January 2020 in Pictures & Sister Cat Poem

Scooby, 60 pound Pit Bull, in my lap today.

Little Debbie, warming by the stove.  Haven’t turned on the heat yet!

My Azalea already blooming!  It’s been a mild Winter here in Swamplandia.

A surprise Hyacinth I forgot I planted years ago, making a comeback.

Daunting Drusilla Blythe in red & fake Blythe, Macey, in blue.

HILARIOUS!  As a grammarian, poet, word painter, voracious reader & retired legal secretary, I must say this is, so far, THE funniest thing I’ve read this year.  If you’re offended, then don’t fucking read it!  Happy 2020!

Sister Cat

Cat stands at the fridge,
Cries loudly for milk.
But I've filled her bowl.
Wild cat, I say, Sister,
Look, you have milk.
I clink my fingernail
Against the rim. Milk.
With down and liver,
A word I know she hears.
Her sad miaow. She runs
To me. She dips
In her whiskers but
Doesn't drink. As sometimes
I want the light on
When it is on. Or when
I saw the woman walking
toward my house and
I thought there's Frances.
Then looked in the car mirror
To be sure. She stalks
The room. She wants. Milk
Beyond milk. World beyond
This one, she cries.

—Frances Mayes

Winter Poems, 2020

I planted this giant Water Oak as a 4 foot tall twig 25 years ago.

My backyard on a sunny Winter day last week.

Winter Trees
By Marion Lawless

The trees are all bare tonight,
their gangly limbs, 
bony-fingered arrows
pointing to the ghostly full moon
shining luminously overhead
casting murky shadows
on the frozen ground.

Unearthly they seem---
like beings from another realm,
vulnerable and naked,
yet sure of who they are---
safe,
watched over 
by the stars.

<><><><><><><><><><>
  
"Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk?" ~Alice Walker, The Color Purple, 1982 

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Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

BY ROBERT FROST

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.