No Country Bumpkin

August 24, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Assumptions, Belonging, Bum, Creative writing, dVerse, Home, Illusion, New Beginnings, Poetry, Quadrille, Writing Challenge 32 Comments

Photo by Eric Muhr on Unsplash

She was not a country bumpkin

Though she aspired to

Be one.

So she dressed the part

And practiced

How to walk and talk

In twang,

And she hoped to look

Uncultured

To the folk stopping

In store,

So they’d believe

She was

Hardcore.

For the dVerse quadrille challenge: bum

Their Bag End

August 17, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Creative writing, dVerse, End, Fate, Flash Fiction, life-path, Micro-fiction, Poetry prompt, Prosery, The Hobbit, time, Writing Challenge 29 Comments

Photo: Tyler Lastovich on Unsplash

They never did make it back from their destination. Not for lack of trying. Not for lack of plans. Not even for lack of courage or stamina or all the things that make a journey circular. There and back again. Like Bilbo Baggins looking for an adventure and finding more than he had bargained for (or perhaps precisely what he needed); they, too, found more along the way than they had intended.

The path slowed everything. Time turned to stone.

And when it was over, said and done, it was a time and there was never enough of it.

They took too long.

So much that life passed by before it could lead them back to where they had come from.

Perhaps where they ended was precisely where they needed to go.

Only that unlike Bilbo, they did not return to their Bag End.

(Prompt: from “A Time” by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke)

For the dVerse Prosery Challenge: A Time

Backseat Jostling

August 15, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: Car ride, children, families, Jostle, parenting, Poetry, Reality, Siblings, Things Kids Say, Ultimatum, Warning, Weekend Writing Prompt 25 Comments

Photo: Thais Ribeiro on Unsplash

“Mama, he’s touching me!”

She tightened her grip on the steering wheel.

“Mama, he’s breathing on me!”

She inhaled.

“How come he always gets the window?”

She sighed.

“I don’t have room!”

She braked.

“Stop this or you can all walk home!”

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Jostle in 42 words

Garden Muse

August 10, 2020August 10, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Calm, Creative writing, dVerse, Food, Garden, Just for fun, Poetry, Quadrille, Salad, Take a moment, Vegetables, Writing prompt 31 Comments

Photo by Stella de Smit on Unsplash

She walked along the beds,

Hands trailing over stakes

Heavy with vines

And sugar snaps.

Orange peeked

From underneath green hats

Far too wild for small heads.

Blushing tomatoes danced

Cheek to cheek

With peppers.

She smiled.

The garden will make

Good salad

Tonight.

For the dVerse quadrille challenge

Truce

August 1, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: City life, Creative thinking, New York City, Peristeronic, Pigeons, Poetry, Practical solutions, Smart Ideas, True Story, Vocabulary, Weekend Writing Prompt 26 Comments

Photo: Ibrahim Rifath on Unsplash

I put down glue to ick their feet –

They collected twigs

To cover it.

I placed a swivel-headed owl –

They watched,

Then perched right on it.

I hung CDs on a dental-floss line –

The pigeons shrugged,

And pulled it.

My peristeronic battle is at impasse.

I call it truce.

I know I’m beat.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: peristeronic in 53 words

A Thorny Issue

July 27, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Bramble, Courage, Difficult times, dVerse, Finding a way, Lies, Poetry, Quadrille, Repair, Solutions, Tenacity, Truth 37 Comments

Photo: Andrey Grinkevich on Unsplash

There would be no smooth solutions

No easy way to extract

Themselves

From the tangle

They had let grow

All around them.

Only one way out was left:

Through the bramble,

Through the sorrow

Through the scars that would

Need nursing

Back to truth.

For the dVerse quadrille challenge: Bramble

By Design

July 26, 2020July 26, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections Tags: Being Human, Bigger plan, Creative writing, Design, kindness, Life Lessons, Meditation, Poetry, RDP, Sunday Stills, Understanding, Writing prompt 27 Comments

Photo by Aditya Wardhana on Unsplash

Perhaps it is, really,

By design

Where we are born

And how we live

And how and when and why

We die.

Perhaps it is

By fate,

That we can love

And we can laugh

And dream

And struggle to let go

Of hate.

Perhaps we’re each

A stitch

In the tapestry

Of an overarching

Plan,

(That we do

Or do not

Understand).

Yet still the truth

Remains,

That our strength is

Bound to fail at

The weakest

Thread.

And that we each have a

Part in

Whether we

Mend

Or shred

The possibilities

Ahead.

For RDP Sunday: Design

And just for fun, also for Terri’s Sunday Stills: Yellow

The Twins

July 25, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: Assumptions, Awareness, children, Creative writing, Identity, individuality, Nuance, Open mind, parenting, Poetry, Twins, Weekend Writing Prompt 28 Comments

Photo: Syd Wachs on Unsplash

They are twins but

They are not one

Being.

Identical, so many call them,

Breathless with

Duplicated magic.

But underneath the outward

Appearance

They are

Anything but.

Individually

Tempered

By the nuanced

Realities of who they

Really are.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Nuance in 38 words

Paused Revolution

July 21, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Blended families, Compromise, dVerse, Family, Finding peace, New Beginnings, New Day, Poetics, Poetry, Relationships, Revolution, Siblings 30 Comments

Photo by Adam Cain on Unsplash

The sun rose bright

In the horizon

Spilling gold on

Ebbing tide.

They woke with

Tangled limbs still weighted

And lids that wrinkled

In the light.

It dawned to be

The day of changes,

When revolution would be

Put aside.

They’ll find their breath,

And mend their fences.

They’re family now.

They will not

Fight.

For the dVerse Poetics challenge: revolution

Revisiting

July 14, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Childhood memories, Creative writing, dVerse, Memory, Photo, Poetry, Revisiting, school, Transported, Writing prompt 20 Comments

Photo: Na’ama Yehuda

She could still hear

The sound of children.

The thunk of balls

Against the chain link fence

Where the big kids

Played.

The smell of dust

From the yard

By the old concrete

Stage.

See the tiny kiosk

Near the gate,

And the ancient seller

Who was always

There.

Feel the coolness of

The main building

As you walked in from

The bottom of the outside

Stairs.

The smell of paint

And cardboard.

The metal-legged

Chairs.

And the hopeful

Cacophony

Of children on recorders

In the music room

Elsewhere.

Oh, she knew that

The yard was empty.

No hubbub actually

Filled the evening

Air.

Still the decades tumbled

As memory bloomed,

Transporting

Now to then

With an unexpected

Flare.

So much has

Stayed

The same,

Even as so much has

Changed

In her.

For the dVerse poetry challenge

Note: This photo was taken last year in my elementary school, which I had occasion to visit one early evening after not seeing the place for decades. It was a magical, if complicated, revisiting.