(A retelling of the story of Abraham and Isaac)
A weary journey, a wakeful night,
They left their camp before daylight
An old man carrying the weight of years
Wrinkled cheeks wet with tears
At hearing the young boy at his side
Prattle on with childish pride
That he alone had been chosen
To help his father on this mission.
O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
Psalm 63: 1-3
For Cee's FOTD, June 27, 2021: See the beautiful red dahlia on her site!
Afternoon Bobcats
The scirocco blew in our second day in Trieste. We sheltered from the blood rain in an old church.
How long? Joan asked.
‘The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind.’
Not my favorite. Hurrah for May 17th, 1966!
‘Judas!’ a voice yelled from the crowd that day when Bob switched from folk songs to electric guitar.
But that year, he wrote my favorite, today anyway.
I watched her cradle her sleeping baby. He wrote it when his eldest son was born. It was released on June 22, 1979.
A single.
“Forever Young.”
We looked out. The rain had stopped.
Genre: Fiction; Word count: 100 Come along and join in with Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers. Rochelle asks that we use the photo prompt © Brenda Cox and limit our words to 100 or less. Click on the frog to read more stories.
Lisa at dVerse Poetics: One True Sentence writes: “Your challenge today, should you choose to accept it, is to pick ONE of Hemingway’s quotes to be inspired by and write a poem. Do NOT use the quote in your poem, but please do include the quote on your post page somewhere, with Hemingway’s name as the source of inspiration. For bonus points, please say a few words about the experience of writing to an idea from the mind of Papa Hemingway.” Channeling Hemingway was a fun challenge for dVerse: his abbreviated diction, especially in dialogue, the unsaid reflected in the landscape as much as in the pools of silence surrounding a character. Click on Mr. Linky and join in!
‘It’s gone the way the mist is burned off the hollows in broken ground when the sun comes out,’ the Colonel said. ‘And you’re the sun.’
– Ernest Hemingway, Across the River and into the Trees (1950)
the teapot boiled
the cat began to whistle
the man bolted out
the world began to tremble
the cat began to whistle
the pot was just a thought
it was never really there
the man bolted out
he was missing his body
he left his coat and hat
the world began to tremble
we turned the music up
nothing was hard to hear
I thought I’d try my hand at some absurdist poetry of the type popularized in the middle of the twentieth century as Grace at dVerse challenges us with a new poetry form: “Today’s poetry form is Trimeric (Trimeric \tri-(meh)-rik), which was invented by Charles A. Stone.
1. Trimeric has 4 stanzas
2. The first stanza has 4 lines
3. The other three stanzas have 3 lines each
4. The first line of each stanza is a refrain of the corresponding line in the first stanza (so 2nd stanza starts with the second line, third stanza starts with the third line, etc.).
5. The sequence of lines, then, is abcd, b – -, c – -, d – -.
Note: No other rules on line length, meter, or rhyme.
Click on Mr. Linky & join in!
Genre: Fiction
Word Count: 100
Fear
I’ve heard it said that a woman should never be afraid of her own life. Yet I am. Every day the crowd multiplies. I grow old. The room grows smaller. Am I to be buried alive? Not with grave dirt, but with ghosts. The more confined I, the more rampant they. What diabolical art is this, that the dead suck life out of those they abhor? My nights are theirs to engorge upon in hopeless pain, my days spit out remnants of their celebration. For as vines strangle and overgrown briars encroach, my ghosts encircle me. And I am afraid.
Come along and join in with Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers and Eugi’s Weekly Prompt. Eugi asks us to use any variation on the word prompt (“celebration”).
Rochelle asks that we use the photo prompt (above, © Alicia Jamtaas) and limit our words to 100 or less. Click on the frog to read more stories and participate. 
Common-Place or “Locus Communis” — a place to remember
Richard Baxter was a 17th-century English theologian and Reformed pastor whose fruitfulness in ministry continues to inspire the church today. Most quoted is this advice to those in ministry which, given recent high-profile scandals, can use another dusting off:
Take heed to yourselves, lest you be void of that saving grace of God which you offer to others, and be strangers to the effectual working of that gospel which you preach . . . and lest you famish yourselves while you prepare food for them.
Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor
Also a poet, Baxter summarized the manner of his preaching this way:
I preach’d, as never sure to preach again,
And as a dying man to dying men!
O how should preachers men’s repenting crave,
Who see how near the church is to the grave?
Psalm 104: 10-13
You make springs gush forth in the valleys;
they flow between the hills;
they give drink to every beast of the field;
the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell;
they sing among the branches.
From your lofty abode you water the mountains;
the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.
For Cee's FOTD, July 13, 2021
Sorry, folks, but this week’s 92-word Weekend Writing Prompt led me to the dark side. Be forewarned!
Peony Shangri-La
Igg! Take a look! These flowers are beautiful.
Biggest I’ve seen in any galaxy, Jaka.
Oh smell! I love the scent, Igg. The leaves are so shiny and green.
Multiple buds too, Jaka.
The gardeners must be very fine aliens, Igg.
Nothing less than perfect, Jaka.
Like angels, Igg, cultivating beauty instead of hatred, greed or deception.
Have we found Shangri-La then, Jaka, after all these years of searching?
**sound of bug spray**
[gasping] Alas, Igg. Here lies . . . our resting . . . place . . . .Good . . . bye.
For Cee's FOTD, June 12, 2021and Sammi's WWP #213, prompt "galaxy", exactly 92 words
O my Luve’s like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry:Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun:
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.And fare thee well, my only Luve
Robert Burns (1759–1796)
And fare thee well, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile.
For Cee’s Flower of the Day, June 11, 2021
