Photo: Markus Spiske on Unsplash
Ode to the needed application
Of distinctive word formation
And appropriate derivation
(With Speech Pathology implications
For morphological miscalculation).
Because without the permutations
Of root words in combination
And grammatical allocation,
There’d be much missed in
Communication.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Morphology in 37 words
Note: As a Speech-Language Pathologist, this writing prompt would have been absolutely impossible to not take on! 🙂
“Why’d they do that?”
“‘Twas needful.”
Sheri twisted her skinny braid around her finger. It was the one benefit of having really fine hair. She could get it to loop five times while Marina only could loop hers twice. Long fingers helped, too. Marina’s were chunky. From Dad’s side. “Needful how?”
“Protect the tree, this does.”
“From what?” There was nothing in their end of the park.
“From whom, more like.”
Sheri unwound her braid and stuck the edge of it in her mouth.
“Mom doesn’t like it when you do that.”
“Mom isn’t here,” Sheri stated. Besides, her sister was just jealous because her own hair was too short to suck on. “Protect from who? And why?”
“‘Tis for me to know and for you to find out,” Marina regarded the ring of metal stakes, the tree, her sister’s face.
“You plain don’t know,” Sheri stomped, frustrated.
Marina smiled.
For Crispina’s CCC challenge #55
Photo: Ofir Asif
There was no shade to be had.
No shelter from onslaughts
Of glaring heat,
Too bright.
There was no shade to be had.
Exposed as they were
To everything
In sight.
There was no shade to be had,
Other than what they
Conveyed in
A shrug.
No shade other than the small frowns
That communicated how
Very much in need
They were of a
Sheltering
Hug.
For Linda Hill’s SoCS writing prompt: Shade
She never grew tired of it.
Even if fatigue had become part and parcel of her every day. Of her very breath.
It did not matter. Her fatigue didn’t, that is. At least, it did not matter as much as it would have otherwise. As much as she knew it could. As much as it had in the other place, where there was naught but white walls and white squeaky soles on squeaky clean tiles and antiseptic air and officious hands and flickering images on a screen where well-dressed persons babbled about things that did not feel relevant to her in the least.
They’d urged her not to leave.
She left.
No regrets.
Not when the trade-off was brisk air and the smell of just-trampled grass and the scent of rain and the open vistas of the world rolling down into the horizon where the sun met the mountains and the sky kissed the ground.
No regrets.
Not with the play of night and day around her, not with light that flickering on her covers and the sun licking her fingers as she lay in bed. Not with a world that breathed and changed and lived and died and reemerged. With yips of puppies racing down the lawn. The hiss of wind. The chirps of birds.
Sure, others were concerned, or so they said.
She did not share their dread.
Death did not scare her. Nor did the warnings that she’d be too far from hospital to get assistance in time if another crisis came. For a crisis was bound to come, and when it did, she knew she’d be content to face it with her face to the hills and her eyes on the valleys and the snow-capped mountains where her soul would soon roam.
For she was halfway home.
More than half, perhaps, now that most of the sand in her hourglass had been shed.
It did not matter.
She was halfway home, content with whatever lay ahead.
For Sue Vincent’s WritePhoto Challenge
“He’s still there.” Morty whispered, his nose to the window.
“What’s he waiting for?” Bella pushed Morty over to make room, pressed her head to his.
“I dunnow.”
“You’re not even allowed to stop for pick-up on roundabouts,” Bella noted.
Morty sighed. Since she’d found a driver’s-ed pamphlet, his twin had turned an insufferable source of traffic trivia. Never mind it’d be a million years before she could drive.
“Should we go ask?” Bella fidgeted.
Morty shook his head. “Dad said wait here.”
“But it’s been eight hours!”
It had. And almost as long since the old man showed up.
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
I am delighted to share that my book, “Communicating Trauma” has just been published in Spanish! Yay Hurray!
Comunicar el Trauma – Na’ama Yehuda
From the publisher:
Comunicar el trauma explora diferentes aspectos del lenguaje y la comunicación y cómo su desarrollo se ve afectado por el trauma y el desbordamiento emocional de los niños. A lo largo del texto, múltiples estudios de caso describen de qué modo los distintos tipos de trauma infantil afectan a la capacidad de los niños para relacionarse, atender, aprender y comunicarse. Estos ejemplos nos brindan diferentes maneras de entender, responder y apoyar a los niños que tratan de comunicar que se sienten desbordados. Psicoterapeutas, patólogos del habla y del lenguaje, trabajadores sociales, educadores, terapeutas ocupacionales y físicos, personal médico, padres de acogida, agencias de adopción y otros cuidadores y profesionales de la infancia encontrarán, en este libro, información y consejos prácticos para mejorar la conexión y el comportamiento, paliar la falta de comunicación y conseguir que los niños más problemáticos sean escuchados.
◊◊◊◊
“Un libro fascinante sobre el trauma infantil y el modo en que los niños expresan su sufrimiento y que, más importante aún, constituye un mapa para la curación. Escrito con gran sensibilidad, cariño, comprensión y sabiduría clínica, este libro es una joya diáfana y accesible, que incluye conmovedores e instructivos ejemplos de casos. Tanto los padres como los profesionales encontrarán en sus páginas una valiosa ayuda.”
–Ono Van der Hart, PhD, Universidad de Utrecht, Holanda
◊◊◊◊
For more information about the English edition go to “Communicating Trauma” (or look under the — soon to be updated… — Books and Publications tab at the top of the page).
Photo: Amitai Asif
She wanted just
A slice of peace.
A piece of what she’d seen
Available
To others
And advertised as
Something one could
Reach.
She wanted just a taste
Of what it could be like
To know
Release.
Meanwhile she knew
She had to make do
With
Internal
Armistice.
For the Tuesday Photo Challenge: Peace
They stand at the entry, grateful, unknown. They’ve come far for this, on a journey not by choice yet still their own. The sound of people’s voices pluck strings in their soul. The light of the fireplace dances on the wall, painting hope, awakening dreams of a home that was never there, yet could be … now … if they allow it in.
Hearts quaking they knock
On the door
To their forever home.
For the dVerse Haibun challenge: Gratitude
The sky was blue when they headed out. Crisp, cold, dry, and sunny, it was the perfect day for some easy back-country skiing.
They planned to be home by lunch.
They did not plan on the weather turning. On clouds so low and so fast that they’d reached zero visibility in almost no time at all.
Joshua could see that Daniel was two steps away from panic. That would not do. Not with the children with them.
“Take the rear,” Joshua ordered.
If Daniel frowned at his bossy tone, the heavy fog covered it. Joshua stood his ground, literally, till Daniel maneuvered his skis so he was behind the two youngest. Good enough.
Joshua took a breath and tried to get a read from the weather. It was probably best to shelter in place till the fog lifted, but if the weather was about to get worse, it was better they got back before conditions deteriorated further.
There was no way to know for sure, but his gut’s tightening signaled that the latter option was the one to take. His hand tightened around the compass hanging from his pocket. He’d need it.
“Mark! Sally!” he cupped his hands and called for the two older children who, true to form, used any break in skiing for a snowball fight. The wind snatched his voice and he realized that it, too, had gotten worse in the last few minutes.
“Daniel, get them!” he shouted. “Timmy, Ronny, Sid, and Shirley, stay close to me.”
Shirley nodded and clung to his arm. “Are we going to Avalanche?” her voice shook.
“Avalanche isn’t a place, honey,” he replied over the thunder in his chest. “It’s when a lot of snow slides down the mountain. We’re not in an avalanche zone, so you don’t need to worry.”
“But it’s all white,” she sniffled, “and I’m cold.”
“I know, little one. The weather turned on us. We’ll get everyone in line and we’ll get moving and you’ll soon get warm. Timmy, Ron, and Sid, you okay back there?”
The boys nodded unconvincingly.
Daniel herded Mark and Sally closer to the rest and sandwiched them between the younger children and himself.
“Let’s go!” Joshua yelled, his voice barely audible in the whistling wind. “Keep your eyes on the person in front of you. Daniel, use your whistle if you need help.”
Daniel lifted his ski in response.
Joshua concentrated on the compass, on the next few steps. Everything he loved in this world was behind him. The white settled all around and he felt small. Like when he was ten and the world had come down around him in a tumble.
He shook the memory away.
This time he was not going to Avalanche.
He was going to get them — all of them — home.
For Kreative Kue 239
“I’m telling you, Nym. She isn’t coming back.”
“But her drinking vessel is here.”
They both knew that she never strayed too far from it or for too long. There was even some liquid left in it.
Nelly made a doubting sound that gave him an urge to scratch her. Instead, he sniffed and looked again.
And of course the drinking vessel was still there, unemptied. It was the kind designed to not allow them any actual sipping. Not that he’d want to. The stuff that went into it was odoriferous and generally undrinkable. It wasn’t even real blood.
Still, it would be nice if she didn’t lock her drinks that way. It was insulting.
He’d tried to dip and lick once, but the one legged vessel was too tall and wobbly, and it tipped and rolled and fell and broke into small bits of ice that cut his tender flesh when he’d tried to walk on it. If he’d wanted to taste blood there were better ways for it than being reduced to licking his own.
He never got too close to one again.
“Come, Nelly,” he soothed his anxious, clucking friend. “We’ll nap now. I’m sure she’ll return.”
tucked away in the mountains
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