Mean Mockingbirds...but nice ride!

Magnolia

Sunday morning bike ride with a newly repaired camera - I AM SO GLAD - and nice weather. This was the trial run to see if the camera was behaving, and it was. I enjoy just looking around for something to take a photo of. I enjoy the exercise and the music in my ears. I really enjoyed watching the mockingbird smack-down in the middle of the street and another one chasing a squirrel down a wire. Those are the meanest birds. Aretha Franklin sings if she doesn't get a mockingbird that sings as a gift then she will get a diamond ring - (link below). Go for the ring! Anyway, below are some of the photos I shot on this excursion.. I hope you enjoy them.

Cactus Flowers

Looks like the buds are wearing cowboy hats!

Aretha Franklin singing Mockingbrid - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0URYw27qd0

Rock(s) of Gibraltar

It's not easy being a Mom. Perhaps that is the understatement of the year, you think ladies? I just returned home from the place where my own Mom is loaning her body to temporarily, Barrancas National Cemetery on NAS Pensacola, Florida. Of course a trip such as to the last place you left your Mother tends to promote reflection and so I find myself before my computer making this post.

The Rock of Gibraltar is a high cliff in southern Spain, at the south-western edge of the Mediterranean Sea near the town and port of Gibraltar. When people say solid as the Rock of Gibraltar they mean something safe and firm. That certainly was the situation with my Mom. Having run across something I wrote for her back in the 80's, I thought this might be a great time to bring it out of moth balls and send a solute to the Mother's of the world who daily continue on, even when they really don't feel much like it.

My mother...
As a child she was
helper, provider, security
Rock of Gilbraltar.
As a teenager she was
enemy, adversary, foe, spy
or so I thought. Young
cloudy eyes see
dimly, looking out
at a world
so confusing.
Days last forever, weeks turn
to eternity.
My relationship with
my mother all cracked
and frayed...
but maturity came to
me
or caught me after 
forever days and
eternal weeks.
Time heals and
I grew up even
I who ran 
from myself or 
possibly my mother.
Today my mother is
someone to me
who I need and who I
pray needs me.
Time healed and my mother
became my friend.
She is 
helper, provider, security,
Rock of Gibraltar.
She is my mother,
I love her.
She is my friend.

And here is a shout out to mother types around the world - Happy Mother's Day.

Better Than Integers

I am supposed to be studying for a placement test regarding math of which I have always been poor at and so therefore I distracted myself with my photos from some years ago and slung some Photoshop on them. Now back to work.

Low Tide Sunrise

Posting Seagulls

Mudfish

Sunrise

Stingray

The Unnamed Storm

The Unnamed Storm

Perhaps             to name you

was to                           know you.

Your gradual                            approach

allowed                                                the denial.

…as if preparations were

unnecessary            or            not            to            be            rushed…

maybe your landfall would be soft

            in the middle of the night as

I slept,                                                  unknowing.

Oh but that doesn’t ever happen with

            a hurricane.

The steering currents warm

with energy

made certain

that

your arrival would be                                  noticed.

You brought a power greater than                 mine.

I stood helpless                                     on the shore

to

hold you back             

or                                 keep it as before.

My belongings                                     scattered…should I search              or

are they ruined by                    your caustic            pounding and should I

just       let        them                                        go?

More Beautiful Than Flowers

I am reading a volume of poetry, Voices of the Rainbow - Contemporary Poetry by Native Americans, and ran across a poet in this anthology that upon reading his Anishinabe Grandmothers, I was grateful for his ability to reach inside. His name is Gerald Vizenor. Reading this poem of his caused me to reflect on how the wisdom and strength of grandmothers in any culture are such a necessary part of generating hope for the future through their interaction with their grandchildren and community. It touched my heart to think of Native American grandmothers instilling hope even though they were sure to have experienced many trials in their own lives. It's a beautiful poem.
I hope that you will enjoy this as much as I did.




ANISHINABE GRANDMOTHERS

anishinabe grandmothers
swelling like sweet clover on the dancing fields

stomachs swaying
print dresses smiling on the wind

tribal dream songs
coming from the past without teeth
more beautiful than flowers

dream children touching the earth again
with gnarled fingers

the scars of reservation life
turning under with age

the sacred earth remembers
every flower

grandchildren following
clumsy and clover stained
tasting the rain
singing
the world will change

The poet - http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/gerald-vizenor

The culture - http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Anishinabe_Culture_and_History/A_Brief_History

Ragpicking Love

I am just so moved by the photo on this album by Mark Knopfler. I've placed it on the wall above my computer monitor because I am determined to write a poem regarding the feeling I had immediately upon seeing it - I've written a few, one of them comes close but I don't think I've captured that feeling I had yet, in written words. So I thought I'd post it here - I'm open for comments on what you feel looking at it. Send them on!

Here is a link to one of the songs on the album in case you want to check it out
The Place we Used to Live

Say What?

I really debated about making a blog entry with this poem. I wrote it many years ago and I know it's very dark. Depressing. But for some reason it's coming back around to me and in an attempt to be true to what is that strange thing inside I call a spark of creativity, here it is.

At the time I wrote it I was contemplating on how exactly over 900 people would follow a mad man to their death - it had to start somewhere far from that moment when they took their lives and even the lives of their family members. I think it's so important to be careful in religious matters - and not so gullible. People do deceive others and some of them MEAN TO. Anyway, here it is - And turn back if you want to be reading a more uplifting message!

A Kool Aid pile of persons                    

longing for a taste  of

the Promised Land.

An abstract presentation,

performance art of futility

and a colossal lack of planning.

The connecting sinews show in

the promises made…

then discarded…

dumb sheep following blindly

the mad man.

The old model car

making a noise through town,

ugly it seems and

the sameness of your breath makes

the day less important when…

Oh, it’s not a choice to be

so unsatisfied.

It happened naturally,

by comparison.

When the media god spoke

the review was wanting

and

the canned promise of better productions

allured the players to the story

then to the story teller

then to…

Their last glimpse was of

empty eyes.