The Seal of Approval

Seal

by William Jay Smith

See how he dives

From the rocks with a zoom!

See how he darts

Through his watery room

Past crabs and eels

And green seaweed,

Past fluffs of sandy

Minnow feed!

See how he swims

With a swerve and a twist,

A flip of the flipper,

A flick of the wrist!

 

Quicksilver-quick,

Softer than spray,

Down he plunges

And sweeps away;

Before you can think,

Before you can utter

Words like "Dill pickle"

Or "Apple butter,"

Back up he swims

Past Sting Ray and Shark,

Out with a zoom,

A whoop, a bark;

Before you can say

Whatever you wish,

He plops at your side

With a mouthful of fish!

For a cute attack... 

For the earrings... 

The Lost Hearts of El Dorado

~A Revisionist Historical Tale from Cornerstoregoddess~

El Dorado was the name of a Muisca tribal chief who covered himself with gold dust and, as an initiation rite, dived into the lake Guatavita.



Imagined as a place, El Dorado became a kingdom, an empire, the city of this legendary golden king.

Pursuing the legend, Francisco Orellana and Gonzalo Pizarro set sail from Quito in 1541 in a famous and disastrous expedition towards the Amazon Basin. 



Then, in 1595, the English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh set out to find it




The city was never found, though  Raleigh wrote at length about his venture to South America and claimed he had neared "the great Golden Citie of Manoa (which the Spaniards call El Dorado)."



Of course, his narrative also described a tribe of headless people... causing a loss in credibility.



Until now, when the headless people emerged from their hidden village bearing hearts from El Dorado.



And then, as mysteriously as they had appeared, they disappeared into the mists once more.



All that remains are the hearts.



Really. 

Love is a Thing That Can Never Go Wrong

Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967), Not So Deep as a Well (1937)

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,  

A medley of extemporanea; 

And love is a thing that can never go wrong;  

And I am Marie of Romania.

A bracelet with which you can never go wrong can be found here.

Forget-Me-Nots on a (Nearly) Wordless Wednesday

Forget Me Not hearts here.

Who Was This St. Valentine Guy, Anyway?

A brief answer, in verse.



He might have been a Roman priest
Entombed on Via Flaminia
Or else a priest from Viterbo
Who caused his boss chagrinia.





Or else he was a bishop who
Hailed from Province Raetia
Unless he was the hermit priest
Who kept his life discreetia.





Whoever was Valentius
His day is rife with phobias
For men who lapse and fail to gift
On all parts of the globe-ias.





So if you shake and quake with fear
When this saint's day is nearing ya
Check out the brightandshinythings
To which I'm quickly steering-ya.