Yvette Calleiro has come up with the topic for this week’s Tanka Tuesday: Fools Abound! Of course, she’s playing off April 1, April Fool’s Day, a day of sanctioned pranks.
Only I’ve never liked pranks. I don’t like to see people made fools of. In fact, the only place I like a fool is in a Shakespeare play, such as the fool in King Lear. That jester is a smart man.
So I thought I’d write a syllabic poem–senryu today–highlighting the toxicity of foolishness.
And I’m giving my poem a title although that isn’t usual with a senryu.
Yesterday when I started on my walk, before I even left my driveway, I encountered several critters. First, a very light green plump lizard with smooth skin ran into the bougainvillea. I can’t find him on Google, so I don’t know what kind he is. Then a male and a female quail ran across the drive down into the wash. At the end of the driveway, on the little pony wall, a mourning dove took off in flight.
It could be the mother who has a nest in the hanging pot outside my house. My son took this pic of one of the babies with the mother.
Here’s a pic on my walk of a cactus in bloom and the brilliant blue sky above. This is the color of our Arizona sky. I still can’t get over it, and I’ve been here seventeen years now!
It’s getting warm here, but if I walk early enough it’s not yet a problem. That may change in a month or two. But I have another issue. At least six months ago I started getting a painful leg. it was weird because last year my other leg was so bad that for two months I couldn’t walk at all. Now the symptoms are somewhat different, but getting worse. My entire lower left quadrant, so to speak, is very painful and sometimes can be a NINE in pain. Most of the time it fluctuates between 2 and 7. I saw a pain doctor, who diagnosed me with a pinched nerve, so I will get a back MRI. In the meantime she wants me to start PT and take Gabapentin on top of my Extra Strength Tylenol. I’ll hold off on the Gabapentin as long as I can because I can’t afford to add more dizziness (a side effect) to my Vestibular Migraines. (Gabapentin brings up sad memories of my dear Pear Blossom’s cancer before she passed away several years ago).
Because the worst of the pain is while lying down and walking, the pain doesn’t prevent me from taking care of my cutie pie grandson while his parents are at work. He turned three months on Friday and has been stacking up a big list of “firsts.” First time he rolled over onto his stomach himself. First time he reached for me to pick him up. First time he started trying to form sounds with his mouth. First time he held a stuffed toy and rubbed the fur on his skin. Yes, I’m obsessed.
Yesterday I did a little art because I hadn’t in months and wanted to do something creative with my hands. I feel bad because I have cute fabric for a book cover to make a junk journal for the baby’s parents, but taking care of him has made that impossible at this point.
I’m writing this blog post on Sunday, although I don’t intend to publish it until early Monday morning. I want to write about my walk this morning while it’s fresh, but I have stuff going on after I write it.
Now that it’s warmer in Phoenix, it’s more refreshing to walk in the morning, so I went out at ten, wearing a sundress and brimmed hat. It’s already getting too warm for long pants, and I don’t wear shorts. The temperature, slight breeze, and all-around perfection made me feel so grateful to be living in this climate at this time of year. Nothing more beautiful than April and October in Phoenix.
Green and purple hummingbirds were flying in and around the yellow-blooming sweet acacia trees. The palo verde trees’ blossoms are just wiggling out. A songbird slid into a little round hole in a giant saguaro to visit her nestlings. Everywhere I walked I heard various sections of the symphony of birds making music together. I recorded some of it on my phone so I can try to isolate what type of birds I was hearing. On my way back, a family of quail ran quickly across the street to safety, and on the wooden gate to my yard, a baby lizard sunned itself.
In my yard, the cacti are in flower. Each one is spectacular, but my favorite is the coral one. Of course, since coral is my favorite color!
I’ve been taking care of my baby grandson each week for four days of 9-10 hours each (with a wonderful baby sitter who gives me a short break in the middle of most days). It’s very confining and exhausting at my age, but I love knowing he’s safe and learning. Perry has grown to love him, and will nap with him on the baby’s activity gym (which is on the ground and where he also practices “tummy time,” a phenomenon that wasn’t around when my kids were little). Baby Hudson’s favorite activity is swinging in his little mechanical swing.
What really strikes me about the baby is that he only cries to communicate. Luckily, he doesn’t have any chronic issues that cause crying (like colic). If he cries, I need to figure out what’s wrong, remedy it, and the crying stops. So while I was a bit concerned ahead of time that he would cry so much it would annoy me or especially the cats, not so.
As it gets warmer out, I intend to go for my walk very early (right after I give the cats their breakfast) and take Hudson in his stroller.
I’m getting zero art done and not enough writing, but I wouldn’t miss this experience for anything.
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I have a flash of menstruation lit in the hilarious anthology Bloody Funny.” Thank you to Editor Sophia McGovern. Hope you like it!
This is the 2nd portion of the “Cold Dew” season for Colleen Chesebro’s #TankaTuesday challenge based on the 24 Japanese seasons.
At this time every year in Arizona, we pull out the “summer flowers,” the annuals that we plant in May. We replace them with “winter flowers.” Usually red geraniums are featured, as they are this year. In the last few years we have much fewer choices than we used to have. This year, we had even less choice–and the red geraniums don’t look very good. I hope they perk up once planted. Today is the day we plant!
The topic of my tanka is our winter flowers.
Our summer flowers
have drooped and browned by the house.
Today we release
them from the earth to make room
for winter’s colors.
I made up the kigo “winter flowers” because it is such a part of this season.
On another note, I heard yesterday that my poetry collection Rooted and Winged, which was a Book Excellence winner, is Runnerup in the PenCraft Book Awards 2023. Woot!!!!
On another note, I don’t know how about anybody else, but I am feeling very drained and saddened over world events. I am also horrified by the anti-Semitism rampant on Twitter/X. I’ve joined Bluesky and am only following writers and people I know. Friends, if you want to join, I have a couple of codes. First come, first served.
This week’s #TankaTuesday is at the bottom of the post.
This past week we had two new animals show up in our yard. The first was an adolescent javelina. These are not pigs, but peccaries. Because they are very destructive to flowers and cacti, we eventually had to get permission to fence them off our property. But now this little one showed up alone. They travel in herds, called squadrons, and the babies are always twins. I think this one became separated from his people after the @#&*s had to have their fireworks.
Then we were visited by the king snake two days in a row. The first time the snake was climbing a wall. The next day he was near the pool. We love king snakes because they keep rattlesnakes away!
Today’s #TankaTuesday prompt by Colleen is to write a poem with imagery that incorporates the phrase Sun, Sand, & Sea and uses this photograph for inspiration.
This photo taken in San Diego is a far cry from my desert world, but I did used to live in California, not that far from San Diego. At one time, the gardener and I thought we would move to San Diego, but we changed our minds. I wrote a haibun about a different San Diego beach and something that happened not long after we moved to California.
How I Became a Californian
That first year in California, on a sunny late October day, we skipped our grad classes and pulled the kids out of school. The four of us lay on beach towels, mesmerized by the push and pull, the rhythmic crashing, of the waves as they broke upon the beach. My chin rested between my forearms, and the smell of my own warmed skin pleased me. The sun, sand, & sea of California, even enjoyed this late in the season, seemed unreal in comparison with all my Michigan winters. The flowers were so different, I thought, as I spied spiky orange bird-of-paradise flowers along the restroom building. A whistle sounded, and we all looked toward the road. There we saw a train rushing toward us. I only noticed then that the tracks were laid in the sand along the sidewalk. The train slid in to a stop right in front of us. Only three people alighted: young men in board shorts, each carrying a surfboard. They ran past us and straight into the ocean as we watched with our mouths hanging open. The train departed and with it my midwestern innocence.
Colleen at Wordcraft poetry suggested writing a syllabic poem about the mythological Phoenix or Thunderbird.
Because I live in Phoenix, Arizona, I wanted to write about the city. Phoenix was named after the bird of myth, but is often associated with it because of the extreme heat of the summers. In reality, it earned the name because it was a new city built on the ruins of the Hohokam civilization. I wrote a double tanka so I could work with both notions.
With flat-roofed houses
and white adobe mission,
they built a city
on the ancient vill ruins
of the Hohokam nation.
In celebration
of the fiery eponym
the city’s named for,
every summer it burns
to ash, then rises in fall.
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Fall brings perfect weather, new and colorful flowers, and relief after the hellish summers.
City of Phoenix flag
As we move into summer, though, we do have lovely cactus flowers.
Grand dog Theo (love to babysit him)
When I take Theo out I try to walk in shade because I am very aware of the danger of heat to his paws.
Lion Scream by Robbie Cheadle is not a poetry collection or an expository nonfiction book about African animals. It’s not a memoir of personal encounters with wild animals or a picture book of animal photography and video links. The book is not a cautionary tale about the harm that humans are doing to our world’s animal populations. At least, it’s not just any one of the above—Lion Scream is all of these at once and is the most important book I’ve read this year.
By writing this book as an interactive casebook, alternating various approaches to the subject of wild animals and mass extinction, Cheadle grabs and holds the reader’s attention. She structures the book by the multitude of animals found in South Africa, from dung beetles to hippos. Within each short section are various brief approaches to the subject. Sometimes a poem that might be written “in character” as an individual animal introduces the topic and is followed by a knowledgeable description of the animal, its habitat, and some unique features.
In this way, I learned so much that I did not know. For instance, cheetahs are the fastest land animals in the world, but there are only 7,000 of them left in the wild! And a real dilemma is that they are in great danger in protected lands because they are prey to lions and other animals. Still, in unprotected land, they are under threat from the most dangerous, worst animals on the planet—humans. Likewise, I learned that wild dogs are very endangered animals. Cheadle says leopards are already “extinct in 67% of the country.” The information includes details such as that female hyenas have a penis-like appendage, and sometimes their babies suffocate in the birth canal. In addition, the female and infant hyenas eat before the males.
Underlying the book is a premise that makes this such an important book: we live in a time of the Sixth Mass Extinction. A mass extinction is when a large portion of biodiversity dies out. Natural events have caused previous extinctions, but the Sixth Mass Extinction is caused by human activity. If we think of what is happening with so many species endangered or becoming extinct in this long-view lens, we can see that this is a huge subject and one that we all have a hand in. If we are causing it, we ought to be able to fix it. The time to change this trend toward extinction is yesterday, but since we’ve already gone past that, it’s NOW.
Cheadle concludes the book with a short story, “The Nutcracker,” about a girl with extreme anxiety and depression over the Sixth Mass Extinction. The story is well-told and thoughtful. But Cheadle’s analysis of the story that comes afterward is particularly fascinating as both a push to the reader to read deeply into the story and as a summary of the importance of the book itself.
I am so glad I read this book, and now I want to make some changes in my life!
You can purchase Lion Scream at Amazon in either paperback or Kindle version. Note that there are photographs and links to videos in the book. I hope that will help you decide which version to go with. Here is the link: LION SCREAM AT AMAZON
I discovered Robbie because I started participating in Colleen Chesebro’s #TankaTuesday syllabic poetry fun, and I am amazed at all Robbie’s talents. In addition to being a prolific writer and baker/cook, she is a beautiful artist as well. Robbie is also a generous spirit to the blogging and writing community. That she also has published this important ecobook in an effort to help save the planet really warms my heart. Thank you, Robbie!
ROBBIE CHEADLE’S BIO
Award-winning, bestselling author, Robbie Cheadle, has published thirteen children’s book and two poetry books. Her work has also appeared in poetry and short story anthologies.
Robbie also has two novels published under the name of Roberta Eaton Cheadle and has horror, paranormal, and fantasy short stories featured in several anthologies under this name.
The ten Sir Chocolate children’s picture books, co-authored by Robbie and Michael Cheadle, are written in sweet, short rhymes which are easy for young children to follow and are illustrated with pictures of delicious cakes and cake decorations. Each book also includes simple recipes or biscuit art directions which children can make under adult supervision.
Robbie’s blog includes recipes, fondant and cake artwork, poetry, and book reviews.
Colleen at Wordcraft poetry suggested writing a syllabic poem about a color using a word from a color chart she provided. I chose orange because it is close to my favorite color which is coral. For a word I chose joy.
Last year I posted a photo I took of one of our gorgeous Arizona Flame Skimmers, or orange dragonflies. This beauty is my inspiration.
Here is my tanka:
On a day of cares,
when the water heater leaks
and I am in pain,
I step outside and notice
with joy orange fairy wings.
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The following photo is a closeup from the free photo library.
By H. Zell – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8951747
