Wednesday, May 29, 2024

1610 - Call of the Wild

 

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

trample crack swept untethered hum urge scrawled bees sky ritual leap brambles



Call of the Wild

“People from a planet without flowers would think 
we must be mad with joy the whole time 
to have such things about us.” 
― Iris Murdoch

Hollyhocks, foxgloves, 
Daisies and delphiniums.
I do so love that word.
Phlox are there too,
Both the plant and as a collective noun 
For the floral herd.
Brambles too, of course.

The polite term 
For this feral floral fantasy
Would be untethered.
Untrampled, unswept, unleashed.
Bees, butterflies and other insects
Hum and buzz, crawl, climb and nibble.

Mother nature sees an opportunity,
A crack in the restraints, 
In the desire to impose order and ritual,
And leaps at the chance to run wild.
No need to urge her on,
The sky is calling.

Tuesday, May 21, 2024

1609 - The Temple

 

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

Forget, church, dancers, tea, robes, weed, sing, exultation, hope, squirrel, nuts, amen


The Temple

Forget the bricks and mortar,  
Forget the incense and incantations,  
Forget the pious gentlemen in crimson robes,  
Forget the singing and lamentations  
That fill these cavernous halls  
With exultation and misplaced hope.  

Step away from the pomp and ceremony,  
Step outside, into the real world,  
Into the forest, among the trees.  
Smell the eucalyptus, just be there.  
Even the weeds have flowers.  

Smoke drifts through the trees,  
Someone is boiling a billy, making tea.  
Possums, once thought to be squirrels,  
Timid dancers in the twilight, frolic. 
 
Nuts to the bricks and mortar.  
This is a church to embrace.  
Amen.


Friday, May 17, 2024

1608 - Pythia

 


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

This weeks words are:
waves, slip, void, soul, restless, dark, chanting, flickering, pulse, chance, marble, fan


Pythia

The language of excitement is at best picturesque merely.
You must be calm before you can utter oracles.
-- Henry David Thoreau

The fumes come in waves
From cracks in the rock.
Attendant priestesses chant,
Hypnotic, rhythmic, throbbing—
In time with the pulse of the oracle.

There, seated on a tripod,
In the moonlight, flickering,
The petitioners, restless, wait
For their answer. Is it war?
Do we chance our arm? Or not?
Lives are at stake. Fortunes.

She sits quietly, surrounded
By the protective and the anxious,
A reflective soul in a trance,
Her mind mingling with the divine.
Oblivious to those around her,
She slips in and out of their world,
Their concerns, the dark voids
Of their fears and ambitions.

Cloistered in her marble temple,
Where flickering torches dance on stone,
Her answers ripple through the empire,
Like shadows cast and then gone.
And so she sits. And thinks.
Surety brings ruin.

Friday, May 10, 2024

1607 - The Journey of a River Stone

 

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

pebble, shiny, laden, ghost, mingled, blisters, gasping, vanishing, empty, scatter, forest, shadows


The Journey of a River Stone

In matters of style, swim with the current; 
in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
--Thomas Jefferson

Forged by the earth,
My start did not direct my end.
I was bigger then, rougher,
Laden with hope, perhaps,
Hope mingled with expectation.
I am bold and boulder. 
Weather played with me,
Bits blistered off, scree, pebbles,
Slowly parting, vanishing.
Cracks formed in me, I broke,
I parted with myself.
All families disperse, scatter.
No time to feel empty.
A river embraces me, rushes me,
Tumbling, gasping through rapids,
Tough times polish us.
I become smooth and shiny.
Eventually the river calms
I too calm, shallow waters
Beneath a forest canopy.
Sunlight and shadows flicker.
They say I have spirits, spirituality
Possibly even ghosts.


Wednesday, May 01, 2024

1606 - The Forest

 


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

vast salty simmering habits mind trickle secretive brim axe roots shadows stones


The Forest

“If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, 
you’ll come to understand that you’re connected with everything.”
― Alan Watts

Beneath the vast canopy, 
Encased in green velvet,
The forest embraces us.
Roots and branches mesh
Shadows and clearings
Animals, secretive, furtive,
Captives of their own habits.
Birds heard, seldom seen.
An axe, leans agains a tree,
Rusty, abandoned but for the moss,
Moss shared by the stones, logs.
A creek trickles and tinkles,
Fresh, clear, not salty
Part of the orchestra of the forest.
Brim full of sounds, adagio
Simmering, interlaced.
If you have a mind to listen,
A mind to connect.

-x-