This is one of my favorite photographs. I was admiring this guy’s tattoo and asked him what it said. I was so glad I asked. We shared some stories and I learned about tattoos and this song. Van Morrison recorded “Listen to the Lion” in San Francisco. The Irish Gaelic translation of Listen to the Lion is tattooed on his arm.
“Listen to the Lion” is a song featured on Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison‘s sixth album, Saint Dominic’s Preview (1972).
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The night before we heard the male lion’s roar near camp. I got a glimpse of him in the darkness as he walked by. Early in the morning we went out in a beaten up old dusty green two door Toyota Land Cruiser. Our guide was in the front seat. My husband and I shared the back seat. This lion blended in with the landscape so well that I didn’t see her for about five minutes. I had been looking out in the distance, camera ready, when I looked down right in front of me. There she was, looking straight at me. We had a photo session together, then she quietly stood up and walked away.
That’s the path where the hippos, weighing one and a half to three tons, filed by to get to the water. We could hear them munching grass outside our tent at night. The nightly ritual was; wake up, need to use the WC, wait until I couldn’t wait any longer, wake up my husband, find the flashlight, slip on our shoes, check to see no hippos were coming, quickly cross the path, do what we had to do, then, make a mad dash back to our tent (watching our step) where we would zip up our “door” and slip back into our cots and fall asleep.
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Isn’t he cute? He was the baby of the herd.
Herd or zeal – a group of zebras is called a herd or zeal.
Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi
Lens 70-300 mm
1/2000 sec. at f/5.6
To show you how big a giraffe is that wildebeest is about 50″ to 58 ” to his shoulder and can weigh up to 600 pounds. They hang out with zebras, both being grass eaters.
Despite its long neck, the giraffe has only seven vertebrae, exactly the same number as man and most other mammals. Click on the bottom image to see his long tongue reaching for the green leaf.
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I know you saw the leopard this week, but did you see the two giraffes?
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Lantern
burning
song
flickers
into
darkness
dizzy
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Morning Writing
Wash out all
those ghosts
cobwebs
worrywarts
black cloud critters
chattering
like monkeys
in your swollen
brain
swollen brain filled
with piston-like
repetition
it’s wrong
it’s wrong
it’s wrong
not good enough
for who?
for tinman
looking for his heart?
wash out all
those ghosts
cobwebs
worrywarts
and black cloud critters
chattering
like monkeys
in your swollen
brain
quickly
lay your thoughts
out on the page
protect those tender shoots
of pale green
close the book
then walk away.
