Strung Along

Like a puppet

you have strings 

attached

dancing 

to another’s tune

until you are

tied down.

For Margaret's "Play it Again, Toads" at IGRT.  I went back to Mama Zen's Words Count.  She asked us to write about a power image (part art, part personal mythology, part creative shorthand part art, part personal mythology, and part creative shorthand...anything that a writer imbues with a greater meaning that it would ordinarily have and adopts it as a signature symbol) in 25 words or less.  I'm not sure this is really a "power image" by her definition, but it is a recurring thing in my writing.

Making Tracks

    Photo by Douglas Sailsbiry

My mind, my heart, my thoughts are racing;

it’s time to leave this land of lacking,

cause now it's clear, what I am facing.

My mind, my heart, my thoughts are racing

all night, awake, I spend it pacing.

With morning light to finish packing

my mind, my heart, my thoughts are racing.

It’s time to leave this land of lacking.

For the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads.

On Time

I have this skein of time

to knit into a 

life unraveling

faster and

faster each year

each season

each day

tangled at my feet

This if for Karin's challenge to write about some aspect of time, at the Imaginary Garden. 

Lil

    Image from Tess Kincaid

Do not wake me

from my green dreams.

In them we are blameless

perfect, and the garden is ours.

 The marbled world, blue and new

grows through me

like the pit of a peach

I cling to,

fruit sweet and ripe

and dripping

with juices.

No, do not wake me

from my green dreams.

Here are 55 words (including title) for the toads at the Imaginary Garden about the picture from Magpie Tales.  

Dylanw

    Photo by Tess Kincaid: Merchant Seafarers' War Memorial, Cardiff

Where

are we?

blinded and

betrayed by time,

endless skies press down

with the weight of water.

Sanded and salted, preserved,

we thought, like a pearl of great price

lamented but unfound and scattered

so my ribs no longer know each other.

Over at the Imaginary Garden Margaret asked us to "play it again" with a previous prompt. I chose a form called an Etheree, an unrhymed syllable counting form, beginning with a first line of one syllable, and continue for ten lines increasing the syllable count by one each line, as follows: 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10.  The image is from Tess Kincaid at Magpie Tales and is also posted there.  Please follow the links to both of these outstanding writing sites.

On Receiving Orphaned Kittens (or How Not Being Able to Say NO Can Lead to Becoming a Crazy Cat Lady)

    Photo by Mary Bach

Meditation time

is confined to the bathroom

and my Zen sand garden

is a litter box

tended between loads

of laundry.

My life is filled with

dry, crusty milk replacer

and grace.

When Karin asked us to write about grace in the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads I thought I could tell about recent events at my house.  My husband is a vet and we own a rural, veterinary practice that mainly serves farmers. And in our small community I'm known to be a push over for orphans and waifs, so every once-in-a-while when a farmer runs over a mother cat the babies somehow find thier way to my house.  My son insists we are one litter away from being featured on the show "Animal Hoarders," but in spite of everything... I still feel this (sort of) falls under the category of grace. 

Look at this adorableness!

I'll close with a quote: "Don't forget to spay and neuter your pets."  -Bob Barker (and me!)

Apology

In my dreams

I am brave and patient

waiting there for you, always,

to leave me.

I am a pillar

at the shoreline

not moving

not wavering
not receding.

Time does not exist

and we are caught

in the amber moment 
when shadows draw long     

and day becomes night

not inhabiting either,

but balanced between

the two 
together.


Over in the Imaginary Garden we are challenged to write 55 words, PLUS, if we choose, to use this image of Beta Beatrix by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, which I did.  We could also use the words of Canto 17 by Dante Alirghieri.