Stories

A Hundred Sleeps

Na'ama Yehuda Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 41 Comments

spinning-wheel

(Photo: © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields)

 

It will only be a hundred sleeps. They said.

What length a sleep would be, they didn’t speak.

She will awaken once the sleeps are done. They said. With eyes that darted and rounded shoulders that hid words and fingers that kept fiddling with the thread.

Nothing, she observed, of how she’d be upon awakening. What she might become. Who would tend her.

If she’d dream.

Will she still know herself? Know them?

“Only a hundred sleeps,” they said.

She turned sixteen.

They pressed her finger to the quill spindle.

Blood bloomed. Dark came.

The curse.

A yarn. A spin.

 

 

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

 

Early Light

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 20 Comments

sunrise1 NaamaYehuda

Photo: Na’ama Yehuda

 

Still

The promise of day sweeps

Broad calm in its sway,

And the sun,

Rising gold

Lights new stories

Untold.

 

 

For the Sunday Stills Photo Challenge: Early

 

 

Whale Of A Time

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , 57 Comments

Photo prompt: Dale Rogerson

 

Finally.

They sent the younger children on their way. They cleaned up after breakfast. Hung the wash. Made the bed. Picked up after the husband, the father in law, the older sons (who in almost all cases were sprawled, asleep, with an empty plate of this or that by their side, as boys of certain ages seem to be).

The market waited. And the dinner to start. But for the next hour, there was just them. Their gossip. Their shared stories of the minutia of struggles and laughter.

It was their sanity’s lifeline, midday at Juanita’s “Whale Of A Time.”

 

 

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

 

The Fifth

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 12 Comments

Me-age10mos-story telling

Me, telling stories at 10 months

 

Fifth of seven, all girls, I was born

Telling tales.

Far enough to duck rules

For first, middle, or last,

I grabbed place

To be me

And held on

Talking fast.

 

As what shouldn’t be

Grew

And real life wove

Impossible,

Words remained

Nonetheless

In my soul

In my brain,

To be clasped

And sustain

Life and joy

Times again.

 

 

For Terri’s Sunday Stills Challenge: Fifth

 

A Bell To Tell

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Photography, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 20 Comments

bell boy SmadarHalperinEpshtein

Photo: Smadar Halperin-Ephstein

 

What lesson does history tell

Of shattered bits,

And scratched on bells?

Can peals of old

Be heard

Be said

So we not ruin

What’s ahead?

 

 

For the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: History

 

Layer By Layer

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Photography, Reflections, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 9 Comments

layered trek OsnatHalperinBarlev

Photo: Osnat Halperin-Barlev

 

Layer by layer

They go back

In time,

Descending through eras

They can carefully

Climb.

What whispers

What stories

Does the wadi

Impart?

Will their souls see

The footprints

These rocks know

By heart?

 

For the Tuesday Photo Challenge: Layer

 

If Eyes Could Speak

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Photography, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , 24 Comments

Ethiopia8 DvoraFreedman

Photo: Dvora Freedman

 

If eyes could speak,

They’d tell of roads

No one should take,

And hardship that

Does not build,

But breaks.

If eyes could speak,

They’d share the stories

Of long paths,

That some must walk

With shattered hearts.

If eyes could speak,

They’d share hope, too.

For being seen

Brings light into

What one must know,

And one must do.

 

 

For Nancy Merrill’s a Photo a Week challenge: Eyes

 

 

Echoes Of Before

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Photography, Reflections, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Old door Turkey OsnatHalperinBarlev

Photo: Osnat Halperin-Barlev

 

Who had stepped through this door

Over thresholds

Before?

What words did old timber

Hear

In times gone but still near?

Do dormant secrets

Await

Behind a roped-to-close gate?

If you step close enough to

Go through

Will the past echo to you?

 

For the Wits End Photo Challenge: History

 

Stories We Tell

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Photography, Reflections, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

audience SmadarHalperinEpshtein

Photo: Smadar Halperin-Epshtein

 

And the stories that we tell

To small ones under

Good tales’ spell

Become the fabric

That unveils

The yarns they’ll spin

Or might dispel.

 

For the SYW-Revisited Challenge

 

 

Long Unseen

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Photography, Reflections, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , 26 Comments

Archeology Tel Zafit AtaraKatz

Photo: Atara Katz

 

As the stories unfold

Pried from time’s

Stranglehold

Bit by bit

You’ll behold

What the fingers

Of old

Would have seen

Could have told.

 

For the d’Verse Poets challenge: Unseen Things