(Photo: Frank Eiffert on Unsplash)
Clear as daylight.
A cradle rocking
On a treetop.
No baby.
Thank God.
Or was there?
Was the movement the wind,
Or a small living thing?
She felt her heart flutter in
A memory
Of falling.
Heard a rustle and shuddered.
Ran for the
Ladder.
Climbed.
Swallows nesting
In the cradle.
Wide open mouths.
A child’s toy
Flown off a balcony.
Made home.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of Treetop in 63 words
(Photo: Noita Digital on Unsplash)
The swirl of white had gotten
In her eye.
Placed a tickle in her
Throat.
The door would close.
The chairs will sleep with bottoms
Against table
Tops.
There would be no more
Early morns.
No damp sponge
To erase all of yesterdays’
Chalk.
For the dVerse quadrille poetry challenge: chalk in 44 words
She took the bus to near as possible. Then walked. A few cars honked, perhaps to offer a ride. Perhaps to get something she wasn’t offering.
She waved them off. Walked on.
It made sense to arrive by foot. As in the times before.
The times she should have no way of knowing, yet did.
Remember.
They’d tried to put her behind locked windows between soft walls when she first tried to speak of it.
She had learned not to.
But her soul knew.
And there it was. As then.
Almost.
The stone crumbling, yet still her olden home.
Anew.
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Photo prompt © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
(Photo: Mick Haupt on Unsplash)
It was merely by a feather,
But nonetheless a
Tether
To a life before,
When friends were at the
Door,
And when she did not have to worry
About honor, trust, or
Glory.
She held on to the underside
Of recollection.
To the roots of love that
Promised a
Direction.
For there had been simplicity to life,
An implicit understanding
That words as given were meant
To keep,
And that the sun will rise in
The morn after a
Sleep.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Tether in 80 words
(Photo: Johnny Cohen on Unsplash)
The sound began
A whisper,
Only to crescendo to
A cry
That made the very
Heart
Howl
In eerie
Resonance
Of pain.
Familiar
Again.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Eerie in 24 words
(Photo: Adi Rosen-Zvi)
They headed out
To sea,
Amid the rocky islands
Peppering the vista
As far as the eye
Could see.
And their hearts rejoiced
In the beauty
Of their spree.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Challenge: Vista in 29 words
“Find the red door,” the note said. “Climb up, then up some more.”
Michael felt a smile spread inside his belly. Helen never could resist a rhyme. It’s how he knew it had to be her. Even after all this time. Even when the printed letters could have been typed by anyone.
He knew.
And it warmed a place in him that he had forgotten could be thawed.
The basement’s entrance was not much to look at. The stairs and walls had all seen better days.
So had they.
And yet, there they were.
Climbing up, then up some more.
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Photo prompt: © Roger Bultot
Heart Stone was in the path so people would slow pace as they neared Sentinel Rock.
It was a caution.
And a point of respect.
One did not pass by without giving Sentinel Rock at least that much in respect, and almost all knew better than to try and trick the ancients.
Oh, you could gallop past without a care in the world, but care was sure to catch up with you soon enough: A broken foot, a crack in your mount’s hoof, an ache that kept you up at night and led to carelessness the next day or the one after.
Heart Stone was there for a reason, and only fools rushed in.
Fools like him.
He should have known better.
Now he nursed a bee sting in a place no bee should sting, and he had no one to blame but himself for the carelessness and the ensuing punishment.
He told no one. Ashamed at his foolery.
Tossing in distress upon his pallet he pledged to pay his respect the very next day, and to bring with him an offering. He should have known.
Sentinel Rock saw everything, and Heart Stone kept no secrets. Stone spoke to stone.
On the other side of the hut his grandmother placed her hand upon the rock wall’s foundation and sighed in quiet realization. It was the price of youth.
She knew.
Long ago she, too, had to learn to heed the ancient’s lessons and slow her pace to match. Her crooked wrist still carried her own scars of hard earned wisdom.
For Sue Vincent’s Write Photo
Photo: Sue Vincent
(Photo: Adam Nieścioruk on Unsplash)
She was shaking when I entered the room. Hands wringing, lips trembling, her eyes a shade of numb I had rarely seen.
Mary had called me. She had come to check on her and bring a midday repast. Mother being too proud to ask for help, even though her legs no longer held her sturdily or long enough to cook herself a decent meal.
Appearance and stoicism were Mother’s barometers of standing.
Socially and otherwise.
Not that you’d know it from her mascaraed cheeks.
She pointed to the antique book I had gifted her the previous evening.
“I understand, therefore I’ll live,” was scribbled in the cover. “R.B. 1941“
Mother pressed a notepad on me. Scribbled on it were the same words. Same letters. An older hand.
“I forgot,” she whispered, caressing her initials. “But reading what I have just written, I now believe.”
Prompt quote: “Reading what I have just written, I now believe.” (Afterward by Louise Gluck)
For the dVerse prosery challenge
(Photo: Janko Ferlič on Unsplash)
She had vowed to not come back. Ever. Not to live. For sure not that.
It did not mean she would not try to visit. Or to glimpse. To set out in a morning’s determination only to curl around via rambling roads and pause at every bridge and barn until it got too late to see a thing or she lost nerve and drove home steeped in a tired mix of relief and disappointment.
“I’ll come with you,” Elmira finally said. She placed a warm hand on the base of Anastasia’s neck, hoping to soften the tension it held whenever memories threatened flood.
Anastasia shook her head. “There is nothing behind the wall except a space where the wind whistles.”
“And yet,” Elmira kneaded gently, “the Orphanage’s whistles still tell stories. Perhaps the likes of which your soul insists ought to be heard.”
Prosery prompt: “there is nothing behind the wall except a space where the wind whistles” from “Drawings By Children” by Lisel Mueller
For the dVerse prosery challenge
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