on the juice.....I had no control over the little monster.

Wordless Weds. = Tuesday Toes

Alas, these are not mine.  I am a pedicure virgin.

This pedicure was the decoy for my room mate from college, while we set up her surprise 50th birthday party.

How many of you, male or female, have had a pedicure?

For Dec 8th

death of suffering

enlightenment renewal
bodhi re-birthday






Dec 8th is the celebration of the day of enlightenment of Buddha.  Happy Bodhi day coming up to Buddhists out there.
In this picture is a huge black sea lion, and a tiny young white one.  My 16 year old son took his two friends and I on a grueling hike 4 miles up the canyon above this coastline. (see "Take Me", last post).  At 50, I found for the first time my knee failing me on the way down.....
hopefully just a wake up call to build up to this by staying in shape.
enlightened,
peace.

photo: P. Spaulding

Take Me

Take me to

the ocean's side,

into
primeval rain,

beside the surf
above cove's curving

rocky shelter of
egret and seal,

below the source
of vapor's veil,

to life upon
the misty trail,

past rivermouth,
to the source

of springs,

climb among the creeks,

beneath the peaks

of wind and rain,

where clouds still
covet the ravines,

past dessicated-white
coyote scat,

over slashed
shale shard and quartz,

pine and redwood
form paths and beds,

with yellow bay leaves
and banana slugs, 

upon which sycamore's
phosphorous furnace

illuminates the sun's

chlorophill catalysts.

Take me to

the mountainside

to face life's struggles

with sweat and pride.

Quiet

In the quiet
I listen for you

I reach for the filament
Through the firmament



Of course you are not there
Not really



But when I can touch It
Something moves



A vibration of
Our oscillations


Your scintillation
my conflagration



And then
in the quiet



all the unrest
has burned away.

First Freeze

Crystalline phases

white frost, turning greens to brown,

water as slayer.

Poetry Bus: "Not yet"

Not yet, Yorick,

don't clean my bones,

someday, but not yet.

Someday, you may bury me

in rainbow socks

to feel our dance.

Burst bubbles

like a belly laugh

crests the surface of a lake.

Bounce a rib-bone
like heartbeats,
on a drumhead of goatskin.

Wind me 'round
with beads of amber
breasts to navel, warm as sun.

Store rain enough
to quench thirsty kisses
in desert glass of O'Keefe's sunsets.

My genes alive beyond
my life won't recall
nursing from my breasts,

sleeping in my crescent lap,
nor private words of lullabies
to quiet tearful nights.

Someday, they might
wash my flesh,
cold and heavy, but not yet.

They may dress my remains

in a tie-dyed tee,

and tomboy's cut-off jeans.

But for a princess
of the earth, please add a
crown of flowered wreaths.

They will smell my ashes

in the smoke,
heft my bones to rattle.

But I am cycling as
the full moon glows,

and the insistent, crisp wind blows,

as guitar notes strum,
as pen and paper hum.
I’m still saving my life,

not to lose it yet.
Not my bones, poor Yorick,

don't clean them yet!

Chris Alba, at Enchanted Oak HERE hosts this week's poetry bus.  Her prompt is:
Poems that address your existence on this earth. Good, bad, or indifferent, tell us something, anything, about your life here.

Poetry bus comes from blogger Totalfeckineejit  http://totalfeckineejit.blogspot.com/

("Alas poor Yorick, I knew him, Horatio." a famous quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet, in which the subject of the play holds the skull of his nursery servant, jester, and castle clown in a graveyard at night.  In certain southern Mexican communities, and in Pomuch on the Yucatan peninsula, the bones of the ancestors are exhumed on the Day of the Dead, "Dia de los Muertos", cleaned, redressed with new clothing, fresh food and favored items, to be reburied again.)

Happy Birthday at Enchanted Oak

Today is Chris's birthday at Enchanted Oak blog. HERE  Wish her joy that we share the earth the day she was born.

EARTH SONG

Listen to things more often than beings.

Hear the voice of the fire, hear the voice of the water,

Listen in the wind to the sighing of the bush:

This is the ancestors breathing.

Those who are dead are never gone;

The dead are not down in the earth:

They are in the trembling of the trees,

In the groaning of the woods,

In the water that runs, in the water that sleeps,

They are in the hut, they are in the crowd.

Those who are dead are not ever gone;

They are in the woman's breast, they are in the wailing of a child,

They are in the burning log and in the moaning rock.

They are in the weeping grasses, in the forest and the home.

Listen to things more often than beings.

Hear the voice of fire, hear the voice of water.

Listen in the wind to the sighing of the bush.

This is the ancestors breathing.

(traditional song from Senegal)

my first post, 1 year ago

The rhythm of the light

rolls away, rolls away.

An orange orb bounces
on the road, on the road

Signaling the way to begin
or end the day, end the day.

The strain of my feet
chips away, chips away.

My heart heats up a blanket
which drags down, drags down,

While the rhythm of the light
rolls away, rolls away.

Skin’s cold dark drink
renews my speed renews my speed

In center of the road,
tempting pumas, tempting pumas.

Trees are hiding frogs
croaking song, croaking song

and merge with humming crickets
strumming beats, strumming beats

To Night’s rolling blackness
Infinite, infinite:

The rhythm of the light
rolls away, rolls away.



Thanks to my inspirations, Pablo Neruda's Pumas in Love Sonnett XI if you haven't read it.  Blues musicians.
Chris at Enchanted Oak, happy birthday! Running before twilight when the earth glows.  Death when the blackness rolls infintely. Fellow poets and writers and bloggers who take me under their wings and fly with the wingbeat of the rhythm of the light.......

for Wordless Wednesday (aka Tuesday Toes)

Do you recognize

the coastal trails,

 estuaries,

 sand spits,

bays,

famous landmarks,






and Tuesday Toes?


(volcanic morros, seven in all, the "sisters" they are called, here standing upon the black one....)

My seeds are flying.

Windy forces lift them high

to find fertile ground.

Sheilds and swords protect

in battle and hunting games.

Minds must find their own.

my two boys won art awards in a county-wide annual scholarship contest this weekend, you have seen some versions of their work,  another of the lake in snow won 1st place for all high schools in the county, it took time and effort and attention to help them pursue their goals, what a return!

Gratitude for:

for the fertile crescent in the desert

crescent moon changing my tune

crescent smiling when I touch

crescent rocking into crescendo

crescent of your arms at rest

 
 
This is a flash fiction, poem in exactly 160 characters, spaces included.  Our Sunday 160 host is Monkey Man HERE .  Visit, comment, and try your own on Sunday.  Let him know of course.

Friday Flash Fiction 55, for poets

We can’t all be poets, but

with only one,

we can live…..


For the poet takes us

to the deepest, dankest

worm’s stank bed,



drags our fingers

leafing through

the crumbling acrid yeasty loam.


He overturns bones

to dig us out and

quenches with liqueur


distilled in dew

from the bud

of the deepest red.



This is a flash fiction poem, in exactly 55 words, hosted by Mr Knowitall, HERE  .  Write your own story or poem, let us know, and post on Friday!  Should I change "red" to "read"?
Photo by J.Giese.
I am grateful to the talented and truthful poets I heard tonight, who lifted me and shredded me and wrung me out.  I am ready to get up and face another day...

shields

Aura is a veil
proximity frames the day

ravens hide inside
















Photo: Shaver Lake, CA. by J.T. Giese

veiled threat

Close enough to touch


veil of fog shields nearer threats

horizons will wait.

Wordless Weds. = Tuesday Toes

Leonardo knows, the smile Mona Lisa shows, and today's lack of prose, are due to Tuesday Toes!

This is my answer to wordless wednesday, to say a brief Hi and check in mid-week my fellow bloggers.  I am ok, not in any hospital (unless working) and not writing (unless on a new computer charting system - aack!)

I don't travel much, but started these photo shoots after college, to add humor and a foreground gage to scenic travel shots.  These lovely piggies are compliments of my college roommate, Anne G, taken from the Louvre last month!  Thank you, Anne. As Kim said in response, I bet the guards thought they'd seen it all until now!

Feel free to comment, or send your own shots of life in your shoes! Ha!

Magpie Tales: cock cold

Cockeyed, she scries,

as if a diesel fume plume

filled the colorless sky.

Her skin shivers

in a spidery twitching,

awash in a wasabi sinus scald.

Should she shave her head,

rub ashes until pimples puss,

lay prone and moan over a backless grave-

-as women in the past had done

when their man was gone?



It feels like pushing a steam roller

wading upstream in the river-mud

to shove a suitcase down the hall.

Why do we only

call men

cuckold?





This is a Magpie Tale, read some fabulous other tales, and enter your poem to this image promt HERE

Friday's 55 flash fiction: Apathy

To avoid apathy, I have conversations with myself.




Apathy isn't

A Pathetic Ye

A-pathetic Me

Chronicity of the late last minute deadline…..

Dead line/transeunt

Disarticulate/repair

Pre-postulate/prepare

Dis-intelligence/disguise

Disintegrate/improvise

Indifference/recognize

Transience/stabilize

Pathos/Aperture

A Path
To sadness/Is in a bottle or a stimulant or a week in bed.



(sorry if this doesn't make sense to anyone but me.  blame it on a sleepless night.)

Theme Thursday. love is rough

The ocean is rough today:
the wind blows sand from my hands through my heart.

Sea clashing, frothing the rocks, leaping into the air:
the sound continues as I move out of sight.

The wind brushes its fingers through silvery grasses:
a snare-drum song carries upward.

It transforms in the moaning of the bare cypress branches,
still in view of the sea.

Rocks rattle in a pocket against languid fingers,
after a sky-bleached day.

Once dried in the wind and sunlight,
a cotton towel rasps my steamy skin.

A rope swing tightens as it’s wound,
before dizzily spinning out.

Eyes spark to instant attention,
as if a finger or a foot pokes into the comfort zone.

A joy-juiced hug, rocks you over your feet
without knocking you to the ground.

Share a whisper of fear in a doorway,
Shhh, don’t tell anyone.

A touch of coarse hair raises
boar-bristling, blood-tingling life.

I sink my teeth into the source
of my hunger and my satisfaction

I like it rough, I’m finding out.


This is a reprint of a poem I wrote at the beach a while back.  I adjusted the first line and it fit for Theme Thursday's writing prompt HERE  , Megan provided the photo above. Visit her and the other writers of Theme Thursday and comment, PLEASE!

Wordless Weds. = Tuesday Toes

The best part of Halloween is making the costumes, the worst part is finding out only 1 in 10 of my family had actually SEEN "Avatar" (sigh).

Microfiction Monday: Switched

If Ophelia traded sugar and spice

for the eye of newt and tongue of frog,

it would’ve tasted awful
switching her from fairy tale to real girl.

55 to Enchanted Oak and Steveroni

Listen to your cries at night

Hold a candle to the light

Throw open every window in sight

Capture hatching thoughts in flight

Accept the wrongs you can’t make right

Arise today to win one fight

Aim higher than the imagined goal’s height

Release the demons guilt and spite

Face each addiction as a blight


This is a flash fiction poem in exactly 55 words.  Join us with our host Mr Knowitall HERE  Post on Friday, and visit one other 55!  This is a response to Enchanted Oak's intense and honest series this week HERE and Steveroni's farewell to blog land HERE

Wordless Weds. = Tuesday Toes. Trick or Treat

Smell my feet, give me something good to eat!  (crab, anyone?)



Photo: Thanks to Kim.
I'm speechless and MY blue toes are working on their Avatar costume....hee hee hee.....

Sunday 160, Look what the low pressure system blew in

clear horizon a day away

I want to be

where sky touches trees

the wind whips my face

the ground meets me

scrambling granite

shouldering pack

leaning back

into the sky


Photo: D. Gross.

This is a flash fiction poem in exactly 160 characters with spaces included, all I have time for by the way.

Visit our host for the Sunday 160, Monkey Man, HERE, write your own, post on Sunday, and let him know!  My doesn't that feel better?

Wordless Weds. = Tuesday Toes

After our early rain, in a region known for drought, my rose bush explodes with a second generation.

Each bloom goes out to my friends with breast cancer, survivors and fighters in the front lines.

by any other name, she still smells sweet

 Here is a poem for my breast cancer survivors:

such a bloom to caress, a velvet mew.
stems uphold, even cut through.

thorns exposed, outside of you.
nectar infused, elixer to renew.

water to quench, in droplets of dew.
rosebuds to kiss, one
or two....!

(for some reason, our photo upload for Tuesday Toes doesn't work tonight)

Sunday 160, leadership

Terrified by too many of them, holes in the tactical plan, only a backup prevented casualties.

I surrendered to a tiny hug, & an adoring grin after Sunday School.

(This is a flash-fiction poem in exactly 160 characters, spaces included. I cheated with the ampersand.  To try one, or see more, visit Monkey Man HERE . Post on Sunday, and let him know!)  For those fellow bloggers who follow me, these are rarely fiction.  I write what I know, and what takes me deeper into life by observing..........

Rapping with Buddha

What I want now

has nothing at all

to do with anything more

I can do for anyone else

other than myself.

And it has to be more
and it has to be now
and it can’t be for nobody
but for myself.

What I wanted was
never a reality
and never received
and never even asked, for
fear of disappointment.

I've always asked less
and hoped for less
and expected less
to be happy with less…
than what I ever wanted.

Now what I want
is connected to everything
and connected to nothing
but that which I hunger for
and am driven to want.

What is satisfying?
…addiction to wanting
fuels the hunger for wanting
for more than enough,
when life ain’t so fulfilling.

And it will be more
and it will be now
and it won’t be for nobody
but for myself.

Or else I’m not alive,
and I won’t find my path
and I won’t feel like anyone
and I won’t be myself.


Still seething from the turmoil in our community, but keeping my writings to myself.  Here is an older poem filled with agressive drive.  I'll need all the drive I can get, to leave behind Macbeth's "Gentlewoman" and find my center with the Buddha.

Wordless Weds. = Tuesday Toes

No poetry today, but a question.  Have you ever felt like you've had a second birthday?  A "rebirth" worthy of commemoration every new year?  I think mine is 10-10-10.  I have many reasons why, some too private to post here.  But here is a fun reason why:  I choose it as the start of the second half of my life, as a birthday of my own decision.  It has a logical reason for a landmark, it is 9 months exactly after my 50th birthday.  If we look at the average life expectancy for the year 2060, it might be 100 years of age!  (Whether that statistic is for those born that year, or of a certain population, I don't know.  I just looked at points on a graph and continued the graph another 15 years forward, and 10 years older.....) 

It is food for thought.  I am impressed with the 90-year-old women I meet today!  So, don't get me wrong, I don't want to live to be 100, just looking at the 2nd half of my existence with a new life....

What would be your second birthday?  Write about it.

Sunday 160 Accepting Motherhood

Solitary night

walled insight.

Hissing words

the dragon came.

Faced it unslain

burned to the core.

Ride its back

anticipate each tack

dousing fires

my offspring

devour.


This is a flash fiction/poem in exactly 160 characters, hosted by Monkey Man, post on Sunday, and let him know HERE .
This is VERY metaphorical, and no, my offspring are not dragons!  Three events brought the reality of motherhood to my awareness, and a dragon image emerged.  First, the "calling" that I would not be a spiritual leader after high school, but a mother. This was God's message to me, on a retreat.  Second, the actual labor and delivery should have killed me, and the courage to continue naturally felt like walking through dragon fire.  Third, the dangers our children face are sometimes self inflicted, by accident or intention, from playstructure fires to drinking and drugs.  The dragon flies on......

55 flash fiction friday, what am I?

I resonate like a drum:

Thrum thrum, thrum thrum,

singing in stone cellars

to echo my abandon.

I satiate hunger in a tick of time:

for those seconds “we” become mine,

like a flash in a pan.

I warm like bellows on a coal

from a torch at the core:

into the chest, from the hand.

This is a flash fiction poem in exactly 55 words.  Meet the challenge by G-Man at Mr Knowitall HERE  , let him knowitall, and visit one other 55. Post on Friday, if you dare!

Wordless Weds. = Tuesday Toes

Inner beauty isn't easily seen.  We have many hidden qualities, some ugly, some beautiful, some useful, some freakish.  I produced offspring with this webbing between his toes.....and yes, he IS the best swimmer in the family!

What hidden quality do you have, making you unique?

Microfiction Monday: Point of View

Cloudy skies, from an isolated tower, view a barren lake and land.  By taking her hand, soaring in winged embrace, seek your silver lining.

This is a microfiction story/poem in 140 characters or less.  Visit Susan at Stony River HERE for details, other entries, and try one yourself!

Sunday 160: Creektrash

Homeless mattress

two tire swings

strange glass bong

a Mexican Pepsi can

recycled,

styrofoam saved from ocean gyre

sludge-filled baby bottle

a gnome

re-gardened.




(My 3 teen boys participated in an annual community cleanup day, with the Boy Scout troop and the rest of the town.  This swing-set was still here, 4 years after our first cleanup day!  A bit of found poetry and found humanity.)

This is a flash non-fiction prose poem, written in exactly 160 characters, spaces included.  To meet the challenge hosted by Monkey Man, post on Sunday and let him know HERE

Dreaming in a drop of water

In a drop of water, dreaming of drowning,

I will dream of swimming, and swim upstream.

Awake in a bubble of air, barely breathing,

I will deeply inhale, to pass through the atmosphere.

Inspired by Shadow, a poet at One Door Away from Heaven  HERE

Tuesday Toes = Wordless Weds

doot, doot, doot, lookin out my back door......

the view from my deskwindow, outside with the hummingbirds, magpies, and occasionally a bunny



Autumnal Equinox

Straw man, harvest moon,

looking on the other shore.

Higan rituals?












OK, here is some clarification added after your first comments:  since this is a Haiku, which is Japanese, I couldn't help but reference the Autumnal Equinox ceremonies in Japan, the Higan Rituals. I just can't get over it in one day, the full moon so close to the first day of Fall, here 3 days later I can go on and on.
From internet research: JAPAN: The Spring and Autumn Equinoxes are observed as the six-day celebration: the Higan-e. It is celebrated for three days before and after each Equinox. Six days was chosen because it is based on the six perfections, giving, observance of the precepts, perseverance, effort, meditation and wisdom - needed before one goes from this shore of samsara to the further shore or nirvana. The literal meaning of Higan is 'other shore.' The ritual includes repentance of past sins and prayers for enlightenment in the next life. It also includes remembrance of the dead and visits to the family graves. It is thought that the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes, being the most temperate times of the year, are ideal moments to reflect on the meaning of life. 

 *correct me if I err* 

Losing her

Above the jogging couple a single leaf

reddened in the shadow

of the neon of summer

their faces glowed

as they lurched forward

glancing at each other as if,

by running again along a new route

they could keep

the old roads from view.



Clouds rimmed their town

with fresh mountainous pillars

dry and sparkling,

the words always there

between the days

of waiting for each breath

and knowing.



She waited

in the hospital rooms

in wallpapered halls and under crocheted throws.

She couldn’t help her mother anymore

but never said the word, goodbye.

It meant she would have to look back

and forward to recognize the road she’d chosen.


So she ran,

fresh and wet and charged

medicated by endorphines

he filled

the moments given

without knowing how to help

and kept the words coming

each hello a gift.


Every shared thought a valve

to open and liquefy the loneliness.

Fed and warmed and burning the fall

without losing their way,

they ran.


My mother's birthday contiues to be an anniversary for reflection, 2 1/2 years after her death.  No longer in the throws of mourning mixed with infatuation for the world, I can savor the memories, one at a time.  Good bye is still so final....

I am not a writer



I am alexic,

a nonscribe.

A left-brain damaged,

thick-tongued,
aphasic communicator.

A bardless

nonmuse-ical
unromantic.

Ink-poor,

a paper-pauper.

An un-handy

dim-penned

dull-whetted

nib.

-perhaps I may earn a liberal arts degree online, and then call myself a "writer".  I just participated in a phenomenal 1 & 1/2 day workshop at a community college.  Kevin Clark, a Calif. Polytech. Univ. San Luis Obispo poetry professor, bowled me over.

How many of you call yourselves "poet"?

Wordless Weds. = Tuesday Toes

"...a green which no artist could ever obtain on his palette, a green of which neither the varied tints of vegetation nor the shades of the most limpid sea could ever produce the like! If there is a green in Paradise, it cannot be but of this shade, which most surely is the true green of Hope."

-Jules Verne in his 1882 novel "Le Rayon Vert" (The Green Ray)

Colors are emerging on the last day of summer.  In the west, the brown of  the hills will soon be replaced by green, ignited like the Green Flash on the ocean at sunset .