Thursday, July 03, 2025

1384 - The Old Woman of the River

 

Image by ChatGPT

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.



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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7 comments:

  1. Deborah CoulthardJuly 04, 2025

    my favourite line is 'the skin between two wounds' I particularly like the repeated stanza as it comes with the possibility that it holds the secret to the unexplained event we don't know of in the beginning. A haunting poem. Thank you for it.

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  2. Beautifully told! I always like, too, the very apt quotes with which you preface your poems.

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  3. Such tender imagery which flows both gently and certainly - Jae

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  4. I'm there too, liking the reading. I had this experience once. Wrote about it here,
    https://jimmiehov6.blogspot.com/2011/06/one-single-impression-miss.html?m=1
    ..

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  5. AnonymousJuly 06, 2025

    Spooky and intriguing.

    PK

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  6. This is simply wonderful!!! Never could I have kept my thoughts to myself.

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  7. I love the quote, and the repetition of the stanzas. Well done!

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