Travel Muse

Lily Lake

lillian3 Comments

Mid-August.
Car piled full, city girl to rural job.
Staccato palms on steering wheel,
radio Oldies defiantly blares
Summer in the City.

Turn round rural route bend,
foot shifts to brake
shocked by Monet view.
Signal to shoulder, sit mesmerized.
Amana Colonies serenity.

Green velvet leaves blanket still waters,
delicate yellow petals undisturbed
as slick-backed frog leaps pad to pad
finally rests,
centered in quiet setting sun.

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photo credit: Kevin Abbott

December Challenge, Day 5: Start with time/when. Write about a body of water you remember. Include specific details.

 

Bells

lillian5 Comments

peal in raucous victory
chime a noon-time angelus
clang loud children back to school
announce the hour upon a ship
graph a normal distribution
style the levi’s bottom flare
ring upon a guest’s arrival
tinkle at the butler’s call
and when the journey
comes to end,
toll for thee

In reponse to the Daily Post Photo Challenge: Victory. Three photos from our Panama Canal Cruise: hanging bells in the courtyard outside the Museum of the Inquisition in Cartegena, Colombia; and the cathedral’s bell tower in Puerto Vallarta, with the sun making a perfect halo around the cross. Ship’s bell from our Baltic Cruise. 

Reflections

lillian9 Comments

Have you seen the moment?
When the sun, in all her glory
becomes maker of the glorious.
Beyond warmth,
she turns light rays into magic
magnified by two.
Image maker supreme
in smooth-as-glass mountain tarns,
upon a building’s see-through wall
or in the garden’s sculpture pond.
The beautiful is embellished,
shines double delight.

In response to the Daily Post Photo Challenge: Ornate.  Photos: Mt. Rainer at Reflection Pond in Mt Rainer National Park; The Dale Chihuly glass displays in Denver Botanic Gardens; reflection of Trinity Church in Boston’s John Hancock Tower; Stan Hywet Gardens in Akron, Ohio.

Home Then or Again?

lillian10 Comments

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Scuffed Red Wing leather boots tread across forest floor. Trekking poles swing naturally at my side, two more points of contact to the earth. Closest thing to being four limbed.

Sun filters through leaves, beams on stands of gooseberry red, chokecherry orange and fiddlehead green. I walk through scrubby tree roots, climb over rocks to cross a stream, carried by wind and sun and bird song in the air.

Last week’s hike swirls fading as I maneuver city streets. Blue suit jostled, surrounded by tall grey, red brick towers that block the sun, save corners where green lights mean go. High heels comply, stumble from curb to pavement, and my feet ache again.

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Written from a September Challenge prompt: juxtapose opposites in a more subtle wording of contrast.  A prose poem.

Riding the Waves

lillian12 Comments

Gin and tonic on the rocks
atop a Cape Cod hill
overlooking white sail dots
on forever ocean scape.

I drift backward on the waves
to days on my old Boot Hill,
surrounded by empty fields
new subdivision coming soon.

Crouched low behind tall weeds
brambles with stick-on burrs
scratched knobby eleven year old knees,
we stalked bad guys never seen.

Rode horses round that dirt mound
inspired by westerns on console tvs.
Buster browns galloped and dusty laces flew,
head strong imaginations with no reins.

Parched by the high noon sun
horses unhitched and left to roam,
we walked home, hand in hand
to lemonade in aluminum glasses.

And we wondered how old
the Lone Ranger really was.

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Photo by Elvis Santana.

Cape Cod Muse

lillian5 Comments

Dawn of a new day

Sea breeze carries a slight chill
as she pulls the sweatshirt close,
sips hot strong coffee under rising sun.

Later that day, sweatshirt off and visor on
she palms lotion between her hands
rubs coconut scent upon her limbs.

Feet on rail, notebook in hand
ideas float as gulls hover overhead
pen hits paper as birds dive into sparkling sea.

Sun shifts westward, coolness returns
she dons layers again
like words stacked upon the page.

Days in this place
turn into moonbeams
and she retires to be born again.

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Cape Cod, Provincetown, little piece of heaven on earth.  AND:  this turns out to be my first poem published!  Provincetown Magazine, October 1 issue, 2015.

Provincetown

lillian8 Comments

Icon of Provincetown
Someday, visit Provincetown,
nestled in the crook of Cape Cod’s tip,
at earth’s end and life’s beginning.

Savor the Watermark Inn
her quiet beach in early morn
ripples on sand and gulls overhead.

Long necked cormorants preen
then disappear, dive deep
to reappear fifty yards down shore.

Long Point lighthouse gleams white
stands tall across the waters,
stalwart to all who sail these seas.

Summer sunrise etches pink ripples
on softly lapping waves
and cotton candy clouds.

September sun melts orange red yellow
mirrors foliage on the town side
of fall quiet Commercial Street.

Come see this place my friend,
and serenity will visit your soul.

Call of the sea

This poem motivated by a prompt in my September Poetry Challenge Class:  Read Postscript by Seamus Heaney…..think about a time you traveled through a landscape that stopped your heart…do take interest in all elements of this poem (Postscripts): place names, references to season, landscape details etc…..he uses the second person “you” in his poem.

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Ursa

lillian11 Comments

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Round haunches, vestigial tail
grizzly when disturbed,
you meander, content and calm
on Denali’s hallowed ground.

Forager by nature
low bush cranberries and blue ones too
two thousand garnered every day
sustenance for a long winter’s sleep.

From sight to paw to mouth,
our approach ignored
until windows fling open
and camera eyes gawk.

Suddenly, like Ursa Major
on guard from on high
you look at us
wee squatters on protected land.

And in that moment,
the lesson is realized.
You are the superior being
of this great mother called earth.

Amazing and magnificent creatures seen in Denali National Park.