Yahoo! Today I learned this plant is NOT purple lupine. It is echium candicans ("Pride-of-Madeira") and grows all around SF Bay and generally all over the central and south coast of California. Normally I take great interest in learning about plants, but for some reason, I have walked by hundreds of these for years, every Spring, and said to myself "yep, purple lupines".

Please enjoy these Pride-of-Madeira with San Francisco Bay and city in the background.

Echium candicans along SF Bay

Not quite full-bloom Echium candicans

 The NaPoWriMo prompt got me back already! I'm a sucker for math and patterns. Two* prompts were offered; I'll accept the "Fib" form :

A six-line form where the syllable count is based off the Fibonacci sequence of 1/1/2/3/5/8...  Can go longer or be bell-shaped as in 1/1/2/3/5/8 8/5/3/2/1/1 (two stanzas)

Tesla

New
car,
smell it!
Powerful
technology here.
New century, we have arrived.

Pairing

White
wine
starts off
cool and crisp,
refreshingly good!

Love it with sushi or Thai food.

* The other prompt also introduced me to a new form: the Shadorma - a 6-line syllabic poem of 3/5/3/3/7/5 syllable lines. For another day!

An end and a beginning

Writing daily, inspired by NaPoWriMo this month, has been great, yes, even after 6 days. Six days is also the amount of time it took me to realize that I want to be doing other writing at this time. And I have, just not in neatly, day-sized poems (or whatever you would call my 2021 writing so far). I'm not quitting NaPoWriMo, per se. Daily warm-ups in the form of haiku, clerihew and sijo sounds about right for me - technically a poem-a-day and leaves me more time for my passion projects.

Clerihew - whimsical, four-line biographical poem invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley

President Joe Biden

Came out fightin’

A Democrat for sure

Let’s hope his policies endure

 Using today’s prompt from NaPoWriMo, inspired by the poem Distance by Dorothy Parker.

Very Close

While distance makes the heart grow fond

His nearness can be charming

I like to wrap my arms around

All night, without alarming

It’s morning, time to let him go

To start the day’s tasks brightly

But if I can (and just for show)

I’ll hug him close more tightly

 Mask

Covering about half the face, it must cover mouth and nose

Breathable fabric

Multiple layers

   Traps moisture and heat

  And covid virus

 We must wear it to

Save lives by preventing airborne spread of virus when so close

 For My future Self, a new genre of digital content

Newly revisited and revised

My digital pieces are proof of why

I liked to record these times

 It was the J&J by the way

After My Vaccine

Nothing other than what I expected

So far..

Leaning forward with hope

Braking with caution

(because it’s only been 6 hours)

Grateful lucky happy headache

Bothered and overthinking

What’s happening in my body

Regular flu vax didn’t inspire

Curiosity and creative visualization

I think I can see it, while

The science knows what to do

Back for NaPoWriMo in 2021

Reviving this ol' blog for my 2021 NaPoWriMo poems. April 1 is the day before my vaccine. My last entry, and NaPoWriMo poem, was April 30, 2015.

Day Before My Vaccine

It’s day whatever of the pandemic year(s)

Writing, working, cleaning, eating, repeating

When this ends, what is it that will begin?

Days go by quickly as nights run long, for ruminating

We want a clean break from all of this, those who can, anyway

Some will never forget the unforeseeable loss, unimaginable pain

We are going through it together, yet making sense alone

Can true answers be found or trusted?

I’ve done the scheduling deed just now

Tomorrow’s my time for The Jab some say

Why not be light-hearted about coming out

And saying Thanks to those who cared, did something about

Ending The Plague of our day