Photo: Smadar Halperin-Epshtein
They don’t give up.
They push on, they keep trying.
For the plainest of skills.
Simple tasks need endurance:
Every sentence’s a summit
Every speech sound’s a triumph of will.
Such tenacious young children
Built of grit and forbearance
Marathoners of life’s endless sprints
All uphill.
Oh, how deeply they teach me
The depth of true mettle
In courage, in hope to succeed.
Their indomitable spirit
Forms a marvel:
Pure resolve wrought from steel.
For The Daily Post
Photo-Atelier de Monique
Tailor your actions
To good mending.
Take care to not
Rip apart
What should be kept.
Adjust your thoughts
So they can fit your conscience
In its Sunday best.
Shape your ways
To outfit what your soul believes in
Sewn to perfect
Silhouette.
Attune to kindness
So it can help you
Choose
The right attire
For your heart.
For The Daily Post
Photo: RedHeart.com
“Our puppy is drunk!” The four-year-old announced mid-session.
“Drunk?” Their puppy was a five-month-old rescue mutt named Rooky, all paws, mischief and licking tongue. Still, surely I misheard. I looked at the mom.
“Well,” she clarified, her color rising, “he isn’t anymore!”
“But you said!” the boy accused.
“He was yesterday …” she conceded, redder still. “Drunk, I mean. He’s okay today.”
“Rooky drank Mama’s beer,” the boy offered helpfully.
Her blush intensified. “It’s not like that …”
“Mama had to pee and Rooky knocked her beer over and then he licked it up and he maked nasty burps and he walk funny. His burps smell like Mama’s beer,” the boy was on a roll. “Mama called the vet and he said Rooky is drunk. We taked him to the vet. Rooky even barfed.” The boy pointed out, impressed.
“Gramma said beer makes ‘bumble bee idiots dogs or not’,” he added in what I thought was a very grandma-like tone.
I’m considering the odds I might never see that mother in session again …
For The Daily Post
Live life like a kid
On feet or hooves
On two or four:
Jump and jive
Skip and romp
Frolic, gambol, cavort, stomp.
Live like a kid:
Play fully
Dance wholly
Be jolly
Caper on.
For The Daily Post
“I found some words with lotta syllables!” she announced and pulled a crumpled list out of her back pocket.
She and I have been working together for some time. Born very prematurely and with various – if not always visible – neurological challenges, she has had to work hard for every milestone, every skill, each speech-sound. At nine years old, she had good intelligibility in short words and brief phrases, but her clarity was still vulnerable in longer words or sentences.
“Hi-ppo-po-ta-mus,” she read, tapping syllables on the table. “Five!”
I smiled. This girl never needed prodding. Her internal motivation put most people to shame. If she put her mind to something, you better believe it that she’d go the distance for it, and then some. She wanted to be an actress and actresses needed good diction. She was going to make sure hers measured up.
“Ca-li-for-ni-ya and Phi-la-del-phi-a … both five! I-ma-gi-na-ry … five!”
She read several more words, repeating any one that lost a sound or two in the process. When she got it right, she repeated it again, insistent on perfection.
“My dad helped me find them,” she pointed to the list. “We had fun thinking them up in the car. We found lots of words with four … like ‘as-pa-ra-gus’ and ‘par-ti-cu-lar’, but not so many with five. Are there any words with even more, like … with six syllables?”
“Quite a few,” I smiled again. “Some you probably know.”
“Like what?”
“Responsibility.”
“Oh!” She whispered to herself and counted the syllables on her fingers, “yeah, six!”
“Capitalization”
“Like in writing?”
“Exactly like in writing. Then there’s: identification, autobiography, veterinarian, personification, generalization …”
She wrote each word down. Practiced saying it. “Do you know any weird ones with six syllables?”
“Hmm,” I nodded. “How about ‘discombobulated'”?
She laughed. “My grandma says that one.”
“How’s ‘extemporaneous'”?
She twisted her lips. “That’s not weird, just boring.”
It was my turn to laugh. “Fair enough.” I thought a moment. “Infinitesimal?”
“Not weird.”
She was going to make me work for it. “How about …” I winked, “mispronunciation?”
“Ha-ha, very funny,” she rolled her eyes. “Try again.”
She raised her eyebrows and waited. A moment ticked by as words trickled into my brain, six-syllabled but certainly not weird enough to qualify: visualization, spirituality, irregularity, disorganization, availability, cardiovascular. …
The room darkened as clouds passed over the sun and the wind picked up. The forecast promised thunderstorms. I was about to give up to a google search when a chime jangled in my window and with it came inspiration.
“I have it!” I exclaimed. “Tintinnabulation!”
For The Daily Post
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
Photo: Osnat Halperin-Barlev
There’s a tether that connects the hearts of care, the souls of kindness. It is tangible. It is sublime. It has a quality of light which bridges time and place, happenstance and circumstance.
It is not about words. Or at least not exactly. It is the way one can be seen: if known by name or face or only by the recognition of a shared humanity. It is the way one can be heard: by action or response, reflection or emotion, by prayer and by thought. It is the way we all are one, essentially, affected by the pains and joys that grip even those whom we may not know, and yet are part of us, in one way or another.
There is a tether that fetters heartbeats to the expressions of another. It is seen in young and old as mirror neurons and empathy weave the tapestry of wisdom and pulse with compassion.
There is a tether interlinking who we each are with who we can be. It exists in sharp relief to whom we might become if we risk the loss of that which nourishes what ticks within.
“It is a chain to care,” some say, reluctant of obligation. “A leash. A hindrance to independence.”
Not so, for it is not restraint, but rather a foundation. A cornerstone of interconnection. We are none of us truly an island, and all part of a shared future: the air, the earth, the water, the resources, the young and old, the hearts and minds.
For The Daily Post
Photo: Pinterest
Find the string of life
That thrums within you
And play your music –
Bold or timid
Loud or soft,
It is unlike any other
Ever heard
Yet
As eternal
And familiar
As the beat that drums
Inside all living
Chests.
For The Daily Post
For all who sail
Across the sky
On stormy sea
To be near to
To be free
May you be.
For The Daily Post
She walked into the house to a flurry of activity: broom in one set of hands, brush in the other. Guilty faces. Unidentifiable smell.
“What…?”
“He started.”
“She told me!”
The woman narrowed her eyes and scanned the room. The counter looked okay. No scorch marks. No splatter on the stovetop and walls like the last time when they had experimented with tomato lava. A foot in pink sock moved in the periphery of her vision and she lowered her gaze to the floor: the toes had attempted to nudge away a white bit of something. Paper?
She sniffed. What was that smell. She knew it from someplace … reminded her of dusty flea markets. Like old ceramics. Ceramics? Ceramics!
The distance to the garbage pail was covered in one giant step, arm already extended to reveal … a heap of shards, jagged shiny white, all sizes.
To the cabinet, still unbelieving: Bowls, mugs, cups. A suspiciously bare corner.
Little feet shuffled, oh so guilty.
There were no plates in the sink. None in the dishwasher.
“What have you done?”
They spoke over each other. “He did it She told me to We had a Greek wedding …”
“…so we had to break the plates,” the younger one emphasized with more hope than conviction. Even at not-quite-four-years-old he knew he was in trouble.
As for the seven-year-old? No added confirmation was required beyond how this child who disappears whenever there’s anything resembling cleaning up, had gotten herself voluntarily busy with the broom.
She shook her head, too stunned to truly feel angry. Yet.
“Where’s your big sister?” The fifteen-year-old was supposed to be watching the younger ones. She better have an explanation!
Chins tilted in the direction of the basement. Eager to shift blame. Muffled sounds filtered through the closed door. She listened. The tune was eerily befitting.
“Doing what?” … even though she already knew the answer.
The little one piped up. “She watching big fat Greek one wedding!”
For The Daily Post
A place to improve my writing skills, and that's all.
We're not thriving, we're creatively photosynthesizing under duress.
History of the Bloomingdale area on Manhattan's Upper West Side
A creative miscellany of mythic fantasies
a weekly flash fiction prompt inspired by google maps
A community for writers to learn, grow, and connect.
To participate in the Ragtag Daily Prompt, create a Pingback to your post, or copy and paste the link to your post into the comments. And while you’re there, why not check out some of the other posts too!
I can't sleep...
Alternative haven for the Daily Post's mourners!
never judge a girl by her weight
original fiction and rhyme
You have reached a quiet bamboo grove, where you will find an eclectic mix of nature, music, writing, and other creative arts. Tao-Talk is curated by a philosophical daoist who has thrown the net away.
A photographer's view of the world - words and images to inspire your travels and your dreams
Life in progress
Straight up with a twist– Because life is too short to be subtle!
WordPress & Blogging tips, flash fiction, photography and lots more!
Light Words
Na'ama Yehuda 
You must be logged in to post a comment.