Category: Creative Life

Blogging, painting and poetry by DiVoran Lites gently wrapped in one of her delightful stories

Dog Saturday

 

My Take

DiVoran Lites

Reblogged 2/18/18 from Old Things R New

 

Morning Dogs:

We walked into Lowe’s not expecting dogs
One tiny old and disabled Pekinese on a blanket in a buggy
One terrier carried by a young man
With an old man’s long scraggly beard
He shows the on-off light on the dog’s collar
This is for when he goes out at night
It’s for in case a hawk or some other creature
Of the night tries to get him.
Course we might just see the light lifting
And what will we do then?

They let people bring dogs to Lowes now?
Yes, Walmart too especially service dogs
This one keeps me calm
I wonder if the young man
Has PTSD…an acronym for shell shock or
Battle fatigue. Or is he kidding?
Next, he says: they threw us out of a
dollar-type store.
I told ‘em they didn’t have to yell,
Just tell me quietly.
But back to Walmart.
They won’t allow dogs in the buggies
They say they ain’t sanitary
But what about babies in dirty diapers
Are they sanitary?
I bathe my dog once a week
Whether she needs it or not
I never take her into restaurants.
But his wife was already moving on
And I had lost my Will of the Wisp husband,
Somewhere in another part of the store.

Afternoon dogs:

Walking the trail I hear deep, heartfelt baying
I figured hounds on the trail had a squirrel or
A raccoon run up a tree.
Small animals for such big dogs to chase
I rounded the corner and saw
A standoff. A man and a woman each
With a very large hound on a leash
And a mother far over on the trail
Hurrying past holding a terrier in one arm
And guiding her tiny daughter on her tiny
Tricycle with the other hand
I said to the mother as she passed
The woman was out for a pleasant walk with her dog and daughter
The hound couple were out for a pleasant walk with their hounds
When the woman and her charges were gone,
I asked what kind of dogs these were.
The man said, “Hounds” and pointed
That little dog barked first
The woman said this here one’s a lab/boxer mix
And that black one is a Blue Tick.
I waved and went on.
They came behind me but they had
To get off the trail for everyone who passed
When I came back up.
They were still coming down.
The Blue-Tick bayed at me in a different tone.
“Tell me all about it,” I said.
The man laughed, and then I hurried by.
It was a beautiful Saturday as I
Danced home to the sound of jazz.

Source: Dog Saturday

Giovanni and the Magnolia Tree

 

 

By DiVoran Lites

 

Hot pink flowers growing through green grass

Yellow cosmos glowing to be seen

Cherry laurel with a network of roots

Choke the yard. Call them choke-cherries.

A neighbor who owns a store knocks

On our door, wants to know if he can chop our

Chokers that grow yellow, inedible seed pods

That drop to the ground like accomplices to

The network of underground roots that choke out all other vegetation.

“I have too much energy,” says Giovanni “don’t want to spend it at the fitness center.”

We said yes, but tied a ribbon to the small, misshaped baby Magnolia

Which yearned to be free of overshadowing.

On Sundays, sometimes, we’d hear the crack of the ax

Against a tree and the ker-thump when the giant fell.

We never had one pang of remorse.

We and the magnolia wanted sunlight and at least a glimpse of blue

When most of the cherry laurels were gone,

The magnolia began to grow.

It was warped and scraggly and would never be anything but a runt.

Didn’t look like other magnolias, but it was free now and perhaps someday we’d pick a big flower from its

Boughs and wouldn’t have to ask someone else in the neighborhood

For a blossom to put in on a bowl where it could fill our olfactories with

Fragrance and our eyes with its creamy white petals and bright yellow filaments.

One day, I suppose it was a few years later,

I happened to look out a high window

To see the Magnolia tree, though still not shapely,

Reaching with its grateful branches

Into blue background

Taller than the remaining cherry laurels

With every dark green leaf polished to a flash.

In my mind the tree

Told me all it had needed was light

And there it was, thriving,

Giovanni thrived, too

And fairly newly married has

Possessed a baby son,

Giovanni may be seen every day walking the

New walking child

On cold days the tot wears a thick white sweater with a fuzzy, matching cap.

Sometimes you see them with the stroller coming home from store up near the highway.

Maybe someday they will chop trees or hike the world just to be together and spend their energy.

And the magnolia with be white with flowers.

 

Reblogged from Old Thing R New

Hanging Out the Clothes

Painting by DiVoran Lites

 

 

Reblogged from Old Things R New by DiVoran Lites

 

Under the clothesline.

Light layer of snow on the ground

Mother bends down and reaches up

Bends down and reaches up

She tells me this is how the cord

Got wrapped around my neck

Before I was born

 

She teaches me how to hang clothes on the line

I like the pinching clothespins best

But we still have some old wooden ones

From which you can make dolls with round faces

We only have so many clothespins

Use only one to clip like things together

Shirts, Towels, jeans, dresses, sock,

A lone sock requires its own clothespin

Oh-oh, here’s dad’s boxer shorts

Upside down or by the waist?

When it’s time to take them in

Everything has frozen

The boxers stand on the table

It’s the perfect time to start ironing

But day is done and shadows fall

 

 

Source: Hanging Out the Clothes