April 8, 2003

1.)      Tulip cup of red
           Doubling over to wet earth,
           Toppled by grey rain.        (Haiku)

2.)       Professor Steven Pinker
           Is a language tinker.
           He studies diverse grammar
           To find out how we yammer.   
                                               (Clerihew)

          Anarchist Avram Noam Chomsky
          Does not advocate the bombsky.
          By profession he's a linguist
          He'll hammer at grammar if you insist.                                                   (Clerihew) 

Did You Know?

Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956) was an English writer whose book Biography for Beginners was published in 1906 under the name E. Clerihew. It was a collection of simple, humorous four-line verses about famous people. Bentley had begun writing them as a bored high school student. He didn't call them clerihews himself, but his readers began to do so after the book appeared. How soon after, we can't be sure, because so far we've unearthed nothing earlier than a 1914 description of clerihews as "epigram[s] in hartogs, which are, of course, one’s oldest and most comfortable clothes." In any case, people have been having fun writing their own clerihews ever since Bentley shared his.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/clerihew

Love poem mystery for anniversary 66, February 8, 2019

Mystery

 

I need a clue, a hint, a word;
I need your cheek turned to the light
Of opal ball in tree-raked sky;
I need a spider's silken thread
To guide me through the labyrinth
Of wild emotions, so that I
Can understand a lover's plight.

I need your glance;  need your touch;
I need the jasmine of your hair;
I need the laughter of the leaves
To unravel strands of 'why',
To solve the mystery of love. 

September 1, 2004

To be a poet is a condition, not a profession. – Robert Frost

On Composing a Poem

I cannot write a poem again.
I cannot form the words a second time.
It flits, a firefly in the dusk, away.
If I don't capture it, it's gone.
My pencil/paper net can scoop it up -
A butterfly that wavers on the wind

Anthocharis julia prestonorum

Or fingerling cavorting in the pool -
But only now, not later, not again.
A thought, a joy, a sadness,
A poem, a life -
Cannot repeat itself.

February 6, 2006

Looking ahead to August 21, 2017

Total Eclipse

The sleepless night was better than the waking day.

Ideas and the will to win…

In daylight come the real hills

Closing down,

Commanding me to cook the stew

And pay the bills.

Last night was some great night!!

I almost won.

Inside the dark, I found a kinship

With the flaming sun

And sent corona flares

To bud at Western

And the all-night weatherman

In Redwood City by the phone.

They talked eclipse

As interested and as excitement filled

As I.

Born out of loneliness in space,

Perhaps.

Aligned.

Less lonely, we eclipsed

At 2:00 am,

Far separated

Moon and earth and sun.

I loved those men, lined up with me

For one brief swing of Kepler’s laws!

But then this morning,

We’d the daylight crew

To feed us facts:

No planes at 15,000

Over Portland (or within 100 miles)

At 8:13 on Monday.

Did you want to book on 615 or not?

Why no: I guess not…

I have to make a stew for Papa who is 97

And won’t eat institution food.

I’ll have another chance in 2017

When I’m just 91.

February 25. 1976

Day before the total

Eclipse of the sun in

Portland

 

Withered

A favorite pose

Mom's gift of a child reading - a gift she modeled, a gift she encouraged, a gift she enjoyed, a gift she inspired, a gift that endures, a gift in bronze.

Ars longa, vita brevis

 

Please click on video of Lorel talking about her bronzes.

                                Lorel Lu Kay
 
               April 9, 1926    -   January 9, 2013

Mother's Day, 2015

It's a Doggone Mystery

Yes, It's a doggone mystery to me,

Why those four best plants are now just three.

It's a doggone mystery how the canary got out

When the doors were shut and no one was about.

It's a doggone mystery why that sheet isn't there

When it was only this morning that I hung it out to air.

It's a doggone mystery why the company tripped

And how the big front curtain just happened to be ripped.

It's a doggone mystery about that rubber mat

But strange things are happening just like that.

It's a doggone mystery how my slipper disappeared,

The way things are going is getting very weird.

It's a doggone mystery 'bout that piece of birthday cake

And just what happened to the family Sunday steak.

It's a doggone mystery why the beds are all mussed up,

But we've a faint suspicion it's that doggone pup.

Lorel Lu Daus
Early Poems

Spring Time

The trouble with Winter

Is equivalence.

Each day is equal to every other.

The heavy clouds are all the same.

The rain is equal signs tipped

And slanting downward,

Falling this hour the same as the last.

Dull, boring sameness...

But, Oh!, Spring!

Each second now bears change with it.

There are so many things to watch.

Every plant has its zipping timeline

Rushing at break-neck speed.

From the first cracked, damp earth

That is rent apart by the escaping daffodil

To the triumphant bloom

To the hard green seedpod forming,

There is always something new.

The rhodi buds have been there all winter

But now they swell

With life, with red and pink,

Zinging along like a kid on a skateboard.

The clouds puff and then disappear,

Exercising your neck and eyes to follow them.

The thick, dappled shade beneath

The redwoods

Has pinpoints of light that dart

In and out like small mice dancing.

Spring is unequal.

It is Greater Than.

 April 23, 1999

Alive is so full....

Dear Diary

This weekend has been
A star-bursting, laser-beam, razzle-daz weekend.
Life is so good!
Dianne, MaryAnn and Me,
Huff-puffing up the curves, the hill curves, the loop curves,
Chat-chatting the kids news, the chill news, the scandal news:
While Eric timbered, 
I limbered.
Shards, slabs, and slivers
Patterned, placed and positioned.
Glass play.
Word play.
Moonlight and coals bright
Just right
On a sleepless night:
Because Friday I dined with Lockheed
But will breakfast
In the New Year
With new cheer.
One half of a Jolly Jugger
Is jolly.
Cost designs on phone lines.
There are so many people
I love.
Even T.V. loves a little tonight.
Matzoball soup for the pacified tiger lady
And warm toast and honey 
For the Honey Puss.
There are no problems,
The December sun sees no problems.
Alive is so full.
Such a big surprise package.
I feel
So alive.
                               December 5, 1981
                                                           Job offer from IBM