Magic Man

March 29, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Brasilia, Brazil, Family, Flash Fiction, History, Malaria, medicine, Micro-fiction, Progress, Tuberculosis, What Pegman Saw, Writing Challenge 20 Comments

Photo: JK Monument, Brasilia; Maurilio Quadros on Unsplash

“Why is he up there?” Santiago shaded his eyes against the glare.

“To be close to the angels,” A-avó said.

“Isn’t he already dead?” the boy asked softly. He didn’t want to offend his grandmother, whose age seemed close enough to dying.

“Ah,” A-avó shook her head with sorrow. “He is with Jesus now some years. But he kept many from joining Heaven too early.”

The boy’s eyes lit with curiosity. “Did he do magic, A-avó?”

“In his way,” the old woman nodded. “Magic enough to me. Your O-avô would not have lived if it weren’t for President JK bringing medicine to us who lived in the country. The malaria and the tuberculosis would have taken your O-avô. As they had taken mine.”

Santiago thought of how it would be for him to grow up without the man he loved. “Obrigado,” he bowed to the statue.

“Good boy,” A-avó smiled.

For What Pegman Saw: Brasilia, Brazil

Their Own Continuity

March 28, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: connection, Continuity, Current events, despair, encouragement, hope, Micro-fiction, Perspective, Poetry, Reality, Relationships, Weekend Writing Prompt 11 Comments

Photo: Yunming Wang on Unsplash

He said the world’s come to an end.

“Not quite,” she noted,

“For it keeps revolving.”

Her hand stayed warm

On his chest.

“Uninterrupted sun and set,

The dawn and birth,

Are their own continuity.”

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Continuity in 35 words

The Now And There

March 28, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Adversity, Central Park, Challenges, Current events, Distance, Lens-Artists, Patience, Photo Challenge, Photography, Poetry, time, Waiting 19 Comments

Photo: Na’ama Yehuda

In the distance between

The now and

There,

Rises the stair

We all must

Share,

Step by step to

Anywhere

Before the future days

Declare,

The distance we

May finally

Repair.

For the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: distance

His Promise

March 25, 2020March 25, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Be a voice, Commitment, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Grief, Micro-fiction, Persistence, Photo prompt, Promises, Relationships 54 Comments

Photo prompt © Jeff Arnold

It took him months, but he stuck with it.

It took a lot of coffee, and a great deal of wine, and a good bit of yelling at the keys and cursing at the window, and a heap of crumbled sheets of paper flung across the floor in balls he sometimes let stay there, staring dejectedly at the ceiling as he wished to do, too.

A million times he wanted to give up.

He didn’t.

Not when he had promised her he’d write her story.

One finger at a time or not, he was going to learn how to type.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Get Connected

March 24, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: Breathing Space, Connect, Current events, Family, fpj-photo-challenge, Making do, Nature, Outdoors, Photo Challenge, Photography, Poetry, Rhyme, Spring 10 Comments

Photo: Osnat Halperin-Barlev

Walk with me

Into nature

Where the fresh air

Flows through.

Walk with me

As we shelter

Under skies

Me, and you.

Walk with me

Hand in hand

Muddy boots

Flowers, too.

Let us breathe

And connect

With everything

That is true.

For the Tuesday photo challenge: Connect

I Believe

March 23, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Adversity, Challenges, Current events, dVerse, Encourage, Finding a way, good people, humanity, Magic, Poetry, Quadrille, Tenacity 24 Comments

Photo: Charlie Hammond on Unsplash

I believe the magic

That is people,

And the unremitting wonder

That is found

Undaunted

In their hearts.

I believe the small,

Persistent,

Staunch soul rumble

That continues

Shaken but unfailing

To grow

Through the hardship,

Making handholds of the worry

All the while.

For the dVerse quadrille challenge: magic

Favorite Place

March 22, 2020March 22, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Beach, Breathing Space, Calm, Current events, Favorite, Heartbeat, Memory, Ocean, Photo Challenge, Photography, Poetry, Sunday Stills 8 Comments

Photo: Na’ama Yehuda

Of all scenes

And joys and sorrows,

Of all the steps

And breaths

And sense,

There is the ebb and flow

And stillness,

That makes this

Movement

My heart’s

Place.

For Sunday Stills: Places

Muddle On

March 21, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: coping, Creative writing, Current events, Decisions, life, Micro Poetry, Micro-fiction, Muddle, Unknown, Weekend Writing Prompt, Writing Challenge 6 Comments

Photo: Amit Jain on Unsplash

She could not have guessed

What is right

What is wrong

So she just muddled

On.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Muddle in 16 words

Not Welcome Here

March 20, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: COVID19, Current events, Gaslighting, Government, humanity, No More Hate, Pandemic, Poetry, Society, SoCS, Stream of Consciousness, Truth 12 Comments

Photo: Franck V. on Unsplash

You are not welcome

Here,

With your

Contaminated fear.

You are not welcome

Here,

With words that hurt

And terms that mean to harm, divert,

Self-aggrandize, and

Smear.

There is a bigger risk

In hate

Than in keeping

Near.

You are not welcome

Here,

If you weaponize worry

To steer

Away from empathy,

Away from truth,

Away from the real challenges we share

As we ride great distances

On this one

Sphere.

Call this by its name.

Not by the rhetoric

Of racist,

Misinforming

Jeer.

Address it not in

Murky swamps

That deliberately

Throw mud into the

Gears.

Humanity is better

Than your insatiable need

To infect the

Atmosphere.

We’re on to you.

We see.

We hear.

We will hold steady to what

Matters.

We support the hardworking, factual and

Compassionately

Sincere.

But you?

You are not welcome

Here.

For Linda Hill’s SoCS writing prompt: Welcome

Pathfinders

March 19, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Ancient, Ceremony, cleansing, Flash Fiction, Folklore, Metaphor, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Tradition, Wordless, WritePhoto, Writing Challenge 18 Comments

Photo: Sue Vincent

They filed into the toothy circle, a long double line, holding hands over the green strip that split them apart.

The stone pillars stood, immobile, ever present, waiting.

There have always been golden fields in all directions. Wild, then cultivated. The rustling of the ripened plants replacing a hush that would otherwise feed unease.

For there will be no voice heard.

No word.

No song.

No shout.

Nothing said.

Just a long line of humility, stepping up the path and through the eye of the ancient circle. Waiting to be cleansed.

To be whole.

To be seen.

To walk on.

Ahead.

Out the other side and down the second path where a widening triangle fanned into the distant horizon, mirroring the measure of relief.

And from the far far spaces, well beyond the hills, the sound of voices, whispers freed, a humming on the breeze.