Memorial Colors
Lavender salutes
red, white, and blue of our flag.
Pride and gratitude.
Red ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #187
Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #81
Poetry Archive (5) loneliness or emptiness
Choose a haiku, tanka or other form of Japanese poetry from your archive and share it with us all. Tell us why you have chosen that poem … and create a new poem inspired on your choice.
A short sequence of 3-5-3 haiku dealt with emptiness for a challenge in another series. I like the way the first haiku sets up the second one, so the whole sequence is my archive choice. Can I write a new poem for the current challenge? Yes, and there is a reason to put it before the archive choice. The new poem is a 5-7-5 haiku:
© Igor Zakowski | 123RF Stock Photo
(Image has been cropped.)
I give to several charities that help hungry people in many places with a mix of short-term and long-term efforts. In particular, my next gift to CARE will be matched 5X. The matching grant offer on CARE.org/match will expire 2019-05-25. (A popup on CARE.org has another match that expires sooner, on 04-30.) If U can give more than whatever U may have already given to charities like CARE this year, now is a good time.
The cloud images in this post were in an earlier post (for a photography challenge) that emphasized synergy between pastel pink and green. Now I am responding to a haiku challenge with emphasis on synergy between poem and image in a modern haiga (with a photo as the image). Haiku #2 uses the modern kigo abalone.
To those who have not seen many nacreous clouds, the poems’ metaphors might seem far-fetched. Presenting the photos along with the poems they inspired may reassure readers willing to trust that the photographers refrained from deceptive editing. I took the calm photo; Sue Ranscht took the dramatic one.
© Sue Ranscht | Space, Time, and Raspberries
As the year pivots from winter to spring, crocus plants bloom and little frogs croak. We celebrate with a photo and a tanka.
Friendly Friday Photo Challenge – Feelings of Spring
[2019-03-22] Bummer. I want to photograph the inspiration for my haiku, but my old hands cannot go more than a few seconds w/o thick gloves in cold weather.
Hmmm. Tho unheated, my garage gets some warmth leaking from the furnace. I put on a pair of thin gloves that can be worn while doing some things that previously required bare hands. I open the garage door and look outside while standing just inside the garage. Maybe I can work enough of the camera’s buttons while wearing the thin gloves.
The lens zooms too quickly for fine control. I cannot move forward or backward to compensate for zooming too far out or in. Oh well, I can crop the image later to compensate for zooming too far out. Is there a serviceable view in some direction from where I can stand w/o getting too cold? Hmmm. I try five views and go with the last one.
While it does illustrate my haiku, my photo is admittedly not of standalone quality. I can live with that. Any partial workaround for growing old is a small triumph to savor.
I bought a “Warren 2020” yard sign from PCCC with the intention of putting it out after snow season. Then I went outside the box.
I do not recall why I bought a spool of electric fence wire decades ago. (Half a mile of the stuff is more than a lifetime supply for me.) Like duct tape, the wire has many other uses. For example, it makes rugged rustproof twist ties.
The sign’s stand is lashed to a fence corner (well away from any driveway) with several short lengths of electric fence wire. The bottom of the sign is 4 feet above the ground, safe from plows as well as snow throwers. The sign is easily read from cars going in both directions on my street. While the sign won’t convince anybody that Elizabeth Warren should be the next POTUS, it has good graphics and might spark some interest.
The list of candidates for the Dems’ 2020 presidential nomination is long and growing. The Dems may not nominate my first (or second or third or …) choice, but I will not sulk. However flawed (s)he may be, the nominee will be a patriotic adult. Unlike the incumbent.
