roadside saplings
take Fall colors for a time,
before going bare;
the envy of humans:
at once young & old.
Young & Old [Kyōka]
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PROMPT: Grown Up
Daily writing prompt
When was the first time you really felt like a grown up (if ever)?
In retrospect, I’d say it was when I was on an airplane headed to Basic Military Training. I left a few days after completing high school classes, and a week or so before our graduation ceremony. That would definitely have been the point at which I had to realize whatever transpired, I was on my own. My problems were no longer distributed between myself and parents or myself and teachers, but it was all on me.
That said, I suspect that as a teenager I would have reported moments long before then, like my first solo out-of-state road-trip. I think a general feature of the adolescent condition is feeling grown up before one actually is in any real sense.
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“Stanzas for Music” by Lord Byron [w/ Audio]
There be none of Beauty's daughters
With a magic like thee;
And like music on the waters
Is thy sweet voice to me:
When, as if its sound were causing
The charmed ocean's pausing,
The waves lie still and gleaming,
And the lull'd winds seem dreaming:
And the midnight moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the deep;
Whose breast is gently heaving,
As an infant's asleep;
So the spirit bows before thee,
To listen and adore thee;
With a full but soft emotion,
Like the swell of Summer's ocean.
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Cannonball Tree [Haiku]
the cannonball tree:
blooms bright & intricate,
but never delicate.
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Bonsai [Haiku]
DAILY PHOTO: Liberty Square [Szabadság tér,] Budapest
“A Bird, came down the Walk” (359) by Emily Dickinson [w/ Audio]
A Bird, came down the Walk --
He did not know I saw --
He bit an Angle Worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,
And then, he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass--
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass --
He glanced with rapid eyes,
That hurried all abroad --
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought,
He stirred his Velvet Head. --
Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers,
And rowed him softer Home --
Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon,
Leap, plashless as they swim.
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PROMPT: Hobby or Pastime
I don’t collect favorites. I like reading, hiking, writing, swimming, playing, exercise, traveling, cooking… each in its due time for its due time.
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DAILY PHOTO: Makalidurga Hill
Home Invasion [Haiku]
the heron stares at
the unwitting egret’s back:
unfond of flatmate?
Tiger Riding for Beginners 