
Forest green once bright
Nature proves again her might
A seasonal blight
Written for Friday Fictioneers. My story starts after the photo. For other stories click on the blue frog at the end of this post. Enjoy!
Her folks were against their marriage from the beginning. It will never work out they said! Never in a million years.
Opposites attract she replied. Love will conquer all and all those arguments. He, for his part, felt the same. A life together with unlimited freedom and possibilities.
The kids made it difficult. Staying at home was not what she had envisioned. The dreams of trips to Paris and Rome were but vague memories.
When he did leave they offered her advice.
That ship has sailed she replied.
hurt feelings surround
love never gives up her dead
survival the game
Written for Haibun Thinking. For some other stories click on the blue frog at the bottom of this post.
His father died in 2006. He wasn’t yet forty when he took his life.
He went home for his memorial service. The once small town had grown quite large in his absence. Shops filled what before were decaying buildings. The tourist trade had accounted for this turn around he thought. Most of the roads were paved now, including the old rutted main street that he remembered. Strangers were everywhere but no old friends were to be found.
There was a fine restaurant where the butcher was previously located. Yet the town still seemed almost the same to him. The family old church still stood at the end of the alley. More tourist now than congregation.
His mother and his eldest sister had died at the age of fifty-five. He knows he is living on borrowed time. Perhaps he has the way to end things on his terms. He continues on.
twilight looms again
another gloomy day gone
the night is his friend
Mount Washington Resort, New Hampshire. July 2014.
Too green the springing April grass,
Too blue the silver-speckled sky,
For me to linger here, alas,
While happy winds go laughing by,
Wasting the golden hours indoors,
Washing windows and scrubbing floors.
Too wonderful the April night,
Too faintly sweet the first May flowers,
The stars too gloriously bright,
For me to spend the evening hours,
When fields are fresh and streams are leaping,
Wearied, exhausted, dully sleeping.
–Claude McKay
That summer we spent between homes. Pulling up roots after fifteen years was quite an ordeal.
The old home sold in the first week. The new home being built would not be ready for three months. The solution that worked for us was to rent a condo for those three months. In Vermont! A long way from our new home being built in Florida. Both looking forward to what retirement will bring.
Short summer blooms here
Rushing forward way to fast
Our winter starts now
My home has no walls to look upon
no roof to stave off wild beasts or tame the restless seas
no window glass, so clear my days to gaze
A soul to dwell in mystery
so soon my days to fly away
yet stand the oaks of long ago
watching children play
Morning wore a robe of clouded sun
rain washed the day away, til broke the sun again
hidden in a thicket brush sang a tiny bird
sweet songs to light the darkness
from this world
CA Guilfoyle
Sea waves are green and wet,
But up from where they die,
Rise others vaster yet,
And those are brown and dry.
They are the sea made land
To come at the fisher town,
And bury in solid sand
The men she could not drown.
She may know cove and cape,
But she does not know mankind
If by any change of shape,
She hopes to cut off mind.
Men left her a ship to sink:
They can leave her a hut as well;
And be but more free to think
For the one more cast-off shell.
Robert Frost
This post is in response to Ermilia and her Picture It & Write prompt.
The moon rose blood-red
What began in tragedy
Ended in triumph
The fires devastated the world
From the cooling waters a new living thing emerged