Opal Reflections
Perspectives through Prose, Poetry and Photography
Beyond the Drapes
I oft’ deny a few more precious winks,
To rise from down-soft sleeping place, sublime.
Beyond the heavy drapes, as night moon sinks,
The light is changing with each tick of time.Feeling blindly, camera case inclined
and leaning close aside the rattan chair,
Tiptoe on carpet in the dark, resigned
to leave the flip-flops there somewhere.With door unlatched, I slide to humid air,
My barefoot steps now fast on moistened grass
then grainy sand, I surely couldn’t bear
to miss God’s sunrise through my filtered glass.Most humankind can sleep ’til sun is high,
I seek instead to capture dawning sky.☀️☀️☀️
Today’s Photo Friday prompt, “Sunrise”, inspired me to select this photograph and pen this sonnet, an homage to the photographer, who chooses to leave sleeping bed-mates behind, to quietly slip out of the room, to ‘catch’ the sunrise.Each year at Disney World, I relive the scene, leaving the air-conditioned confines of our room and rushing out into the moisture-laden air before the sun breaks the horizon. Camera lenses must be given time to adjust to the dramatic temperature change, vantage points must be selected, and tripods set in place, before the waiting begins.
Today, I set aside the beach shots, the dockside perspectives, and the wide-angle water reflections; and chose, instead, the simple brilliance of the Florida sun, rising from behind the Bay Lake treetops, into the gathering clouds.
Mid-winter Song
Mid-winter bleak capitulates the scene,
I wait and watch for signs of Spring, and pray!
Generate sweet thoughts of tots at play.
For weeks on end they gayly splashed and screamed,
I loll, just sheltered inches from the gray.
As senses, numbed and rendered dead today,
No single smell or taste or sight; un-green,
I wait and watch for signs of Spring, and pray!
Those channel lanes that lead to cross marked ways,
In dormancy, no sunbathed beauties preen,
I loll, just sheltered inches from the gray,
The Poly-python monster ‘slide-away’
Now dry, condemned, abandoned by the teens
I wait and watch for signs of Spring, and pray!
Sure, inky, viscous veins pulse my dismay,
‘To-do’ list ennui (must cook and clean),
I loll, just sheltered inches from the gray
And wait and watch for signs of Spring, and pray!
*********
I took this photo as I sat poolside, in the steamy sheltered atmosphere of the Lifetime Fitness pool, staring out at the icy, snow-crusted outdoor pool; closed now for the winter. The echoes of squealing children are replaced now by the vacant swim lanes and the dry pool-slide at the far end of the deck. Mid-winter longings surface as I wait (not so patiently) for signs of Spring.
Written for The Sunday Whirl, Wordle #195:
Teardrops
Trodden, verdant shafts beneath her soles
Bled cool and damp and flattened here once more,
Ritual oft-repeated, silenced but unfold-
ing her dismay, despair and wounded core.
It reached within, like sword in days of yore,
To twist and grind the sorrow hidden well,
This morn, compelled to surface, rush to shore
Inevitable sea wave’s ebb and swell.
Her faltering steps before the scarlet shell
of petals dipping low from overhead vines
Guided toward the path ahead, (a sign from hell
or heaven?) as her salty tears combine.
The moment of her wakening was nigh,
Enjoining dew drops, she began to cry.
💔
Photo Friday: Macro
Undertow
Abandoned now, ‘neath looming storm-clouds gray,
Banana-bunched boards, the only light,
But undertow compels she cannot stay.
He’d sing to her, life on review, he’d stay,
Through sunniest of days and darkest nights,
Abandoned now, ‘neath looming storm-clouds gray.
He smiled to mask the lies, this very day,
Earth’s revolution, sun-filled shards of light,
The undertow compels she cannot stay.
Belief is gone, resolve to turn away,
Her angst belies this panoramic sight,
Abandoned now, ‘neath looming storm-clouds gray.
Foreboding new, no shelter in this bay,
He leaves, without regret, this last night’s flight,
But undertow compels she cannot stay.
These shifting sands exposed his feet of clay,
Designed to win; dedicated; she’d hold tight,
Abandoned now, ‘neath looming storm-clouds gray.
Footsteps, messed and smeared, scream her dismay,
This choppy crossing, treacherous her plight,
Abandoned now, ‘neath looming storm-clouds gray.
But undertow compels, she cannot stay.
Written for the Sunday Whirl, Wordle #194: 
“D-man’s” Decision
Again with focused diligence he trains,
Some days he wanes in purpose, yet remains
to bear the load, the challenge of this journey,
Culminates this day, his black belt tourney,
He beams with pride, a new belt girds his waist,
Accomplishment, endurance, leadership embraced.
Weekly Photo Challenge: “New.”
My take on the challenge focuses on my #2 grandson (“D-Man”), who successfully tested for his black belt. The journey for him wasn’t easy, and in fact was interrupted for a time as he chose to pursue guitar lessons. As a musician, I encouraged his testing of those waters, and was a little disappointed when he returned to TKD; in part because I would miss our Monday and Tuesday afternoons, practicing for his guitar lessons.
Returning to his training after such a break was challenging for him (and for Mom), requiring many extra hours of training. But he persevered and reached his goal. In the photo-set above, he stands at attention in the penultimate moment before he removes his former belt to accept his Black belt.
.
D-Man’s Decision
Stillness
I snapped this photo through the windshield of my double-parked car in a busy, pre-holiday, supermarket parking lot, with my iPhone.
Like the spark-spray created by a tossed log on a blazing fire, scattering and splattering glowing shards in every direction, shoppers darted frantically, amid the cacophony of clanging shopping carts and beeping horns.
I was growing ever more impatient to be moving on, when I spotted this unremarkable, lonely tree at the far end of the paved area. Stripped of foliage and looming tall against the backdrop of a wintry sky, it stood in stark contrast to the mêlée unfolding beneath its limbs.
In a moment, the first snowflake would fall to the ground. Summer was a distant memory, and the winter months ahead would soon test her endurance and strength. And yet she epitomized an exquisite sense of stillness. It was as if, despite the mad, sad world bustling at her feet, she was calm in her resolve to stand tall, maintaining faith that Spring would inevitably return.
I have struggled with my impatience, striving for that elusive ability to be calm amid chaos. But on that day and whenever I look at this simple snapshot, I am transported to a place of stillness.
Robert Frost’s stated it with unforgettable eloquence in “Something Like a Star”:
“…It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.”
Happy Anniversary
A handsome man and lovely lass were wed
on New Year’s Day, in city without sleep,
They loved each other truly and for life,
Now, seven decades since, I ponder deep.
Recalling them together warms my heart,
His easy, crooning voice untrained but free,
And she, an Irish beauty, stature strong,
A striking couple, loving life and me.
With poignant mem’ries, images return,
We children, took for granted while we played,
Mid troubles, joys, diversions, years of days
And nights, (in my minds eye) all on parade.
October next, a milestone birthday, mine,
Yet on that New Year’s wedding day long past,
I wasn’t but a gleam in Daddy’s eye,
That day is when our future fates were cast.
- Mom and Dad, 1945
2014 blog year in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,400 times in 2014. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.
The Gift
Whilst gathering Christmas photos,
Ingesting sugar stuffs,
Of garlands hung with stockings,
And tots with ne’er enough.I’m wistful in my silence,
And laughing low, I sigh,
As scars of scrapes and tumbles
pale, with church chimes nigh.
Alone at midnight’s wakening,
I’m watchful for the sign
of holy incarnation,
Redemption can be mine.
The flurry of the season oft’ clouds the meaning true:
The plain and sacred God-Son’s arrival makes us new.
Lighthouse in the Mist, Cape May, NJ
Bandit
Festive View from the Pub, Peddler’s Village – Lahaska, PA.
Home Sweet Home
Opal Reflections 