Category Archives: cactus
The cactuses will thank you
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Southern Arizona
The cactuses will thank you,
The sage will do the same,
If you promise not to smoke,
Or threaten them with flame.
For even though their needles
Could clearly run you through,
Cacti can’t survive a fire,
And neither, friend, can you!
Poem and photo © 2017 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More Midweek Motif at Poets United: “Smoking Tobacco”
News in cactus land
Saguaro cactus, Yuma Conservation Garden, Yuma, Arizona
What’s the news in cactus land?
What’s the TV say?
Is there any hope that rain
Will settle dust today?
Maybe someone has a tip
I can take to heart.
Wait! There’s always NPR—
I’ve heard folks there are smart!
Poem and photo © 2017 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More SkyWatch Friday
More Shadow Shot Sunday 2
More Midweek Motif at Poets United: “News Media”
Take a word or two
Beavertail cactus blossom, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Southern California
Take a word or two—
mingle, calendar, or burning will do.
Splash them on a page,
or hang them with rope
from a branch
like lumps of suet
to feed the hungry jays.
All words woven by your hands
become poems, my daughter,
and yours will be the first weaving
to awaken daffodils
from their winter sleep.
Even the jays
will be amazed.
Poem and photo © 2017 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More Macro Monday 2
More Sunday’s Whirligig #109
More Poetry Pantry #351 at Poets United
More Macro Monday 2
More Sunday’s Whirligig #109
More Poetry Pantry #351 at Poets United
Blooms
Cholla cactus blossom, Yuma Conservation Garden, Yuma, Arizona
Only in the desert sands
Do cacti thrive and bloom,
Not on crowded city streets
Where there’s no breathing room.
If you find a place of sand,
Where human prints are few,
There the lowly cactus waits
To show its blooms to you.
Poem and photo © 2017 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More Ruby Tuesday Too
More Midweek Motif at Poets United: “A Grain of Sand”
Flaunting
Barrel cactus, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Southern California, March 2017
On the mountain path
a cactus flaunts its blossoms
for a day or two.
Haiku and photo © 2017 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More SkyWatch Friday
More Haiku My Heart at Recuerda Mi Corazon
Hummingbird Country
We live in hummingbird country.
We know how to survive.
Like tiny creatures
flitting here and sipping there,
we scan the sky.
Storm clouds hang heavy in the west,
where thunder is heard.
Can anything good come from thunder
or the burden that both of us bear?
You compare your pain to mine
to see whose is greater.
You say that the doctor’s poking
and prodding was not proper,
because it stirred up something inside you—
a storm that may destroy you.
But aren’t we stronger than storms?
We live in hummingbird country.
We know how to survive.
Poem and photo © 2017 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More Macro Monday 2
More Sunday’s Whirligig #97
More Poetry Pantry #339 at Poets United
More Macro Monday 2
More Sunday’s Whirligig #97
More Poetry Pantry #339 at Poets United
Distant
Organ pipe cactus at twilight, Sonoran Desert, Southern Arizona
a new year’s twilight—
peering beyond the cactus
to a distant path
Haiku and photo © 2017 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More SkyWatch Friday
More Haiku My Heart at Recuerda Mi Corazon
Daybreak
Daybreak with a saguaro, Sonoran Desert, Southern Arizona
Photo © 2016 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More SkyWatch Friday
Hoarding
Singing
Organ pipe cactus blossom, Sonoran Desert, Southern Arizona
singing in wonder
before the cream-white blossom—
one dove joins my song
Haiku and photo © 2016 by Magical Mystical Teacher
More Haiku My Heart at Recuerda Mi Corazon
More Carpe Diem’s Summer Retreat 2016: “One with Nature”
