Tempted to Silence (Reblogged)

Rereading the poetry that I wrote during NaPoWriMo (April 2018), and came across “Tempted to Silence.” Called to mind a recent email from a friend, which, come to think of it, I should not remark on further.

Except to say that the friend wondered how (or why) I remain motivated. And I wondered, “how not?”

Now that I have reblogged it, I realize that I should simply have copied it here.

Tempted to Silence

as the years move on
as I move with them
or we go separate ways

I have less to say
there is less to hear
around me that inspires…

I don’t know what I miss—
words of kindness, uplifting
without self-serving thoughts

a different world, perhaps,
outside the door…with hope
for more than me and mine and yours

If I were alone, again
if there were no one to care
if I were there or here

I would take a lease
on a cabin in the woods
for enough years to die

listening to rain and bird calls
wind and ice and hearth fire
pencil scratching paper

the opening of a door

Copyright © 2018-04-18, by Elizabeth W. Bennefeld.

To Mom, from Dad

The year is 1943, Mom is in the Navy and Dad, in the Army. Dad is writing about the hypothetical house he and Mom will live in some day.

There will certainly be an open air porch of some kind in our house so we can watch and wonder at the stars at night. You seem so close to God when you are out under the stars. It gives you a funny feeling, a hollow feeling in your stomach, sometimes when you look at the stars and realize how small you are and how large the universe is. But someday man will discover all the secrets of the universe, but I hope not, I don’t know why I say that. But I hope he doesn’t.

And from another letter…

It started to rain this afternoon and it’s still raining at 9 PM this evening in a dispirited, disinterested sort of way. The aimless monotonous drizzle that reminds me of Minnesota’s mid-April when spring is a vague hope and winter is on the way out.

It’s the kind of a night you’d like to be with your favorite girl, her in your arms listening to the rain and the song of the wind in the trees. The nicest thing to be said for a night like this is that it puts you into the mood to imagine yourself someplace else, and when the morning comes, the weather has cleared. So weather like this isn’t so bad after all if you have any imagination.

Mother’s blog is here: Rhoda’s Web Site: Quilts, Genealogy, and Family.

This is the Way | #ronovanwrites #haiku no. 140

Revisiting an older poem, thinking of my mother’s quilts.

Fooling Around With Flowers | #RonovanWrites #Haiku

Written for the weekly Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge #214: Lack & Fool.

fooling around with
nature’s floral color schemes
mixing them about

recreating my garden
for lack of coloring books

Copyright © Elizabeth W. Bennefeld, 15 August 2018.

Late Bloomer

False Colors

Blue Wild Flax

Shades of Grey

Morning Photos | Saturday, 11 August 2018

Discarded

Daisy in Waiting

Wild Flax Close-up

Wild Flax

This morning, I decided to water the back garden before the sun gets high and the temperature, hot. These photos were taken in the south-facing side garden. As usual, the Scampers barked and tried to get through the gate (or, at least, get to what I was trying to photograph).

Eek! Scamper Attack!

I’ve been having so much fun, I’ve forgotten to eat, which is not a good thing. We still have smoky haze, and it looks as though the temperature will be in the low 90s F. Once again, the five top cities for pollen count, according to Pollen (dot) com, are in North and South Dakota. That’s me, folks! Whoopy!

Imagine I’m going to entertain myself again today by practicing arpeggios instead of pedaling my exercise bike, which is in the backyard gazebo.

Wild flax flowers, 6 August

Wild Flax in Raindrops © Elizabeth Bennefeld, 2018-08-06

During the night hours, a thunderstorm came through the area. When I first took the Scampers out for the before-breakfast outing, I brought along my camera. In the course of taking photographs, I found raindrops coming down once more. Lovely!

Wild Flax in Raindrops © Elizabeth Bennefeld, 2018-08-06

Wild Flax Flower #6171

Wild Flax Flower #6163

Wild Flax #6160

Wild Flax Flower

The top photograph and the other wild flax flower that resembles it are growing in the south side garden, where I was in despair that nothing would grow, this year. I’ve more Baby’s Breath, a number of Blue Wild Flax, and the Plains Coreopsis; I am under the impression that the one version of the Wild Flax is annual and the other, perennial, but I do not know which, anymore. I do know that the flax plants that have the larger, smoother petals reseed like crazy. Only one of the other type showed up in this year’s backyard garden.

The only moth that I spotted today was resting on the outside of the back door, protected by the storm door. A smaller version of the other that I recently posted (on one of my blogs), but a bit darker and with sharper markings. (Ach! I will see if that photo is also close at hand.)

This morning’s moth

Insects and Flowers, 4 & 5 August 2018

Cabbage Butterfly

Ladybug Wings

Green Grasshopper

Honeybee, On the Edge

Honeybee in a Poppy Flower

The weather was stormy, earlier in the week, with small clusters or lines of thunderstorms and rainclouds. This is the time of the year when the wildflowers die off in my garden. There are lots of seed pods on the blue wild flax stems. I do not know about the coreopsis, other than a few have appeared that might be from the second sowing of seeds, a few weeks back.

In the side garden, I’ve got mostly weeds, but a couple of Baby Breath plants have flowered, and also a Plains Coreopsis. Waiting to see if anything else appears from those seeds. They are supposed to be drought tolerant, once they germinate. Below are a few photos from my last outing with the Scampers, this evening.

The Scampers, Oblivious

Rabbit

Wildflowers

Plains Coreopsis

Baby’s Breath

I expect that ragweed season will soon begin, if it hasn’t already. I’ve just changed the filter in the air cleaner in my room, after Al gave it a good cleaning out. Hoping that if I stay inside on the breezy days and exercise in the gazebo (glass all around and equipped with a fan to maintain the direction of the air flow), my breathing will loosen up, again.

Hate giving up the out-of-doors for any reason, for any length of time, however short.