(Photo: Michal Ico on Unsplash)
She trudged up slopes in ice
And cold
The wind bent chilly fingers down
Her coat.
Till finally she saw
Up top
A cave indenting
Ancient rock.
She crawled in,
Grateful,
To take stock.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Cave in 34 words
(Photo: Chagit Moriah Gibor)
It was going to be a gargantuan effort, but that had never stopped her before.
No matter what others always said she could do.
The skis were first. Adjusted to work over the wheels like skids on seaplanes. Only cooler.
Literally.
She slid through the ice and snow to find a clean patch. Shoveled up the snow onto her lap to press into a ball. Rolled and patted. Devised a ramp and pulley to hoist the second ball. Plopped on the third. Poked in twigs.
There.
Lopsided, but so was she.
Her snowman. Wheelchair be damned.
For Sammi‘s Weekend Writing Prompt: Gargantuan in 96 words
(Photo: Dustin Humes on Unsplash)
She knew when she opened the window
That day
That it would be
One
For the way.
The frost on the petals
The chill in the air
The way that stray branches
Scraped against the stair.
The breath of new winter
Kissing her hair.
For the dVerse quadrille challenge: Way
(Photo: Stéphane Juban on Unsplash)
When the cold gripped hard
And pulled life from the sinews
Of the earth,
And when the wind screamed wild
Among the emptied branches
Overhead,
She’d seek the warm embrace
Of the inglenook’s fireplace
And write a book
Of summer’s heat
Inside her
Head.
For the dVerse quadrille poetry challenge: Inglenook
“I’ll just be a minute,” Benito shooed his family ahead. “Don’t want you catching cold.”
He rubbed his gloved hands together. The temperature had dropped over twenty degrees in the last few hours.
“Especially you, Junior!” he pointed at his youngest. The boy had weak lungs and had just finished another long course of antibiotics. “In you go.”
“Oh, no, you’re not!” Maria planted her feet in front of her husband. “You are coming in with us. Right now. There will be no shoveling by you today. Boss Manuel insisted. Today you are a guest. After all, it is your birthday!”
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Photo: Keith Channing
“Winter is the best for digging!”
Icicles hung from Snout’s whiskers, and his tail wagged excitement. The cookies-n-cream dog had two settings: asleep and overexcited.
It was exhausting.
Dumbo yawned. She stood under the dubious cover of a naked tree, and tried to make the least contact between her paw-pads and the frozen ground. Soon enough their human would stop staring into the hypnotizing rectangle, realize that he can do the same thing indoors, and “Cum’eer” them home. All she could do in the meanwhile was endure.
A bird took flight from a branch above her head and a pelt of snow plonked right onto Dumbo’s back. A shudder traveled from the tip of her nose to the end of her tail, shedding snow as it went. Now she was wet as well as cold. Stupid bird didn’t even have the decency to pick a different tree limb to launch itself from.
Dumbo hated winter.
She hated rain. And ice. And snow. And hail. And wind. And any type of weather that didn’t come with a built-in dry spot to sun herself in, preferably without any flying insects or pull-on-your-ears baby-humans or a housemate that believes the only kind of recreation befitting a dog is one that involves digging smelly things out of the ground.
She should’ve been born a cat.
Cats don’t have to go out in all weathers just to relieve themselves, and no one expects them to sniff others’ butts or follow orders or look happy about it. It was beneath a dog to be envious of a feline, but there it was.
“Come dig!” Snout barked enthusiastically.
“No thanks,” she muttered.
“You’re wet already, might as well have fun!” the smaller dog almost disappeared into the white mounds, paws tunneling in double speed into the frozen substance on the ground.
The human looked up, smiled, and pointed the hypnotizing rectangle at Snout’s behind, before checking the contraption, and raising it again in Snout’s direction.
Great. Mini-dog images. It meant they’d be stuck outside for another era. Who cares if the tip of Dumbo’s tail was ready to fall off from the cold.
“Come dig!” Snout yipped. “There’s stuff underneath here. Who knows what we’ll find!”
Dumbo yawned again and licked her chops in irritation. Go dig yourself to China, she thought, and stay there, too … see if I mind.
“I will not have everyone out in the cold!” Mrs. M’s hands were planted firmly on her hips, and when Mrs. M’s hands were firmly on her hips, any who knew what was good for them knew to nod submissively, back up slowly, and give up.
Not Tim.
Sometimes I wondered if he had no survival reflexes or if he confronted the headmistress exactly because he didn’t care to survive.
“We don’t have to be out, out,” he argued.
Mrs. M’s cheek twitched. Oh-oh.
I backed up just in case. If she reached for the switch it would be best to not remain within wingspan.
“We can use the hot-house,” he pressed. “Sunlight and no wind. We’ll be fine.”
The twitch stopped. I held my breath.
“Most panes are intact.”
Mrs. M nodded.
I gaped.
Tim won.
Cramped orphanage or not, he found a way for outdoor play in wintertime!
For Crispina’s Crimsons Creative Challenge #61
She was Ethera, and she came at the peak of the longest night, on the cusp of the broadening daylight.
She was Ethera. A human. A spirit. A soul. Sometimes one. Often all.
She’d lived among them, flesh and blood and hope and heartache. She’d hungered and shivered and grew and raised and danced and cried and plowed. There had been nothing in her that foretold what she’d become once she passed the veil to the realm of Nether. Where summer did not come and winter did not grip the land and where the prayers of people held substance, unlike bodies, which did not.
She was Ethera. Unseen by most. Perceived by some. Hoped for by many. Feared by almost everyone.
Feared though she’d rarely brought on harm that wasn’t already in the making. Feared though she heralded truth, which for a reason she hadn’t been able to fathom, so many fought against.
She passed like air. Like wind. Like the willow whispering a breeze into one’s ear come silent night.
She was Ethera. And she came bearing gifts: Of scented fields. Of sunlit glens. Of fruit blushing ripe atop the trees. Of roots awaiting the fattening of rain. Of undulating earthworms sliding through the layers of the dirt to aerate the unseen.
As she could, too, pass between the layers of being.
She was Ethera. Some thought her fog. Some thought her ghost. Some knew her as the mist that rose to hold the moments yet to come and the droplets of the feelings those would bring.
She came at the deepest hollow of the longest night, and in her palms she held a bowl of alms, collected by the people’s dreams to appease the frost and sing the morning in.
For Sue Vincent’s Write Photo Challenge
Photo: Na’ama Yehuda
It had stared
Though the window
At the clothed
Indoor tree
Wrapped in tinsel
And glory,
Gifts at its feet,
Stars on its crown.
And it shivered,
Naked,
In the cold.
All leaves long gone.
“This tree is naked,”
A child stopped,
Compared,
Bemoaned.
“It is too cold.”
Not anymore, Child,
Not anymore.
Note: I took this photo earlier today in New York City, as I walked past this brownstone’s holiday decorations. This post is dedicated to all who are outside, looking in. May you be seen. May you be clothed. May you be known. May you no longer be cold.
Also, for the new Monday Window challenge
And an extra tag for Frank’s Tuesday Photo Challenge of: Holidays
Photo: Jez Timms on Unsplash
In the window
Reflected
Shine from times long
Ago,
As the fire
Resplendent
Warmed cold hands from the
Snow,
And kids’ eyes
Filled with wonder
Twinkled joy in the
Glow.
Elders, too
Filled with stories
Even they’re yet to
Know.
Lights aglow
Hope aflow.
For the dVerse quadrille challenge: glow
tucked away in the mountains
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