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
Stories We Tell
Stories
Long Unseen
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
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Times Old
Photo: Inbar Asif
In the days that unfold
Morning rays
Evening’s gold,
What awaits
Up your sleeve,
Still untold,
Kept in trust
Since times old?
For The Daily Post
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Story Buds
Photo: Na’ama Yehuda
Fledgling stories
Flap immature wings
In my mind,
Inchoate plots
I don’t yet
Understand.
They unfurl
Like the leaves
From a still tight closed bud –
A surprise
For the growth
That awaited
Inside.
For The Daily Post
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Spill The Beans
Photo: Amitai Asif
Spill the beans
On what is
And never
Should’ve made
Secret.
Share the stories
You know
And others
Also
Have lived.
Find the balance
Between
Private stashes
Of sorrow
And the tender joys
To be had
In remembering
Both.
For The Daily Post
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Life in a Window
Photo: Inbar Asif
The stories told
In windows.
The sound of small feet
Represented
In a princess nightgown
Drying
Sheltered
By other clothing
Under a small awning
Behind
Weathered bars
Bracketed by
An antenna
And a plant.
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Be a Quill
Be a quill to the story you tell
Let it pen
Gentle words
Let it write
Soaring scrolls
As your life
Grows
Unveils
Hidden folds.
For The Daily Post
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Books and stories: a recipe for laughter and growth
From Pintrest
Oh so true … that a child who reads will be an adult who thinks. Reading opens doors, windows, paths, and secret passages to all manner of worlds and imaginations, language and vocabulary, expression and understanding.
Reading matters.
A reading child is also preceded by a child who is being read to and is spoken to and with, and who experiences being part of conversations and experiences, narrative and the day to day stories of life lived and happenings that happen …
Because:
A child who is read to will be a child who listens, imagines, thinks, wonders, comprehends and symbolizes… A child more likely to read and enjoy reading …
A child who is talked to, who participates in conversation and discussion, is a child who knows to ask questions and answer queries, offer opinion and listen to that of others, be curious about others’ experience and tolerant of differences, ideas, and views… A child more likely to read and enjoy variety in what they read …
A child who is listened to–and is shown how to reciprocate and take one’s turn in listening–is a child who can relate and remember, reminisce and realize, teach and learn, listen, comprehend and think… A child more likely to read and find books a place for expanding understanding and relating …
So …
Did you open a book today? Did you tell a story? Make a story together? The story of going to the store, of cleaning up the room together, of salad making and laundry folding, of visiting the park and counting dogs with spots and kids in strollers, of the rainbow of colors in the produce aisle and the funny thing that silly dances do to your feet and heart and smile …
Go tell some stories. We’re never too old or too young!
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Writing Voyage
People ask me, “Why do you write?” and my inner retort often feels like: “Why do you not?”
I don’t usually reply this aloud, however. I realize that such deflection is far from giving an answer, and that there are probably as many reasons to write as there are not to. Belonging to the former group, I cannot imagine life without words put down on paper and/or screen, even if I know it is not the only way to live. So it stands to reason that there would be those from the latter group who find in quite confounding to imagine why one would want to type letters onto screens for recreation.
Why then, do I write?
Beyond the obvious to me “because I do …”, my answer varies, but it often returns to “because it feels as natural as breathing and just as necessary.” Writing is essential to me. It feels like home. It is the place of flow, even if not always of comfort. Writing takes me places that I never knew I would be visiting, into mind-nooks and crannies I’ve forgotten I had known and some that I never owned and yet somehow remember. Writing deepens how I think, what I comprehend, how I understand it. It plumbs my heart for meaning and compassion, it weaves my thoughts so that they make a tapestry from smallish bits of living. Words offer vistas that lie hidden under the everyday, patiently (and not so patiently) waiting to be breathed onto page and screen.
To me writing is often fun. The best kind of delight, when I am immersed and floating down creative currents. Though some parts of writing can be tedious, they are to me never boring. Words paint pictures within me. They have me revisit. They bring alive people and places. They animate thoughts, realities, events, suspense and resolution. More than anything, writing surprises me. It is as if stories unfold and I am naught but the typist of their unveiling, a tool for their formation.
I write because I can, and because it seems impossible not to.
As Miller said, “writing is, like life, a voyage of discovery” and it is one to which I do not want to say good-bye.
If you, reading this, write: would you share why?
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Tree Life
“Are trees sad when people cut them?” The little boy came out of a week of school focus on earth, nature, resources, deforestation, and endangered animals.
“What do you think?” I returned the question. He has a reason for asking, after all.
“Yeah,” the seven-year-old sobered. “I think trees get sad because then they die and they can’t make leaves and flowers and acorns anymore.”
I nodded, sensing he has not quite finished and wanting to give him time to find the words.
A quiet moment passed, then his right eyebrow shot up the way it does when he gets an idea. Ideas for mischief, yes; but also for an answer that eluded him or a solution he did not see before. He touched the top of the table with his fingertips, and his eyes wandered over the floor, the bookcase, the closet door.
“You think maybe the trees are also not so sad,” he continued, “if people make stuff from them and then they get to be other things?”
“Um…hmm …” I noted in agreement, letting him work this through.
“Like if the tree gets to be a table or a chair or even a book then it is still important, right? But …” his young face wrinkled in too-old-for-his-age consternation, “but … maybe the trees are sad if they get burnt in the fire or something … because then they’re gone and can’t be anything anymore?”
“I see what you mean,” I offered, “but what if burning the wood helps keep people warm in the winter or cook their food?”
He brightened. “Yeah! I think maybe then the trees don’t get so sad … because they kind of make the food … ” His face got transformed once more, this time to seriously didactic, “But … but people still have to be very careful to not cut too many trees, right?”
“Right … ”
“… because the trees want to grow and be happy and also the squirrels and the birds need trees and monkeys and other things. Bugs, even. Some animals live on trees,” he instructed me, “That’s where they build their home. So people have to be careful because it is not fair to break all the animal homes and chop off all the trees to make things …” he paused. “And anyway, you can make tables from other things, too. Like plastic. Or maybe even a rock … I think …”
He quieted for a moment, his eyes wandered again around the room and rested on my bookshelves, on the National Geographic magazines on the side table, and the paper-packed folder with his work peeking out of the backpack on the wooden floor.
“I think trees really don’t mind if they get to be books, though” he added, satisfied. “Because then they can tell stories even if they can’t talk. I love trees and I love books.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
