Follow me, child
Phoneless and free
Where earth sings
Songs of your roots
Ancient and pure
Pluck stars from indigo skies
Put them back into your eyes
Decorate your pale skin
In leaf shadows and sunlight
Relish in the riches
And blessings of nature
It’s Quadrille Monday and Kim is our host. She has offered us the word “rich” to incorporate into a 44 word poem, not including the title. Join in the fun!
I have twinkled all day long
Tales of stars and toddler songs
Nurturing in many ways
Setting neuron paths ablaze
How I wonder if they’ll see
The ocean, sky and maple trees
Swiping, clicking from afar
Before they wonder who they are
Diamonds they are in my hands
I will show them earth and sand
Up above their world so high
I will give them wings to fly
Sharing this with you and dVerse Poet’s Pub for Frank’s Meeting the Bar prompt, “Tanaga”.
Image credit: pixabay.com
We forget the essentials
As we pretend that gratitude
Is a new way to live our life
We forget substance
We forget joy
We forget how it feels
To feel
We numb our minds from the pain
Of a thousand knives and bullets
Aimed at someone else
Our hearts forget to beat
For those we’ve forgotten
We forget the land
We forget the land can heal us
We forget authenticity
We forget to worry about
Monsters under the bed
They reside in our head
We forget to imagine
We forget to look…
For anything
We wait for it…
To load, begin the show
As we deprive ourselves from accomplishment
We forget possibilities
Woven, sewn or whittled
From nothing but a dream
We forget how to knock on a door
We forget what friends are for
We forget that hope is not just a word
Or a bird or another tattoo
For some it is all there is
We forget why we’re here
We forget to care
We forget how it feels to care
About all we’ve forgotten
Image credit: fahrmboy-stock.deviantart.com
Change can be good. Change can be awesome. Some changes have no apparent benefit, however. This seems to be the case with the recent changes to the WP reader, icons and stats page.
If you like to navigate from the reader like I do, then you may share some of my beefs.
I can’t sign out directly from the reader. The usual gravatar icon at the top right no longer responds when I hover over it. If I click on it, it takes me to my Profile page, somewhere I would rarely go. I have to go to “My Sites” first, click on “View Site”at the left of the page, hover over that and from the more familiar drop down, finally sign out. That would be 3 clicks and a hover. I give that two thumbs down.
The new Stats Page is very blue, very boring and very unappealing. Not everyone looks at their stats page, but I’ll admit that I do. I like to know if others enjoy my writing, which topics are more popular that I write about, from what countries around the world are other bloggers tuning in. etc. The original stats page is bold, well organized and easy to read. The new one…uh..not so much.
I have no idea how to get to my own gravatar page now…not that I care, I guess.
Those lovely, encouraging orange stars that used to show up at the top right while I browsed my reader….gone. Ding Dong…it’s a bell…hmm…could this be for the holiday season??
I can still get to the original stats page…if I click on my blog first….oh wait….first I must click on My Sites, then in tiny letters “View site”…is this sounding familiar? Once I get into my blog the top toolbar looks like old times. I can click on the stats icon on the left that looks like a graph or I can hover over the little gravatar which will also give me the option of the original stats page. So as it seems, at this moment there are two versions of the stats page.
SO…do you want to voice your opinions?
If you visit the forums (that is, if you can find them) you can read what others are saying about the new changes and add your two cents if you’d like. “Massive changes to the WP interface” and “Missing Sign Out” are two active discussions at the moment.
You can tell WP what you think of the new Stats page by completing the survey they provided on the My Sites page. Click on “Give us your feedback”.
Click on, click off…..oh I wish I could just clap my hands or click my heels and things would go back to normal in the blogosphere.
#15. “Nature is amazing.”
A field
That’s all it took to enchant me
I have never returned
From the sound of the crickets
Blades of green tickles
Or the smell of rain on the path
The path I walked
To school, to play, to think
The path I rode
My bike and my Honda 70
Over the bumps
Around that curve
Slowing down for sure
Because nothing’s for sure
Being cautiously crazy
Carelessly stable
~
In the 70’s, life was about what we did. We DID things…without gadgets in our hands. We made things. We made things up. We looked for things. We found things. We entertained ourselves and created our own life, without Google and a status shuffle.
Playing outside was the key to our happiness as children. We felt the wind, touched the grass, skinned our knees and burned our faces in the sun…without sunscreen.
Nature was part of my childhood. It fired up my curiosity and my imagination. Taking a walk in the field near our home gave me ideas. There was a large crater like hole surrounded by tall grass, which became a hideout. There were plants to identify and dissect. There were bugs to put in mason jars and tiny toads to capture in my cupped hands.
I always set them free.
There were trails in the field and my younger brother took to them fearlessly with various dirt bikes, deliberately catching air over mole hills. I admired him. I admired him so much that I wanted to be the only girl in the neighborhood to ride a mini bike. After all, a girl can only force Barbie to try on so many of those silly plastic shoes.
The trees I climbed, the wild raspberries I picked and ate, everything I saw and touched in that field is still with me today. I was blessed by nature. I need it to nourish my soul, calm my mind and recharge my body.
If you find the time to go for a walk…..stop.
Look.
Listen.
Nature comes to you when you are still.
Hearts of gold
Are fewer still it seems
This world, so wired for techno garb
Dulling minds with faceless friends
Leaving us searching for souls
On tangled webs that weave
Between truth and trickery 
Hearts of gold
Are all around us
Rebooting dreams of reality
Reaching out blindly
For other fingers too busy texting tales
That never would leave lips
