Photo: Annie Spratt on Unsplash
I’ll be the quiver
For the arrows
You don’t yet know
How to hold.
I’ll guard the darts
The barbs
The jagged
Points,
Safe within the
Burnished leather
Of my years,
Till you grow enough
To be the quiver
For your own
Sharpened spears.
For the dVerse quadrille challenge: quiver
“You have to save me!”
She looked at him, filed her nails, and licked her lower lip thoughtfully. She said nothing.
He hated when she did that, pretended that she didn’t hear him, or that what he said wasn’t even worthy of a reaction. Sure, he leaned toward the dramatic, but that didn’t mean his feelings didn’t count!
“Daisy!” he breathed, “I know you heard me.”
She tilted her head in his direction, her nails continuing to move as if of their own volition. Truth is, sometimes he wasn’t sure they didn’t. Have their own volition, that is. These things could come at you uninvited and without warning.
“I’ll give you my special treat …” he begged. Defeated. He loved his Sunday treats.
At that she deigned to flick her lashes in his direction. She knew she won. She always did. Her patience outpaced his excitement. Every. Single. Time.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she purred.
He breathed. It was as good as done.
Once Daisy got her claws into the yarn, he would be spared the indignation of being made to wear another stupid knit thing. It took a full year from the last St. Patrick’s day for the others in the dog park to stop calling him Gregory Green.
Photo: Na’ama Yehuda
May the birth of day
Delight you
In the promise
That it brings,
Even with the clear
Potential
For the pulling of
Heart’s strings.
May you know
The hope of
Morning
As it touches
First light’s bliss.
May the good
Outweigh the painful
As tender dawn
To ocean
Kiss.
For the Sunday Stills challenge: Birthdays
Photo: Ales Krivec on Unsplash: Vintgar, Slovenia
The Radovna pooled itself and waited for her ablution. Still. Clear. Shattering in its beauty and perfection.
Everything she was not.
Hers was more the unfettered rush, cutting gorges, collecting all manner of debris, and lugging along tumbled things that poked their heads out of the milky froth of living.
There were no still ponds in her being.
She looked at the icicles suspended from rocks above the freezing water. They were guarding it.
From beings that did not deserve to be cleansed.
Like herself.
Hom and Boršt rose above the gorge, patient and unbending. The beech trees on the slopes, stripped bare for winter, rustled as they waited to witness her own naked skin.
Her eyes lifted to the bridge, though she expected no one on it. The area was closed to tourists in the winter. Only the locals came, alone, to seek absolution in the Radovna’s icy bowl.
Photo by Tobias Bjørkli on Pexels.com
They woke
To see
The painted sky,
Where spirits
Skated
Angel-winged
On light and
Turquoise dye,
And looped the
Heavens
And the earth
Like stars
Learning to fly.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Aurora in 28 words
Photo: Max van den Oetelaar on Unsplash
“Oh, wow!”
“I know.”
“Did they really decide you were threatening violence against others?”
“Aha.”
“You!??”
Sigh.
“But you weren’t!”
‘I know.”
“And you’re the last person I can think of who’d do anything like that.”
“Thank you. Indeed I wouldn’t. I was speaking out against the threat of violence … and yet …”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah.”
“So now what?”
“I don’t know. As soon as I saw they suspended me, I’ve appealed. I pointed out I was protesting false-choice and threats of violence against the helpless. That I was absolutely not promoting violence. I pointed out that I’d placed any graphic words in quotes exactly because I wanted to make sure it was clear that this was an example of what someone like a Mafioso, in their false-choices, might say. I told them that this was an analogy. That that’s why I put it in quotes. I was certain they’ll reinstate my account. Instead, they wrote back to say that they’d reviewed my appeal and ‘found’ me to have been threatening violence and therefore they won’t restore my account.”
“I can’t believe this is the conclusion they’ve reached!”
“Me neither. It hurts my heart.”
“But you were doing the opposite of threatening people!”
“I know. I abhor violence. Against anyone. By anyone. In fact, this was why I was pointing out the wrong of using violence as a threat.”
“Can’t they see that for themselves? Also, all they need to do is read some of the stuff you write and do and stand for. I mean, this is ludicrous!”
Sigh.
“You of all people …”
Sigh.
“Sheesh! What’s wrong with them?”
“Actually, I’m not angry they wanted to take a look. If anything even appears to be threatening, it should be examined. I’m okay with that. What does upset me is that even after supposedly reviewing this, they say I was threatening violence, when I was absolutely not. I’m dismayed that in spite of me pointing out that this was a quote (and yes, it was in quotes!) of what a mafioso might say to gain compliance, they don’t see this for the analogy it was. I’m upset they don’t believe me I was protesting, via use of the mafia analogy, the untenable situation others are currently facing. I was protesting violence, not promoting it!”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“I know.”
“So now what?”
“I’ve re-appealed. I hope they’ll reconsider.”
“Now you wait?”
“I guess so.”
“And in the meanwhile?”
“I write here. I continue speaking against violence and injustice. I continue to trust people will do the right thing. I breathe. I don’t know what more …”
“Can I help?”
“You already are.”
“I am?”
“Yes. It helps that you’re listening. It helps to have you validate that you know I would not threaten to do harm to anyone. It helps that you’re here. It helps that you’re kind. It helps that you’re you.”
“Oh.”
For Linda Hill’s SoCS challenge: Oh
They didn’t tell him he’d be seeing things.
They didn’t tell him how cold he’d be, or how alone, or how desperately he’d miss even the smallest comforts. Like a hue that wasn’t on the scale of dirty-white to sort-of-gray.
Maybe he was dying.
Was this how it would be?
He’d ask.
If he could.
They didn’t tell him he’d be unable to speak. Or that the voice he’d make would go unheard, unseen, unnoticed.
He blinked.
The stag was still there.
Perhaps real, perhaps conjured by the wish to flee combined with the worry about antlers being helplessly tangled as one tried to get away.
“You watch out,” he mouthed. Or said. Or yelled. “Don’t be fooled. Don’t be like me.”
The stag stood still. A statue. Another tree?
Then in one split second it bounded, disappeared.
Come back, he whispered. He’d never been so lonely.
He wept. He thought he did. He was so cold.
He looked at his hands. They blurred. He, too, must be fading.
Eternity.
The shadows crept near. A rumble of garbled monster-speech.
He heaved.
“Good trip?”
“He’s kind’a out of it.”
“He said he wanted to try some!”
“Yeah, but how much did you fools dump in his drink?”
For Sue Vincent’s WritePhoto challenge
Photo: Na’ama Yehuda
City brick framing
Glass
Smudged by fingers
And reflections of
Life.
For Becky’s October Squares Lines&Squares Challenge
She’d been surprised to find out there was property overseas. Grandma raised her, yet no word was ever said about it.
“You should go,” Abe said. “Check it out. See about selling.”
She took Daniel with her. Heritage for him. Distraction from grief for her.
The small apartment above the Shuk was dank and cramped. Her grandmother had bought it decades earlier. Investment in the Holy Land.
“We couldn’t pay much,” the ancient tenant said, tears and wariness in her eyes, blue numbers on her arm. “She was an angel. Kept saying we were doing the mitzvah on her behalf.”
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Photo: Karen Forte
Oh, you King
Of the branch,
Emperor of your
Nestlings,
Purple robe
Golden crown,
Your perch all
Pomp and
Whistling.
For the dVerse poetry challenge: Majestic
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