135.   COME MORNING The early sky fills quickly  with orangey-pink clouds shifting  to deep coral to soft cantaloupe then peachy-apricot and saffron. Just as quickly delicate blue  slips in behind  shadow-black oak leaves  and branches.  Within minutes the show's over,  morning has begun. *comments welcome

134. dawn softly arrives this paler version of night this faded echo *comments welcome

  This article suggests the question when writing a poem: what is the constraint? What is the constraint against which the expression builds and/or relieves tension? If not rhyme, then it could be alliteration, consonance, assonance, meter, cadence, syllabics, chiasmus, or repetition (e.g. tritina, pantoum, etc.) What makes it something other than hyper-lineated flat expression? I read somewhere recently the claim that the problem with "no ideas but in things" is that people will list a bunch of things and call it a poem. It's left up to the reader to find the poetry in it. That may or may not be a legitimate claim. These bigger questions sometimes bug me, especially when I uncharacteristically find I can't sleep at 1 am.

133. MOSQUITO This heat has me thinking  about summers when I was a girl,  when we lived at the lake. Some nights it was too hot to sleep,  no A/C or window fans,  house open all day, brothers  and dogs running through.  That's how the mosquitos got in.  Little flying vampires attacking, nighttime slumber impossible,   constantly whining round my head.  I'd cover myself with a sheet, then couldn't breathe  so out I'd come, only to have  the mosquito dive bomb me again.  I tried to ignore the high-pitched singing but being bitten was worse.  Such guzzling! Such gorging!  That tiny winged warrior left a lumpy red itch that ruined any chance  of sleep. *comments welcome

132. NOTHING IS how it's supposed to happen. My heart humming a happy tune, I’m smiling under fluorescent stars. Pillows and featherbeds can fly, alarm clocks suddenly don't exist, all that’s quiet is magic and I fall asleep, dreaming of the sun. *comments welcome

Lime green beginnings of new leaves softly exhale as springtide arrives *comments welcome

131.  heavy in the sky rampant clouds mask out the day cloaking the blueness  *comments welcome

129. apple blossoms drift on the tide of tomorrow against bluest sky *comments welcome

128. sky marbled in blue dandelion fluffs explode gold-fuzzed bees buzzing *comments welcome

127. LIKE POETRY AT DAWN spring tip-toed in the back gate all dewy fresh and sparkly and inch by inch the day turned golden. In the garden a woodpecker chiseled a tree, poplars whispered  to cottonwoods, newly fertile earth blushed under the sun's  lusty gaze and lilacs reveled in an orgy of purple. *comments welcome

127.   DRIFTING Drifting toward morning, the scent of lilacs fills the shadows. The star she wished on last night has fallen. Times taken her dreams, nothing lasts, nothing holds all of her. Alone, she cries and cries. *comments welcome

  126. HIS WIFE & THE RED CONVERTIBLE She rented a red Chrysler LeBaron convertible  for his 50th birthday weekend, parked it in front of the house, top down, balloons tied to the steering wheel, cassette of Born to Be Wild ready in the tape deck. She still remembers his smile  when he saw it. *comments welcome

125.  hosta leaves unfurled delicate ferns faced the sun green colored the day *comments welcome

124. ON STORMS She sees the horizon turn the color of a purple bruise. Air like this, thick and still, always comes before a storm. The warmed air rises, condenses,  fuels the rain-heavy thunderclouds. *comments welcome NOTES: Inspired by Amrita Skye Blaine , I have attempted a Nonet (nine lines, descending or ascending number of syllables from 9-1 or 1-9).

123.  FOREVER WE ARE BEGINNING Silhouetted against the spring sky the new-leaved oak tree waves her green arms in the wind. Cloaked in layers of a day almost done, her shadow overwhelms the backyard.  *comments welcome

122. dear old window shade cracked and worn at the bottom keeps the darkness out *comments welcome

 121. Caught in the romance of innocence lilacs lolled in heavy clusters birds chirped lustily nearby and pieces of returning spring  drifted in slants of morning light. *comments welcome

  120. the world's all wrong now, and she's trying to believe  it will get better. *comments welcome

  ahhh how the sun gilds bright blooms on the lilac bush shadows play on grass. *comments welcome

  119. MY HOME TOWN 1965 The one-room library shared shelves with the grocery in the town where I grew up, dog-eared books behind tidy rows of canned peas and lima beans. Town elections were held there, too, until the year the judges came up three votes short; the butcher found the missing ballots under the bologna. Grandpa bought us boxes of Fudgesicles at Gordie's on the corner, where television repair, hardware and cafe all squeezed together behind the same creaky screen door. Next was the Pink Pony Motel,  five small bubble-gum cottages, their time-worn patina faded to palest seashell pink. Down the block was the newspaper office owned by a Quaker family of conscientious objectors. Bud, well-lubed mechanic at Boyd's 3-Pump out on the highway, kept Mom's Chevy clunker humming year after year. Last came Our Savior's Lutheran where the kindly minister preached on Sundays with pious determination. A child, I loved growing up there. Then I turned seventeen, and couldn...

  118. LEPIDOPTERA Freed from the shadows, papery moths flutter   against porch lights searching for   the moon. *comments welcome NOTE: The form I used here is a SEPTOLET:  7 lines with 14 words, written with two separate parts.

116. MISSED OPPORTUNITIES Her life measured by layers of skin wrinkled with words, she accepts what comes now with silence because she dreamed too little, played it too safe. Yesterday, in memory of a simpler time, she laid a bright yellow dandelion on her mother's grave . *comments welcome ALL THINGS PASS AWAY Assessing elements  of puzzling paradoxes, her life is measured by coffee spoons and layers of skin wrinkled with words. She who dared to disturb the universe  now accepts what comes with silence because she dreamed too little. She found a bright gold dandelion  by the sidewalk yesterday. The universe itself doesn't care. NOTE: Prompt word I used is DISTURB. *comments welcome

115.  great scallops of clouds  back-lit with golden sunshine shifting drifting gone *comments welcome

114. MOTHER'S DAY 1952 Like the set of a 1950s game show, would you like to be queen for a day? we made  a throne for Mother, covered an old Victorian chair with a white cotton sheet, edged it with her jeweled earrings stuck into the upholstery on tiny straight pins. We fashioned a crown of cardboard and shiny scraps of tinfoil, gave her Father's old baton for her scepter, arranged enormous bouquets  of wild plum blossoms and purple lilacs throughout the house. Seated on her throne she was a mother like no other, splendid,  regal, graceful, the four of us  her adoring servants, Ray, Joey, baby Mike and me. Ray and Mike dead now, Joe in Memory Care. I'm the oldest, the only one left, just me. The keeper of the memories and  traditions,  the stories, photo albums, recipes; all of it. Just me left to remember. Just me.  *comments welcome

113. ISLAND OF SOLITUDE She rests in a shady corner  of the yard, her spirit weary, hears birdsong in the meadow, a stream bubbling over rocks, her old dog barking in the lane, phantom memories  she carries from childhood. There's a goodness to the past, comforting bridge between then and now. Sad times have fallen on her, she retreats from the pain of life, unwinds in the peace of the moment, escapes the wild instability  she bears daily. This place is as close to heaven  as she will ever get on earth. WORDLE PROMPT: Use all, or some, of these words in a poem: bird, bridge, unstable, wild, bend, rock, retreat, bear, lane , fallen, meadow, island, heaven. *comments welcome

 112. I sleep by moon-glow my pillow cushioned with dreams the night lit with stars *comments welcome

111. looking half erased the moon leaves the morning sky with a silver sigh *comments welcome

 110. memories like clouds drifting in an open sky past streaks of god light *comments welcome

  109. HAIKU crocheted laciness chartreuse against bluest sky sun glints off oak leaves *comments welcome

108. JURASSIC SANDBOX 1989 Son Tommy built Jurassic Park in our backyard sandbox this morning. He hauled his toy dinosaur collection outside, created a tangled tropical forest with leafy branches from the lilac hedge. T. Rex, king of the tyrant lizards thundered through a primeval river valley, past a plant-eating brontosaurus and triceratops with his three horns, on his way to lunch. My young son entertains me  with bursts of seven-year-old humor. Mom, if a T-Rex is a meat eater do you think he'd eat at McDonald's? And then, That's a joke, Mom! (in case I don't get it). I marvel at the limitless bounds  of his imagination. He's always been extraordinary, this child of mine. I feel a gigantic lump of maternal love choke my throat and squeeze down to my heart. Was there ever a boy so splendid or mother so captivated? *comments welcome NOTES: This was written about a much younger version of our son, who is 41 and lives in NY where he's a video producer and does a...

107. LILAC ALLEY Spring unfurls yet again, pale blue wild violets peep in the cramped space between garage and trash bin, deep purple lilacs hold court in the alley behind her house, branches bowed under a carnival of blooms. She staggers like a drunkard, from one side of the alley to the other, pulls down heavy clusters of blossoms, buries her face in sweet perfume. Essence of springtime, the wayward scent of lilacs haunts her all year. *comments welcome

This is the beginning of my parent's love story. They were together for 59 years, until my dad passed at 84.  106. WALDORF ASTORIA, MINNESOTA 1943, New York City, the Big Apple It would be fitting  to say they met at the Starlight Roof under blinking sky-blue stars, breathing the same intoxicating New York air; that their eyes met from across the room or maybe a chance encounter  when she dropped her handbag in passing and he stooped to pick it up. But it didn't happen that way. Back from overseas for officer's training, Cary Grant handsome in his uniform, he was the guest of a Park Avenue couple  wanting to wine and dine an Army boy. She was an intriguing combination of Rita Haworth's sultry looks and a young Grace Kelly, there for dinner with an old boyfriend.  But it didn't happen that way. Instead they met two years later on a blind-date back home in Minnesota when they discovered they'd been  at the same restaurant in the same city on the same night. F...

105. me plus you is us calla lilies, emeralds love is patient, kind fifty-five years loved today tomorrow always me plus you is us *comments welcome