Photo from Button Central
https://www.facebook.com/ButtonCentral
used with permission
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Prompt: Button, button, who has got the button (Gary)
Remembering
www.foodchannel.com
Kitchen Gardens:
A Growing Restaurant Trend in the U.K
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watermelons ripe for eating
juicy and sweet
stars and moons ~earthly beauty
seed spitting contests each melon
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Prompt: bee balloons
birds do it ~ bees too
even balloon bees do it
fall in love
holding hands at dawn
Up up and away to the sky
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tanka prompt – hot air balloons – up, up and away (Gary)
For twelve years we have stayed at the Blue Ox RV Park
in Albany Oregon for our grandson’s birthday.
Just before his big day is the Albany Art and Air Fair,
which we have been able to witness most years.
The balloons ascend from Linn-Timber Memorial Park’s soccer fields
adjacent to the Blue Ox over four mornings starting at about 6 am.
Albany is a small event with only 35 to 40 balloons.
(The largest in the world with over 600 balloons is at Albuquerque NM.)
Usually, the balloons are standard hot air shapes,
but this year there was nothing ordinary about one set of balloons.
Ascending this year with last place honors were the “Little Bees” from Arizona –
Lilly and Joey tethered together and Joelly,
the smaller kid (but still 50 foot.
His parents are 100 feet each.)
Two small facts – they are the only balloon group that flies together;
and
Joelly’s pilot is the first paraplegic balloonist
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What is your experience with balloons,
even water balloons?
And other flying craft, such as hang-gliders and experimental planes?
Given the chance, would you go up in a balloon?
How do your tanka soar using alternative power?
For pictures of shape balloons at Albuquerque go to
http://www.balloonfiesta.com/pilots-and-crew/special-shapes-directory
And for an article on this year’s Albany balloons, including Little Bee Joelly and his pilot, Michael Glen, go to http://democratherald.com/news/local/flying-high-achieving-his-dreams/article_01a5772c-2b22-11e4-a2b6-0019bb2963f4.html
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photo (c) 2014 Gary Blankenship used with permission
9/8/2014 Super Harvest Moon
(c) Saradunn
tanka prompt: what’s on top
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Yesterday, as we were arriving home from Japan,
Gary gave the prompt “little surprises”
I was surprised that it was Tuesday (again)
and right in tune with the prompt.
It was hard to see on my phone,
while we were getting off the plane,
and even later,
what was “on top” of the stack of rocks in his picture.
I had to ask.
A little tree.
So subtle and sweet.
It reminded me of many things
we had seen on this journey
and everyday life too.
How what is on top of a building,
a statue,
a person’s head is important
and there for a reason,
sometimes accidental,
often purposeful.
Even when accidental,
it often acquires meaning
in the eye of the person looking.
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What is “on top” of you, your head, your house,
something you see every day,
something memorable in travels,
or childhood,
what does it mean and can the significance, mystery, humor,
importance come alive
in your tanka?)
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My response to the prompt:
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For photo on 9/8/2014
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above the world
gazing ball bright in sky
colorful aura glows
together in spirit
gaze together ~ Harvest Moon
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TPOS Prompt: what’s on top ?
(of the tree next door)
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bright lit sky
stars gleam with super moon
Wow amazing delight
more amazing I can see
when you are gazing too
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Photo 9/6/2014
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Photo 9/6/2014
Skies to be overcast
and stormy tonight 9/7/2014
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from Barbara Allan on Seize the Poem / facebook
with permission.
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Please my friends in this group : (Seize the Poem)
Please share this poem .
There has been another beheading of another innocent journalist .
This poem was written from my heart for MR . Foley and his family.
Barbara Allen
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08/24/14
BCA
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JAMES FOLEY
Oh my God !
James Foley
An innocent
and good man .
So cruelly executed .
How this sickens
and infuriates me .
How my heart breaks
for his family . . . .
For him .
His young life lost .
Gone .
A kind and generous life .
Cut short with a brutal
and wicked end .
I pray for your warrior
spirit .
Your brave soul .
And I pray for your family
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Barbara Allen
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note: 9/2/2014 Isis also killed by beheading
Steven Sotloff, Journalist from Fla, whom I add to my prayers
with his friends and family. Siggi Saradunn
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Kathabela Wilson wrote for the prompt:
We all know that life is challenging, changeable full of the unexpected and difficult.
How do we deal with this?
We’ve seen animals adapting to loss, and incapacity,
and we all have such examples in our own lives and those we love.
What are the ways of coping, confronting the natural and unnatural forces of life,
the mishaps and the tragedies?
What have you observed,
felt, what tangible examples
of dealing with life’s challenges
can you express in your tanka?
How have you done this yourself?
Sometimes we can help each other,
but ultimately it is our own task and
we are prey to the weaknesses of chemistry,
environment and life itself.
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MY RESPONSE: (I am 70 as I write this)
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my mind says
I’m in my twenties…
body says, “you wish’
mind says ok forty
body says get a walker
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I find it is true … what “elderly” people
told me when I worked in a nursing facility.
If they didn’t have what ever problem required
them to be in a nursing facility,
they felt usually in their 30’s mentally.
At 70, I find it difficult to believe that I cannot
do, have the stamina to do what I did when I was
in my twenties, thirties, even older.
Siggi
siggiofmaine 