Poetry – Page 30 – Poetry, Short Prose and Walking

Washington Prayer March 2020

Today is the Washington Prayer March, The Return. Psalm 51 is a psalm David wrote after being exposed by Nathan for his relationship with Bathsheba. Many verses are memorable especially verse 10 (12 in the Tehillim) where David asks God to create in him a clean heart, something only God can do.

לֵ֣ב טָ֭הוֹר בְּרָא־לִ֣י אֱלֹהִ֑ים וְר֥וּחַ נָ֝כ֗וֹן חַדֵּ֥שׁ בְּקִרְבִּֽי׃
Tehillim 51:12 Sefaria

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
Psalms 51:10 King James Version

Be part of The Return with this live video presentation and/or listen to Christene Jackman’s Choneni Elohim below.

Lyrics by King David, music by Christene Jackman: Choneni Elohim

Look

When rain returns the barren land
Is filled with blooms we all can see,
A resurrection mystery,
A pouring that we understand
As blessings from an open hand.
A year ago we doubted. Look!
There’s water flowing in the brook.
Those ways we’ve turned from have somehow
Been transformed into nothing now
Like drivel from an unread book.

Linked to Ronovan Writes Décima Poetry Challenge where the challenge is to use the word “look” as the C rhyme in a poem with rhyme scheme ABBAACCDDC.

Ronovan's Decima Poetry Challenge Image — Ronovan’s Decima Poetry Challenge Image

The Everyday Into the Unusual

An ordinary, tiny bug
Lived on a painted wall.
Before he died
He tried and tried
To understand it all.

Linked to Cosmic Photo Challenge where Dale offers the theme of turning “the everyday into the unusual”. The photos are of graffiti on top of graffiti but viewed up-close. Although the messages were somewhat confusing even at normal distance the paint made the bridge over the brook in the forest preserve colorful.

Also linked to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile. I realized I made a mistake in my algorithm to verify the records in the 3x+1 problem and fixed it. My best time with the incorrect code was 352 seconds as I reported last week. My best time with the new code was 354 seconds. Although I haven’t repeated the runs to find the variance in these timings, I was relieved that the correction did not seem to significantly harm the performance. That was enough to make me smile even though I am still a long way from my 10-second goal.

More Graffiti Detail Under the Train Bridge

Vanishing Trail | Frank Hubeny

I am grateful to Sammi Cox for publishing this story in Whispers and Echoes. Here is the submissions page in case you would also like to contribute to the journal.

Mice, or Rather the Mouse

“There isn’t much we mice can do.”

“Let alone one mouse”.

“What has a lion ever done for us? He’s probably trapped for a good reason.”

And so they tried to discourage Tamar from helping the lion escape from the ropes binding him.

“If you’re going to help him, don’t lecture him about his diet.”

“He might eat you.”

“Or smash you.”

Tamar recognized him. He’s the one who let her go. A quiet voice told her to gnaw the rope and then get out of the way.

So she did and when she did the other mice helped.

Linked to Carrot Ranch’s September 17th Flash Fiction Challenge where Charli Mills offers the theme of mice. This is a retelling of Aesop’s Fable of the Lion and the Mouse.

Fall – Décima

Dark witches of the winter know
Some spells they heard in full-moon fall.
Their Ba’al doesn't know it all.
His shadows flicker where they go
When morning light lets failings show.
Those who wake in time may see
How ignorance loves mystery,
How feelings masquerade as good,
How petty sins start ticking. Could
They all explode mechanically?

Linked to Ronovan Writes Décima Poetry Challenge where the challenge is to use “fall” as a rhyme word in the B lines where the rhyme pattern is ABBAACCDDC. The photos are from around October/November of last year.

As Summer Fades

Slip from summer into fall.
Then winter brings us cold, white days,
But spring, that wonder of it all,
Leads back to summer anyway.

Linked to Cosmic Photo Prompt where Dale offers the theme of “as summer fades”.

Also linked to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile. It was raining this past week and so I worked on a puzzle in computational number theory. The challenge was to verify the 3x+1 trajectory-length records by running a different program to find them. Using Python my best time for integers under 670,617,280 had been over 700 seconds. Last week I was able to reduce that to 352 seconds. That made me smile. If I believe what others have achieved, they can do it in under a few seconds. That’s my goal unless it stops raining. Even if I get it below 10 seconds, it is about as significant as solving a 1000-piece jig-saw puzzle, but at least I will be able to verify the larger records that have been found.

Blend

I feel as if I ought to send
A warning out to one and all:
Beyond the bend's a cliff, a fall,
A tragedy, a blur, a blend
Into a gorgeous, awful end.
And then inconsequentially
What would become of you and me?
Ah! Let it come here anyway.
Yes, Come tomorrow. Come today!
Embrace the opportunity.

Linked to Ronovan Writes Décima Poetry Challenge where the challenge is to use “blend” as a rhyming word in the A lines. The poem has ten lines with rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC.

Trail at Palmer Park, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Look to the Skies

Look up. Look down.
Reflecting water shows
The sky as all around.
Morning sunshine grows.

Linked to Cosmic Photo Challenge where Dale offers the theme of “look to the skies”.

Also linked to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile. It’s midnight. Soon it will be Monday morning. I can’t think of a good reason (that I haven’t already reported) why I’ve been smiling this past week. Being able to calmly watch the sun rise over the pond below is a blessing that reinforces the default smile. Although the August wildflowers are past their peak in the Forest Preserve, the forest and trails are still there and sometimes I am as well.

Look up. Look Down. The sky is all around.

Serenity #writephoto

Blue on blue with patient blue
Caressing me and also you.
But should you say it’s red instead
Insisting that I bumped my head,
Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps that’s true,
But I still see a pretty blue.

Linked to Sue Vincent’s Thursday Photo Prompt. She provided the photo below for the prompt.