Each day is filled with the surprise of a new challenge.
It is ours to choose most of the time and we do.
To choose at least in how we begin and end that day.
Work fills much of it. We can choose to like the work,
Or we can choose to dislike the work.
But work It is. And it is all ours.
Each new day brings the steadiness of a new perspective.
We can see it at different angles, different degrees of separation.
Different emotions at how we approach the challenge.
Life, play whatever it be.

Front Porch

Front Porch

I am sitting on that porch of that cabin.
The night noises echo through the dark,
They are a comfort to me at my age.
They are not so to every living creature,
A coyote runs past in a flash, fluffy tail, fluffy body.
The prey animal must watch for the predator, always.
The feral cats disappear all at once in a flash.
I will not think about that this night, we are all prey to those that be.
One must grow a frog skin and repel the ugly thoughts and deeds.
One must think about the good of those that care.
Another night on the mountain of my day dreams.
A long many years spent on that mountain.
I have been fortunate in my living places.
I chose always to live near nature, in the wild places.
The wild places in both my mind and my actual.
I do not want to leave these wild places.
Ever, do I dream to stay, the wild calls, the call of the wild.

A little story:

There was once a little soul who lived in a hole in the wide old oak.

She never spoke, she never spoke, but dreamed and when she woke,

She realized that her tongue was gone.

She left the oak, and went looking for her words,

Where could they be THOUGHT she and she traveled first to the WILLOW TREE,

Near the CABIN in the WOODS and looked there, looked for the COLORFUL words.

No one lived in the OLD CABIN as it had been abandoned many YEARS.

She looked in the CHAIR, and UNDER the bed.

She looked in the MIRROR over her HEAD.

She looked with PLEASURE, she looked with DREAD.

She picked up the MANY WORDS and CARRIED them HOME.

For here were a FEW, and ENOUGH, she said.

The next morning her tongue had returned.

She breathed in deeply knowing full well what she had learned.

Hatari

I watched Hatari last night.
John Wayne not at his best....his worst.
Killing his way through the African savanna.
Decades later we see what the taking of the wild beasts,
Has done to the the animals themselves.
Put in zoos and other like places for our pleasure.
The animal psyche not considered at all.
Monkeys pulled from their families, put in cages, tested,
poked at, laughed at, torchered,
God only know what else.
All for our pleasure and expense.

What is wrong with MAN.

Ravens

Words, black on a white page.
 small words, large words, long, short, capitals.
lower case letters piling up on white page.
What are they spelling out, a spiral, a line.
Thoughts, paralyzing those who read them.
Like crows they travel together, black against the light sky.
Like ravens they are not silent. Caw, and knock, chork, caw.
Like crows, up and down on a line....caw, caw, knock, chork.
Words, cutting, smoothing, biting, stabbing, glossing.
Words, sometimes truthful, sometimes............. not.
Time. to. take. tommy. to. town. tuesday. thursday. today.
Ravens glide swiftly across the day sky, in pairs, alone,
They fly jump from pine tree to fir tree, caw, caw, knock, Chork.

The day after the longest election of the Nasty woman.

I sit and wonder the why of things......
Out of my control, out of whack........
 Nov 9, 16.....a day to get through.
Out to nowhere, tucked in bed,
Head buried under the pillow.
Sunny skies, cold blue day.
Why do some men hate women so.
They want them helpless, subservient.
They want them for their own, to control,
to own, to master over. They want them.
They hate them, and yet possess them.
A strong woman a force to reckon with.

Bonfires

Another memory of bonfires.
On the beach when young,
The salt soaked wood making that special tantalizing smell only salt water can make,
the sense of smell and taste.
The waves beating against the shore, wave after wave after wave, after wave.
The smoke from the salt water soaked wood rising and making a steamy smoke in the air. The crackling, fire spitting out little spurts of fire bursting in the air with a snap.
The smell of sand of many days and nights being beaten against the shore, and a few days of hot sun beating down, roasting it.
Those fires where just that....a fire to keep warm in the cold northern California air. To keep the night at bay and the body warm. They were wonderful.

Bonfires now are of the woods, the smell of the woods, rising to the air and giving off scents of moss, bark, rain soaked and dried leaves, and anything and everything gathered to make the fire roar, into the night. Rising in the dark, filling the animal eyed darkness with soft light from the campfire, the bonfire. They are also fire to cook the food, the steaks, chicken, toast, hamburgers, ribs and fish of many a night. Potatoes and corn wrapped in tin foil and cooked in the coals pulled away from the fire so not to burn them.