Thursday, May 22, 2025

1377 - The Offering

 

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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 707

legacy, scars, altar, sky, mercy, burn, mimic, rustle, gleam, gaze, shadows, train




The Offering


He walked deep into the woods,

Where light dapples but furtively,

Where shadows merge darkly

With yet more shadows,

Where the trees gently rustle,

And the sky is but a rumour.


There, in the enfolding of the trees,

A small patch of green moss, an altar

To times, to people or to gods unknown.

Flowers were laid there, still fresh.


By whom?  Who had laid them he wondered.

Were they respecting a legacy?

Were they a request for forgiveness,

A quiet ask for the gift of mercy?

A recompense, perhaps, for scars,

Given or received long ago?

Did a flame still burn here?

He found a flower, knelt

And added it to the offering.


He gazed at it in silence.

Behind him was the gleam

That entered the woods

From the world outside.

He turned and walked towards it—

He had a train to catch.



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12 comments:

  1. JCN, this is a beautifully measured piece—elegant, atmospheric, and quietly profound.

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  2. Deborah CoulthardMay 22, 2025

    This poem is an offering to a starving world. Behind the verses are eons of life lived, in strength enough to hold what is true, discarding distraction and trivia. Crafted with great care.

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  3. That line produces a dissonance I didn't want to hear. It seems I am a romantic.

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  4. This poem doesn’t reach outward—it turns inward, like a breath held in the quiet hush of memory. The moss altar doesn’t speak to the world, but to one soul—perhaps lost, perhaps still listening. Each line moves gently through a forest of grief, soft and unassuming, yet quietly sacred. It’s not an offering of grandeur, but of presence. And that is its deepest beauty.

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  5. I'm glad that beam he traveled on wasn't only one way. No pressure on adding his flower offering though it sounds like it might be the last one.
    A fun read.

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  6. This is incredibly atmospheric and deeply poignant 🩷🩷

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  7. This is a poem full of mystery, beautifully composed, love the gleam at the end and each of the questions.

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  8. And life chugs on and on it seems sometimes smoothly..sometimes bumpy but always we have the simple pleasures around us - Jae

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  9. A lovely poem that speaks to the act of making an offering J. I particularly liked the building of the atmosphere and
    "Where the trees gently rustle,
    And the sky is but a rumour."

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  10. There is something so magical with this encounter... how lovely to come across something like that...

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  11. An other-worldly feeling to this poem. I love the reality at the end.

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  12. Isn't it awful how the real world with its pressing demands and constant interruptions intrudes on our reveries and private times? A beautiful, gentle contemplative poem that I enjoyed reading very much.

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