1386 - The Chosen

 

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The Chosen

She wrote to me.
Her profile

Looked promising—
No dancing.
No boardgames.
No mention of football.
No jazz clubs.

I wrote back to her.
We wrote to each other.
Her words were light—
Friendly, engaging.
We called.  We chatted.
I talked too much.  Nerves.
She sounded sweet.
A lovely laugh.

Coffee somewhere,
The standard meeting,
Was arranged.

I thought I had
A good sense of her:
What she was like,
What she would be like.

But nothing prepared me
For what stepped off
The 75 tram
And into my life.

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1385 - The Fairy's Request

 

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The Fairy's Request

It was a simple question.
Formal sounding—
Old world and charming.
And yet, and yet...
It set the heart a-pounding.

An invitation 
To a dance,
To advance,
To hold,
Perchance to dream.
To seem as if, as if
Within a dream
Of a dream.

Who can really tell?
Who can even guess
What emotions would swell?

"May I have the honour...?"

Yes.

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1384 - The Old Woman of the River

 

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The Sunday Whirl presents twelve words for us to use in a creative writing piece.  

 

This week's words are:

radar string eyes haunted legends swing rattle river skin tip pebble rips

I didn't find a place for radar and string.

The Old Woman of the River

“Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river.”

— Jorge Luis Borges

The river swirls and burbles

Over pebbles, sand and rocks.

Flowers swing to and fro

On its grassy banks.

If it has any thoughts

It keeps them to itself.

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All they found was the rattle.

Did it draw him forward, inward?

Until he tipped, fought briefly

And then, wide-eyed, 

With an innocent curiosity

Became the river—

Not ripped from life,

Eased gently from it.

◊

She sits and watches

The swirling waters—

Its bubbles and its ripples

Dancing on the surface,

The skin between two worlds.

Her haunted eyes look deep

Yet somehow blankly.

Legends are unreliable

But a popular thought flows

Through the village people

That she has always been there,

Always looking in to the waters—

Remembering.  Waiting.  Hoping.

◊

The river swirls and burbles

Over pebbles, sand and rocks.

Flowers swing to and fro

On its grassy banks.

If it has any thoughts

It keeps them to itself.

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1383 - Renewal

 

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The Sunday Whirl presents twelve words for us to use in a creative writing piece.  

 

This week's words are:

sitting free space go roots body stream breathe listen seeds peace vision

Renewal

He sits quietly, alone,

At peace, a separate peace.

He breathes, listens, reflects,

Pondering how somebody

Who loved him so deeply

Could just be…gone.

◊

Like people, plants die too.

So runs the cycle of life—

When the gardener plants seeds

He has a vision, a dream,

A return for his efforts.

Whatever seed he plants

It will need space,

Room for shoots, for roots

To take hold and grow.

◊

Love is like a seed too.

The same rules apply—

Rule one is basic:

You get back what you plant.

Plant beans and you get beans.

Plant love and you get love.

So be careful what you sow.

Rule two is oft forgotten:

You get back more than you plant.

Why else would you sow?

◊

And so life goes on for him—

In the field and stream

Of fleeting and precious time.

Not free of fears but with courage,

As all gardeners must—

Planting and replanting love, 

With hope.

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1382 - The Letter with No Date

 

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Elephant's Child presents words for us to use some or all in a creative writing piece.  

This week's words are bloody tricky!

Tennis, Turkish, Delight, Melon, Brook, Officers, Steps, Conclusion, Earliest, Pan, Asparagus, Yellow.

The Letter with No Date

It spoke of asparagus.

What was that all about?

And melons, eaten in the sun?

The vague mention of feathers,

Ruffled during a tennis game.

The crossed-out word: Turkish.

Delight?  Coffee?  Baths?

Seems out of context.

Handwritten. It had no date. 

A woman’s writing, neat.

The paper brittle and yellow.

The ink faded and barely legible.

It had been carefully folded

And put at the back of the book.

That book.  The one with the ribbon.

The sort given to officers

Receiving their commission.

It spoke of love, of separation,

It spoke of flowers and candles,

Of brooks and ferny glens.

It spoke of Pan and his flute.

It spoke of desire to reunite.

It spoke of the steps to take,

Places to go, even when to go—

The earliest opportunity, it said.

It sought a conclusion.

I wonder…

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1381 - The Almanac Keeper

 

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Elephant's Child presents 5-10 words for us to use some or all in a creative writing piece.  

This week's words are:

Almanac, Vegetables, Smoke, Rocky, Pursuit, Tide, Data, Pearly, Block, Hedge, Yellow

The Almanac Keeper

It lives in his back pocket.

Battered, crumpled, well-thumbed.

Its pages guide his life.

The tides come and go

As the pages predict.

The moon and stars follow

The stated arcs of time

As foretold in the yellowing pages—

The data of his life, of his being.

He scribbles in pencil—

Margin notes that embellish

The records of the relentless 

Movement of seasons, of time—

When to plant vegetables,

When to prune hedges,

Small bon mots to ease 

The approch to the pearly gates

But silent on the reason to use pearl.

Good advice on the smoking

Of a recently slaughtered pig,

On blocking out crops

For ideal rotation.

On the habits of wildlife.

Towards the back

A prayer of thanksgiving.

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1380 - The Labyrinth

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The Sunday Whirl presents twelve words for us to use in a creative writing piece.  

 

This week's words are:

Wordle 709

prowl, beast, claws, shift, mask, strands, twists, temple, wandered, underworld, map, thread

The Labyrinth

“The seeker is the sought.” 

— Rupert Spira

The path winds around

Not outward, spiralling in.

No need for Ariadne’s thread here

He’s not trying to get out.

Getting out is not the end,

Not the goal he’s searching for.

So, when his focus shifts

From the temple to the paths

That twist and turn, seemingly at whim.

It slowly dawns upon him—

The underworld is not below,

It is found to be within.

There is no map to guide him—

He is the map, it seems.

He had wandered, prowled

Around the edges of this maze

In the earlier days of his quest

But fearing the enclosed beast,

The Minotaur of fear and doubt,

That prowls the darkened corridors

That traverse across his mind.

The eyes of fear, the claws of doubt,

They pulled him from the edge.

Now, denying Ariadne,

The strands of silken threads

Lead him further in, not out,

And there, in the silence 

That was always there,

The mask finally falls away.

He is the temple.

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