Fingers have lost touch now.
 The mandolin cannot sing now.
 My voice is not yet still.
 

 Your turquoise shines
 in desert moonlight
 coloring my heart.
 

 Midwest bone chilling cold.
 Short sleeves here.
 Snow comes no more on the desert.

I completely forgot to write my Daily Haiku yesterday. Too many things were going on with having author things I had to get done with my last book. Then we were in the process of switching internet providers all going on at the same time. Today, while waiting for my monthly accupuncture, I picked up a copy of Lao Tzu's Tao te Ching and opened to the page with these "three simple lines", which followed a prelude to them, but these sum it up perfectly. I will share them with you and will also be doing another post for my "Daily Haiku" for today.

Cast off extremes.
Cast off excess.
Cast off extravgence.

This week’s installment of Russell and Hanna’s adventures. The book is available at http://www.amazon.com/author/edwardlehner

Mom answered quickly. “Hi Mom, it’s Russell. How’re you doing?”

“Russell, where are you. We thought you were coming home like we told you to do. Are you on your way?” she asked expectantly. 

“I’m in Yellowstone National Park, Mom. It’s amazing out here, and please stop worrying about me. I’m doing fine. There’s no need for you to worry.”

“Well, we do. What in earth are you doing out there anyway. I told you to stop running around wasting time. You need to get home and get back to work and patch things up with Dana. We didn’t raise you to be like this.”

“Mom, with all due respect, I’m not coming home anytime soon. I’m planning on heading up to Glacier Park tomorrow and eventually maybe to San Francisco to meet, my friend, Hanna’s mother. So it will be, I don’t really know . . . it’ll be a while, I’ll let you know where I am.”

Glacier Park, never heard  of it . . . and San Francisco, California? That’s so far away. What about your job? And who is Hanna?”

I tried to explain where Glacier was and tell her about Hanna and how we were traveling together and had become friends, but it was like talking to a wall. She ignored everything I had said and launched into a rant about irresponsibility, Dana, work, family, why couldn’t I be like my brother and sister, what had they done wrong, and so on. I finally had heard enough, and was able to interrupt when she took a breath from her tirade and quickly said, “I’m fine, Mom. Good to talk to you. Hi to Dad. Love you both. Talk to you soon,” and disconnected, took several cleansing breaths, as Hanna called them, turned off my phone and went to find her to get ready for our set.