Happy Mother's Day!

To all the moms in all the world, I wish you a day filled with love and joy. Hugs all 'round.

Photo Hunters: Freestyle

What do you choose to share when you can pick any photo at all? That's the dilemma this time for the PhotoHunters at tnchick.com.

Me, I've been out singin' in the rain and revelling in the fragrance of crabtree blossoms, so I thought I'd invite you along for a look. I hope, wherever you are, that your spring is as lovely as ours is this year!

*But wait, there's more! Click to visit the Maraca homepage, and stop by tnchick's place for others' PhotoHunt entries.

May 9 is Lost Sock Memorial Day

In honor of the occasion, I have written you a poem:

Ode to a Lost Sock

Does anyone know
where the single socks go
when a pair of them go in the dryer?
Do they slip out to play
and wander away,
forgetting that they are attire?

Do they tire of their mate
and their tiresome fate,
every day in the dark of a shoe?
Do they follow the song
of a silky black thong
and cling to that siren like glue?

Are they captured by pirates,
or stolen by gnomes
who are jealous of our cozy toes?
Are they pilfered by mice
to make their nest nice?
Are there gangs of barefoot Eskimos?

There are those who say,
in a sinister way,
that a dryer's a portal in space;
that socks who fall through
(and they swear this is true)
warm the feet of an alien race.

Ah, does anyone
anyone anyone know,
someone who isn't a liar?
Does anyone know
where the single socks go
when a pair of them go in the dryer?

Copyright May 2008

Round Robins: Spring Cleaning

I was beginning to worry that I was actually going to have to clean something for this, but the neighborhood's annual yard sale came along today, just in time. Saved!

Click Here ... to check out the other Robins' photos, OK? It's a treasure hunting sort of day, so get in there and explore.

*Oops.
P.S. Three ideas for new challenges:
1. Raindrops on Roses, Whiskers on Kittens... Show us a few of your favorite things.
2. Blinded by the Light. Photograph anything brilliant and bright.
3. Hammer Time. It's all about tools.
(I seem to be in a musical mood.)

Photo Hunt: Time

"Life goes by pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." -- Ferris Bueller

Time is our PhotoHunt topic from tnchick.com this week. It's a strange thing, time: ephemeral as starlight, solid as a pocket watch. I can't wait to see what everyone else did for this one.

Merry May Day

The fair maid who, the first of May
Goes to the fields at break of day
And washes in dew from the hawthorn tree
Will ever after handsome be.
-- Mother Goose

It is May Day, Beltane, when the world is suspended between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice. On this day, our ancestors celebrated the triumph of the light over the darkness and gloried in the fertility of the land.

Bonfires and Maypoles may be hard to come by these days, but there's plenty of ancient magic in the air. They say that washing in the dew at dawn today brings beauty, jumping over a flame makes a wish come true, and that faeries can be seen at twilight.

It's a bit late for me to worry about my looks, but I do have a wish or two to attend to. And you can bet I'll be keeping an eye out for faeries.

Photo Hunt: Signs

The PhotoHunters at tnchick.com this week are serving up unusual and funny signs. This one is a favorite around here. It's for a sporting goods shop, heavy on the fishing gear. The fish here is at least five feet long and rotates, and it's lit up at night.

I took a movie of it, but it seems I was in RAW mode at the time and the file is too big to upload. Proceed to use your imagination.

I'm uploading this early, because I'll be away this weekend. Enjoy.

Aw shucks, I'm blushin'

What a nice surprise! I stopped in at Kiva's Eclectic Granny, as I often do when I'm looking for great posts to read, and discovered she'd given me this cool award. Coming from her, this is indeed an honor.

If you haven't been by there, please go. Her blog is a wonderful read, and her photos are great fun too. She's nominated two others for the award, Mrs. Annie of More Than Just a Mom and This Mom Can Cook, as well as our own Karen at Outpost Mavarin. All of them are well worth a look.

Kiva, thanks so much for the award!

It looks like a lot of the blogs I read have already been tapped for this, so my picks range a bit further afield than usual:

1. Glory Ho. I've recommended this one before, but it has to be in here. It's the journal of a young American couple traveling in the middle east, and it includes astonishing photos you'll want to see.

2. Long Drives to Nowhere, by Tammie Jean. She hasn't posted in a while, but her essays are timeless. You'll find beautiful writing and lovely photos.

3. Tips and Tricks. This one deserves way more traffic than it gets. The author, G.Kiser, is a photographer who writes thorough, in-depth explanations of photographic basics and welcomes questions. If you're a nascent shutter bug, it's a good place to hang out. (The blog is actually a sub-collection from his main blog, Photo Trek, a treasure in its own right.)

To all of you, thanks so much for sharing your time and talent.

Earth day

It doesn't seem to be a big year for Earth Day. Last year, it seemed all the TV stations, magazines and papers were running something or other on how to go green, save the planet, conserve. This year, nada. Maybe Mother Nature couldn't compete with the Mormon polygamist sex scandal. That is a tough act to follow, news-wise.

Still, it is encouraging that environmentalism is suddenly mainstream. Green this, green that, it's everywhere. I saw a jaw-dropping ad the other day with Pat Robertson and Al Sharpton sitting together on a sofa on the beach and calling for better stewardship of the planet. As if that weren't shocker enough, Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich took a turn on the couch, too. Republicans in cahoots with Al Gore. Who'd a thunk it?

The earth, of course, is ultimately doomed. Water is scarce, toxins are a permanent part of the biosphere; global warming and nuclear terrorism are grave threats. Global industrialization, human greed and overpopulation will inevitably wipe out and pave over thousand more species. I do not think our great grandchildren will ever see a wild gorilla or a tiger roaming free. We ourselves are not likely to be here forever.

Which leaves us with only today, this day, right now to treasure, protect and preserve everything we can.

A haiku for you

Karen at Outpost Mavarin hosts a Weekend Challenge every Friday, and this time the assignment is to write a poem in honor of National Poetry Month. I don't usually do writing assignments; my blogging problem is not in finding subjects, but in finding time to write about them. However, I am a big fan of poetry. So how could I pass on this one?

The assignment demands a new poem, fresh from the fires of creation, so to speak. *Here's mine:

Blossoms dance in wind
One bud shuts tight her eyes
Petals sigh and fall

We were not supposed to haul out an old one, but when will I find a better excuse than National Poetry Month? (Hey. You click in here, you get what you get.)

Turning of the Leaves

I must be home at the turning.
Some passion not understood, keenly felt
sends me to the mountain
to hermit out winter in hot tea.

Leaves carpet the evening
and horizons grow on branches, gradually.
A hushing deep in the mountain's heart
gathers power and silence,
reduces all to absolute seed and center.

Now is the iron time and the knowing.
I have always been here for the turning.

(Copyright 1977)

Extra credit: If I had to choose, my favorite poets would be Robert Frost, Billy Collins, and T.S. Eliot.

P.S. OK, so I'm missing the seventh syllable in the haiku. I'm workin' on it.
*Update 4:07 PM. Here's the extra syllable I owe ya.

Buds balloon, bursting
Blossoms dance in laughing wind
Petals sigh and fall

Round Robins: Variety Show

This week's Round Robin Photo Challenge brings us an assortment of assortments. This is mostly an assortment of stuff I salvaged from my grandmother's basement: Czechoslovakian pottery from the 1920s and ruined silver plate pieces from the turn of the century, housed in Granny's old china cabinet.

Click here to see what the other Robins have found!



P.S. I add seasonal stuff for fun.