Swallows from below and above.
Rose in the late afternoon light.
Bird on a line, owlets in the cottonwood. Sleepy is wide awake.
Moon through clouds.
They sky was crazy tonight. It had me running from one end of the property to the other the get all the angles.
Intermission: I walked up to the fence along the north side of the property to do another panoramic photo, and got a horse kiss.
The end of the crazy skies.
Lyrics and Music by Timothy Price
I finished recording a new original song on Sunday. Gabriela at Short Prose Blog, asked me if I was going to send her a poem, so I sent here Canonical Day, and told I had been working on the music. She wanted the song also, but didn’t say for what reason in her replies. Now that I have the computer I use for recording back, I checked to see where I was on the song. I had gotten the “Ticktock” sound for the clock created and that was it. I spent most of Sunday recording and assembling tracks. Tonight I added a little bit of synth to the recording after Marina mentioned she would probably add synthesizer. I had done a lead guitar track, but decided it detracted too much and took it out. The synth I added is subtle and it seems to work.
In case you don’t know what a Canonical Day is, it’s the liturgical hours of the day defined as follows:
Vigil – eighth hour of night: 2 a.m.
Matins – a later portion of Vigil, from 3 a.m. to dawn.
Lauds – dawn; approximately 5 a.m., but varies seasonally.
Prime – early morning, the first hour of daylight, approximately 6 a.m.
Terce – third hour, 9 a.m.
Sext – sixth hour, noon.
Nones – ninth hour, 3 p.m.
Vespers – sunset, approximately 6 p.m.
Compline – end of the day before retiring, approximately 7 p.m.
The poem came to me while I was listening to a lecture on theology. I was thinking, while monks get up at Vigil or Matins to pray, I get up at Matins to pee in a nightly Vigil after the kitties have stomped across my bladder. That gave me the idea to write a poem using the Canonical Hours based on a general day in a life. The poem has one or two Canonical Hours per verse, or perverse, depending on how one wants to look at it. After I got the verses down, I decided to add choruses and make a song out it.
I’m happy I took the time to record the song on Sunday as Gabriela has good intentions for both the poem and the song.
Canonical Day
By Timothy Price
Bombed at Vigil
kitties in the night
Matins listens
Owls
Hoot under moon’s light
Lauds wakens Dawn
Throw off covers
Spread colors
Reds, pinks, yellows
Tugs on sun lights blue skies
Primetime rise
Face another day
Lost in ironic phases
Teeth comb hair
Sad and pretty faces
[Chorus]
Sacred routines never fail
Hundreds, ten, thousand times
Begins each day a blessed right
Immortality of the whole
[RAP]
Terce it all coffee’s cold
Virtual whistles blow
Tap on keys, boxes packed,
Phone music
Plays on hold
Sext at last
Satisfies
Food fantasy
Peanut butter tofu chicken
Thirty minutes of ecstasy
Nones dear coffee’s cold
Eyelids weigh a tonne
Ninth hour sleepy time
For Heaven’s sake stay awake
[Chorus]
Sacred ways never fail
Hundreds, ten, thousand times
As each day goes by some insane
Immortality of the whole
Vapors rise at vespers
Dinners hot-cold served
Debates circles tables
World made right
For an instance
Compline pulls on covers
Sun tucked in welcomes night
Bedtime lost videos play
Medianoche greets another day
[Chorus]
Sacred darkness never fails
Hundreds, ten, thousand times
Conjures spirits Ether
Immortality of the whole
Spunk @ Compline
As a dry and dusty storm blew in this afternoon, the temperature dropped from 82ºF to 59ºF from one hour to the next. The sun managed to throw a slight bit of red on the clouds at the horizon as a last hurrah before slipping into to its sunny slumber.
The moon got a sepia tone from the thin layer of clouds catching what color they could from the setting sun.
Finally got some more water to irrigate. Many of our roses and iris will be very happy.
Tuscan Sun
Canada Rose for Resa, Dale, Rebecca and Gigi
Major Tom Peepers, Sleepy and Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa, inspired by Tabatha Towhee’s performance the other day, tries doing a little Owlet Opera singing.
Mona Lisa hitting the high notes. She was a real hoot.
Mona Lisa bowed and thanked everyone.
Falstaff
Double Delight doubly delighted by back lighting from the sun.
Betty Boop
Cherry Parfait
Sliver Moon
Pre-sunset
I got water for my first irrigation tonight. It’s so dry the land soaks up the water for a long time before it keeps flowing. Furthermore, the water level in the acequia madre keeps fluctuating, which changes the water pressure. Between bone dry land and changing water pressure, it’s going to take a long time to get everything watered tonight. I may not get everything watered tonight.
That little fuzzy head in the darkness is Mama Owl’s and Daddy Owl’s new owlet sticking its head up for the first time to say “Hello world!” I was talking to Jim between calling the owlet and taking photos, and Jim asked “Why don’t they stick their heads up when it’s light?” I told him that owls like darkness.
Mama Owl and Daddy Owl in a cottonwood in the bosque looking for Junior’s dinner.
If anyone has suggestions for names for Junior, I’m open.
“¡Hola Mundo!”
The left fork in the Y in my irrigation ditch flows through a culvert where Scrappy Skunk was sleeping. Poor Scrappy was rudely awakened by the water and he came out one end of the pipe but got offended that I was videotaping him. He crawled back in the culvert, came out the other side, went back in, and stayed in the culvert until the water got too high and finally forced him out. He was an embarrassed wet skunk when he finally climbed out of the ditch and ran off. You can watch Scrappy Skunk in all his wet glory in the video below.
Tonight’s flowers, bunny and moon follow.
Beatrice Bunny
Jupiter above the moon at 6:15 am this morning.
Daddy Owl blowing in the sunset.
Crows play in pink.
Sparse clouds over the Sandias.
Mama Owl is still “tufting” it out.
Washboard clouds
Minimal clouds to the west.
Nora Owl is still sitting. Either her owlets have hatched and they are not showing their cute faces or they will be hatching very soon.
Nora Owl in side-view.
Crane gliding above the Sandias. We saw a handful of cranes tonight.
A cute bunny greeted me when I got home. He was still hanging out when I left to check on Nora Owl.
Moon intermission.
The Sandias from the Beach at sunset.
Daddy Owl was hooting when I walked up to the tree he was in. Mama Owls was answering him.
When I walked over to Mama Owl’s hole in the tree, she stopped answering Daddy Owl and ducked into the hole. If you look carefully you can see the tipity tips of her ear tufts.
The painter was working on a soft sunset for Marina.
I presented my paper Quinientos años de lágrimas: The persistence of La Llorona — 16th Century to Present at The 52nd Annual Convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association this afternoon. The convention was scheduled to be held in Philadelphia, PA, but like so many things in our world of covid cooties, the organizers decided it was best to do a virtual conference. That was a wise decision, but it certainly changes the dynamics of a conference. I thought it was fitting to add the above parody I posted last year.
The last warning sliver moon in March.Sasha: “Do you like my La Llorona eyes?”
Marble: “No Sasha! This is how you make La Lorona eyes!”
Neither of you has it right. You need to be crying. Sasha & Marble: “Cats don’t cry! Stupid La Llorona!”
Silver: “La Llorona? Meh!”
Spunk: “No stinking La Llorona will get to me behind these bars!”
Glenda: “What’s that you say?”
“La la la La Llorona?”
Loki: “I’m not impressed!”
Gwendolyn: “Yeah! Talk to the paws!”
Daddy Owl: “I don’t see no stinking La Llorona! What’s that you say? La Llorona can shapeshift into an owl? Ha ha ho ho hoo who. That’s a Hoot!”
The moon was full at 3:30 am on February 27, 2021. I got the full moon at dawn on February 27, 2021, just above the horizon, falling behind some trees.
A foot
Off Center & Not Even 