TheMay 23, 2022, story challengefrom Charli Mills at Carrot Ranch is to: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story to explain “baby ducks ate my lunch.” write a story using the phrase “well’s gone dry.” Is it a real well or a metaphorical well? Why is it dry? What is the consequence and to whom? Go where the prompt leads! Submit at Carrot Ranch by May 28, 2022.
My response is a Double Ennead, a syllabic poetry form created by Colleen Cheseboro. A Double Ennead usually doesn’t rhyme but I played with a rhyme scheme.
Well’s Gone Dry by D. Avery
in wind-stormed time of drought
nothing shines but rust
silt and sand swirled colors of the silent muse
faded promise wrung out
sunbaked bone and dust
in hard times, hard to trust
to shake fear and doubt
to beseech again and again be refused
one must do as one must
seeding one’s own clouds
with faith of rooting sprouts
breaking through the crust
dream of green catching glistening drops of dew
if muse gasps, one must shout
wake up dreams long hushed
Be sure to go to Carrot Ranch to read the complete“Mom Selfies” collection from last week. And there’s always the Ranch Yarns with Kid and Pal’s responses HERE.
all roads led me home among familiar creatures crossing to safety
For Maria Antonia‘s #picoftheweek photo challenge I am crossing off the “My Happy Place” square on the bingo sheet. For the first time in five weeks the picture is from my back yard, and for me is a pleasant reminder of springs past. I’ve always enjoyed these juvenile Eastern Newts, or red efts.
Check out Maria’s #2022picoftheweek to see how you can participate in this fun challenge using the bingo sheet as a prompt.
A Six Sentence Story is a story told in exactly six sentences. It could also be a six lined or six stanza poem; it could be a soc, a bots, or creative non-fiction. This week’s prompt word, provided by our hostess Denise, at GirlieOntheEdge, is “detour“.
Six Sentence Detour
She didn’t feel up to a dinner party, not on the very day she finally was back in her own home, but for this hostess she would make an effort, would throw together a six-bean salad for the potluck buffet, would make an appearance, would at least be seen on the scene before ducking out and retreating to reflect on her long strange detour.
For she wasn’t yet ready to talk about where she’d been and the beautiful, austere lands she’d seen— damaged yet enduring lands that, despite dust storms, droughts, wildfires, and floods, still managed to inspire a sense of wonder and a modicum of hope.
She’d found some people living in those lands to also admire for their endurance and adaptability, but mostly the trip had made her weary and wary of the lands’ people, not of those many she’d seen that didn’t have a meal, let alone a home, but of the many more that looked the other way, that tossed blame instead of help or empathy.
And now a dinner party?
Well, these gathered people with their stories, as colorful, as sweet and sour as her proffered salad, might be good medicine for her subdued mood. No more detours— time to break bread at the Bistro, with its down-home cooking, served with all the sixin’s.
I am still away from home. Presently I am in Georgia and have chosen the “Numbered” square from Maria Antonia‘s bingo sheet for her #picoftheweek photo challenge.
The numbered grave markers in this photo are in the cemetery at Andersonville, the Camp Sumpter Civil War military prison where thousands died as a result of the adverse conditions.
When Dorence Atwater was there in 1864, he worked in the hospital *where he recorded the names and grave locations of the deceased. He secretly copied this list and smuggled it out when he was released.After the war he asked the War Department to publish the list but they refused. He met Clara Barton, a battlefield nurse, who was looking for missing soldiers. She was eager to help. Barton accompanied Dorence and the US Army Quartermaster expedition to Andersonville to mark the graves of the dead. Atwater’s death register, published in 1866, enabled many families to locate their loved ones. Thanks to his work, over 95 percent of the graves were identified.*
(the italicized words were lifted directly from the National Park Service’s brochure)
Over 13,000 are buried here. It remains an active veterans’ cemetery.
Maria has updated the bingo sheet with 25 new categories for April, May, and June. Check out Maria’s #2022picoftheweek to see how you can participate in this fun prompt.
insatiable behemoths ravenously famished in a ravished land
This photo is my take on “In the Room” from Maria Antonia‘s bingo sheet for her #picoftheweek photo challenge. It’s taken from a paved boat ramp, looking down, too far down, on Lake Powell, one of Arizona’s reservoirs. These elephantine boats are trapped, and these below are as well. What is it we’re not talking about?
Maria has updated the bingo sheet with 25 new categories for April, May, and June. Check out Maria’s #2022picoftheweek to see how you can participate in this fun prompt.
we might ask if this plant matters yetit blooms without our questions
It was easy to choose “Bloom” from Maria Antonia‘s bingo sheet for her #picoftheweek photo challenge. I have a few photos of flowers, some more iconic for this state, like cactus blossoms and the Palo Verde blooms that buzz with insects, wild flowers from the higher elevations to the north. This could be a noxious weed for all I know, but I admire its tenacity. It was doing what it could in the thin soil above Cottonwood, AZ.
Maria has updated the bingo sheet with 25 new categories for April, May, and June. Check out Maria’s #2022picoftheweek to see how you can participate in this fun prompt.
I have always enjoyed reading poetry. My love started with nursery rhymes which I read repeatedly when I was a child. I had some personal favourites including The Owl and the Pussy-Cat, There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly, and Who Killed Cock Robin. My enjoyment of nursery rhymes developed rather naturally into a delight in poetry.
When I was at school, we were made to learn certain poems off by heart. This was required for both English, my first language, and Afrikaans, my secondary language.
Astonishingly, some of the poems I learned impacted me so much, I can still recite them. Do you recognise these lines?
“When you hear it languishing
and hooing and cooing, and sidling through the front teeth,
the Oxford voice
or worse still
the would-be Oxford voice
you don’t even laugh any more, you can’t.”
OR
“But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller’s call.”
Over time, my enjoyment of reading poetry evolved into a pleasure in writing poetry. For me, poetry is like a pressure valve, writing it allows me to work through emotions and thoughts that plague me and I use my poems to try to make sense of them. I have poems about corporate life, relationships, poverty in Africa, and lately, the demise of the creatures that populate our beautiful planet, with a focus on South Africa.
When I started blogging in August 2016, I planned to use my blog as a way of sharing my own poetry and thoughts about poetry. I had no idea when I took that initial step that I would be entering a marvellous world of creators. Over the past five and a half years, I’ve met poets, writers, artists, and photographers and entered a world of creative learning beyond anything I’d experienced before.
With specific regard to poetry, I realised that I could learn to see things differently, to appreciate
how other people viewed a picture or prompt and how their thought processes differed from my own. I opened a door to a whole new world of poetry forms.
This, is a nutshell, is why I love poetry anthologies. They are a doorway into the minds, ideas, and poetic thoughts of a spectrum of other creatives. I love discovering new poets and partaking of their work in bite sized chunks and an anthology often leads me to purchase more of selected poets’ work. I enjoy learning from others under the combined artistic endeavour of a poetry anthology.
Today, in celebration of WordCrafter Press’ new anthology, Treasuring Poetry 2: Relationships, I have selected three poems from the book to recite to you.
Robbie Cheadle is a South African children’s author and poet with ten children’s books and two poetry books.
The eight Sir Chocolate children’s picture books, co-authored by Robbie and Michael Cheadle, are written in sweet, short rhymes which are easy for young children to follow and are illustrated with pictures of delicious cakes and cake decorations. Each book also includes simple recipes or biscuit art directions which children can make under adult supervision.
Robbie has also published two books for older children which incorporate recipes that are relevant to the storylines.
Robbie has two adult novels in the paranormal historical and supernatural fantasy genres published under the name Roberta Eaton Cheadle. She also has short stories, in the horror and paranormal genre, and poems included in several anthologies.
Robbie writes two monthly posts for https://writingtoberead.com called Growing Bookworms and Treasuring Poetry and one monthly post, under the name of Roberta Eaton Cheadle, called Dark Origins: African Myths and Legends.
Hello, briefly. I am still on a writing and blogging break, but here is a picture inspired from Maria Antonia‘s bingo sheet for her #picoftheweek photo challenge. This is a sunset sky west of Tucson. We’re farther north now and have seen a lot of amazing and fragile terrain.
Have a good week!
Maria has updated the bingo sheet with 25 new categories for April, May, and June. Check out Maria’s #2022picoftheweek to see how you can participate in this fun prompt.
This is a check in. I have been rather absent from blogging and will continue to be, though if possible I may manage a picture each weekend. I have enjoyed this weekly picture sharing, taking inspiration from Maria Antonia‘s bingo sheet for her #picoftheweek photo challenge. I also have noticed there hasn’t been a blue sky in any of mine since early February on a day when I was out snowshoeing under the trees. I did something about it, though the skies here are hazy with blowing dust and smoke from fires. I am presently under blue skies and palm trees and cactus are all around even in the city limits of Tucson. Better pictures to follow, maybe, I never claimed to be a good photographer.
Maria has updated the bingo sheet with 25 new categories for April, May, and June. Check out Maria’s #2022picoftheweek to see how you can participate in this fun prompt.
I had it in mind all week to take a picture of Holsteins for the “Black & White” square for Maria Antonia‘s photo challenge. Before getting to the farm I saw this banner hanging from the deck railing of a cafe and went with this cow and all she stands for. (Though cropped, this is a photo of a banner. If I find out who the artist is, I’ll come back and plug the name in.)
Maria has updated the bingo sheet with 25 new categories for April, May, and June. Check out Maria’s #2022picoftheweek to see how you can participate in this fun prompt.
ShiftnShake 