PROMPT: Favorite People

Daily writing prompt
Who are your favorite people to be around?

People who take nothing seriously. A distant second goes to those who take everything seriously. And dead last, being people I avoid at all costs, are those who have a sizable set of ideas that they believe should be treated deadly seriously by everyone, while finding others’ serious stuff to be mockable.

Einstein said there are two ways of viewing the world, as if everything is a miracle or nothing is. I’m sure Einstein recognized that there were many people who, in fact, believed their own sect to have “legitimate miracles,” while believing the miracles of other sects were mere superstition. And what he was really getting at was that the latter stance is presumptuous, indefensible, and – quite frankly – ridiculous. Anyhow, my own spin is that there are two legitimate ways to view the world: to take nothing serious and to take everything seriously. All others are shades of petty narcissism.

[As I think of it, I guess I could have answered more simply with the single word: “Travelers.”]

Moon Cameo [Haiku]

cloudy night walker sees his shadow;
looks up for Moon’s brief showing.

Livestock Rush Hour [Haiku]

horde of livestock 
sprawls puddle-strewn lane
between downpours.

DAILY PHOTO: Rock & Blue Sky

Stone Mountain, GA, USA
Arabia Mountain, GA, USA
Arabia Mountain

Elusive Cicada [Senryū]

seeking cicada
that drills my brain,
I find only a shell.

“Worldly Place” by Matthew Arnold [w/ Audio]

Even in a palace, life may be led well!
So spake the imperial sage, purest of men,
Marcus Aurelius. But the stifling den
Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell,

Our freedom for a little bread we sell,
And drudge under some foolish master's
ken
Who rates us if we peer outside our pen --
Match'd with a palace, is not this a hell?

Even in a palace! On his truth sincere,
Who spoke these words, no shadow ever
came;
And when my ill-school'd spirit is aflame

Some nobler, ampler stage of life to win,
I'll stop, and say: "There were no succour
here!
The aids to noble life are all within."

Pelican Ambiguity [Senryū]

a pelican
builds a nest, or makes
a peace offering?

DAILY PHOTO: Ranganathittu Macaques

Crocodile Wu Wei [Lyric Poem]

Sunning on the shore,
As in days of yore
When the ancient beast
Stood its ground to feast,
Waiting for one to crawl
Near its gaping maw...
Then, SNAP!
CRUNCH! - Crunch - crunch...

“Ultima Thule: Dedication to G. W. G.” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [w/ Audio]

With favoring winds, o'er sunlit seas,
We sailed for the Hesperides,
The land where golden apples grow;
But that, ah! that was long ago.

How far, since then, the ocean streams
Have swept us from that land of dreams,
That land of fiction and of truth,
The lost Atlantis of our youth!

Whither, ah, whither? Are not these
The tempest-haunted Orcades,
Where sea-gulls scream, and breakers roar,
And wreck and sea-weed line the shore?

Ultima Thule! Utmost Isle!
Here in thy harbors for a while
We lower our sails; a while we rest
From the unending, endless quest.