The Sunday Whirl presents twelve words for us to use in a creative writing piece.
This weeks words are:
quivers, limbs, scattered, yellow, twirl, hearts, streak, faint, bags, three, howls, long
Nighthawks
Three customers.
Sitting in a yellow-lit fishbowl,
Behind a long glass window,
Unnaturally free of posters.
A single and a doublet.
A man, sitting solo—
Perhaps heading home.
Perhaps told to pack his bags.
Body language is reflective.
No quivers, no energy,
Just reflective. Resigned.
Sits and twirls his coffee.
The couple, together—
Are they really, though?
They, too, are reflective.
Body language suggests
They may be just companions,
Their hearts are not engaged.
She may be holding his hand,
Almost reluctantly. Furtively.
Perhaps the waiter is a dampener.
Perhaps going out on a limb
In such a public place is a risk.
But there they are.
Together.
The street is strangely clean,
No papers scattered around.
No howls of dogs here.
The lights throw streaky shadows,
Giving only the faintest hint
Of surrounding businesses.
That’s the way of things, I guess.
Life presented in a tableau.
So many questions.
So few answers.
◊
And indeed life has so many questions and so few satisfactory answers - in tableau or reality.
ReplyDeleteBrilliantly done, love how you tied it to the painting too
ReplyDeleteGreat use of Wordle prompts! Beautifully written about feeling isolated within a crowd. Many of us feel that isolation. Hopper's iconic painting is extremely powerful and tremendously sad. We, humans, need each other to exist and thrive. But many questions have just one answer – open your heart. And ask yourself that most important questions - ‘Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone's face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love? These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will bear many fruits, here in this world and the life to come.’ Henri Nouwen
ReplyDelete