edging out rivals
can make onlookers edgy
when over the edge
weak knees and cold sweats
reveal a fear of edges
no cliffhangers here
brave trailblazers know
what lies past horizon’s edge
it’s an illusion
kat ~ 10 September 2016
For TJ’s Household Haiku Challenge, prompt word, “edge”.
Happy Friday! It is, of course time to have a look at Dictionary.com to see what the Word of the Day is. “Lucida”. It comes from the Latin phrase, “stella lucida” meaning “bright star”. It can also be traced to the Latin verb “Lucere” which means “to shine” and comes from the word “Lux” meaning “light”. The English started using the word in the 1700’s.
Of course after learning this new word, I was curious to know which star is the brightest. Here is a bit of information for you to store in your brain vault of random facts. It might help you win a trivia game one day!
The brightest star in the sky is Sirius, also known as the “Dog Star” or, more officially, Alpha Canis Majoris, for its position in the constellation Canis Major. Sirius is a binary star dominated by a luminous main sequence star, Sirius A, with an apparent magnitude of -1.46. Sirius A’s apparent brightness can be attributed both to its inherent luminosity, 20 times that of the Sun, and its proximity. At just 8.7 light years away, Sirius is the seventh closest star to Earth.
In 1844, Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel suggested that the star’s slightly wavy path through the sky, compared to that of background stars, indicated a fainter companion. Alvan Clark confirmed the companion’s existence in 1862. Now known to be a white dwarf, Sirius B is easily spotted in a large telescope, but contributes little to the system’s total apparent brightness.
And here is my haiku…nothing fancy…just a jingle to help me remember
Sirius, you dog!
Aren’t you quite the lucida
outshining our sun!
kat ~ 9 September 2016
Please don’t bring me flowers
they won’t help me forget
they only bring sadness
you’d like me to forget
how you caused this sadness
love fades like plucked flowers
ripped from their roots, sadness
crushes lifeless flowers
of course they can’t forget
So take your dead flowers, forget me and leave me to my sadness.
kat ~ 9 September 2016
This is in response to Jane Dougherty’s Poetry Challenge, to write a Tritina based on this gloomy painting. Jane suggested that we choose three words before starting our poem after looking at the painting. These are the words I chose:
1. Flowers
2. Forget
3. Sadness
Having a bit of fun as usual with TJ’s Household Haiku Challenge. He gave us a Theme: Retro and a Prompt: Reflect. I wondered to myself if there was such a thing as a “Retroreflection” and to my surprise, there was! It all has to do with lights and lasers and prisms and reflections. Basically it is when light bounces off the side angle of the inside corner of a prism to the other side and back forming a reflective ray that is parallel with the source ray. I also learned that it is the science the behind the reflective paint used for street markings and traffic signs! Who knew?
At any rate, here’s a little diagram for you and my Haiku. Have a lovely Tuesday! 🙂
This diagram is from Edmund’s Optics Worldwide’s webpage titled: Introduction to Optical Prisms. Click HERE to learn more!
Retroreflection – A Haiku
Retroreflection…
prismatic parallel rays
yes, it is a “thing”!kat ~ 6 September 2016
The aftermath of a derecho. The tree was in my neighbor’s yard; it’s upper branches soon to fill my back yard past the second floor of my house! Fortunately it only took out our fence and two pine trees that we wanted to remove anyway. 🙂
This week’s Haiku Horizon Challenge word prompt is “Bend”. I have seen what damage can be done when trees stand too rigid against the wind. And I have seen what can happen when a friendship is tested requiring one party to bend too far. In this case there is a fine line between helping and enabling. A good friend knows the boundaries. 🙂
Here are my Haiku then…one about bending and one about knowing when to stand firm. 🙂
Bending…The Rules
good friends will often
bend over backwards to help
but not enabledeeply rooted trees
may only survive tempests
by learning to bendkat ~ 6 September 2016
