Poetry, Short Prose and Walking

The Porch as Chair

He used the floor of the cabin’s open porch as a chair dangling his legs. The chickens were safe. The dog was safe.

He figured if he couldn’t see it, it wasn’t there. No fairies. No unicorns. The trees weren’t watching. The sun didn’t care. He was safe.

Then he saw her walk up his long path. She was watching him for some time and decided to make her move. She needed a place to stay. After they spoke his understanding of safety expanded to include her.

Now they both sat on the porch. He promised to make chairs.

Text: Linked to Charli Mills’ Carrot Ranch 99-word Flash Fiction Challenge. The theme is a chair on a porch. Come join us writing flash fiction.

News: Last Wednesday the Prairie Writers Guild held a dinner in Rensselaer, Indiana, celebrating the publication of the fourteenth volume of their series From the Edge of the Prairie. Some of my haibun, which appeared previously on this blog, are in that volume. They print the anthology in Rensselaer. Although I have been a member for only the past year I have known some of the people in the guild for decades having grown up in northwest Indiana.

Their Mysterious Eyes — #writephoto

The arc’s reflection made an eye.
They laughed when I asked, “Can it see?”
What’s looking at us walking by
May laugh and measure differently.
The dark might have its ways to know
A brighter truth that it won’t show.
Let us walk. I do not mind.
I hope those eyes like what they find.

Text: Linked to Sue Vincent’s #writephoto, Jane Dougherty’s November Yeats Challenge Day 2 and dVerse Open Link Night where Grace is hosting.

Images: Provided by Sue Vincent for the #writephoto prompt.

One-Liner Wednesday — Ground

I don’t want to cause any more anxiety, but we take the ground we stand on for granted.

Linked to Linda G. Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday.

Raiding the Castle on the Rocky Coast –#writephoto

Why would someone build a castle there
Where soil is scarce and little wants to grow
Except for moss and plants who only care
I do not trample on them as I go?
Why do I bother making secrets show,
Break down their walls, expose some inner thing,
Pretend this makes me worthy to be king?

Linked to Sue Vincent’s #writephoto who also provided the photo.

Kindness Beyond Altruism

I’ve given up on the terms “selfishness” and “altruism”. Those words assume we are individuals with debts and credits in a karmic bank account that can be exchanged. Kindness, especially forgiveness, is a communal experience including even onlookers* and crossing generations. There is no point measuring it. It overflows all containers.

I remember picking up the couple in the evening as I entered I-95 in central Maine. I figured they had to go to the next town, but their destination was one hundred miles further north. They were as tired and messed up financially as I was. She was well along in her pregnancy.

That was so long ago it feels like another lifetime. I drove them to their apartment which was as rundown as the farmhouse room I was renting and left them with a smile. They never stopped smiling back.

WITHOUT MEASURING
AUTUMN SUNLIGHT OVERFLOWS
ONTO EVERYONE

*I realized this after reading Sarah Connor’s post “Kindness — haibun for dverse”.

Text: Linked to dVerse Haibun Monday. Toni is hosting with the theme “kindness”. I am also linking this to Debbie Roth’s Forgiving Fridays.

Photo: “Bright Leaves Bright Light” by the author.

A Man in the Park

Halloween will soon be here.
Scary stuff will pop–appear.
There’s something spooky when a pop
Appears and doesn’t plan to stop.

I see a man lost in the park.
We monsters dance when it grows dark.
He looks OK. I’ll let him be.
It’s best if he does not see me.

He thinks this spot is so mundane.
His ears are plugged so why explain?
Tonight when cosmic lights turn on
His mundane world will–pop–be gone.

Text: I am linking this to dVerse Poetics. Bjorn is hosting with the theme of considering the monster’s perspective.

Photos: “Maple and Oak” taken at Somme Preserves. To make sure I have something mundane enough, there’s “Below the Road” at the bottom. I’m linking these to K’lee and Dale’s Cosmic Photo Challenge with theme “A Walk in the Park” and trablogger’s Mundane Monday.

Maple and Oak

Below the Road

Seeing

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18:

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander‘st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Here is what remains after I erase all but the text in red bold:

Seeing

Summer’s temperate.
Winds do shake and heaven shines
And gold and every fair declines.
Nature’s trimmed but summer shall not fade
Nor shall thou wander in his shade.
When eternal eyes can see,
This gives life to thee.

Text: Linked to dVerse Meeting the Bar. Victoria C. Slotto hosts and her theme is to take a text and create another text from it by erasing some of the original text.

Photos: Something to see with or without eternal eyes: “Chicago River”, above, and “Reflections Everywhere”, below, by the author.

One-Liner Wednesday — Where Are You?

You’re almost everywhere you want to be.

Linked to Linda G. Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday.

Mask Over Mask

I wear a mask to hide from you
Since you would not believe
The mask I wear below that one,
The one you can’t perceive.
That mask as well is not quite true.
It hides reality
That’s always there and never done
And one that I can’t see.

Text: Linked to dVerse Poetics. Michelle Beauchamp (Mish) is hosting with the theme “mask”.

Photo: “Sky Masked By Leaves” by the author and linked to Frank Jansen’s Tuesday Photo Challenge with the theme “sky”.

Noisy Halloween

Ghosts should not wear noisy shoes.
Creak. There goes my floor.
Slippers are what I would use.
Bang: The basement door.
I tell them, “Don’t you realize?
You’re noisy. Don’t come in.”
We stand and stare with scary eyes.
They bang the door again.