September 2020 – Page 3 – This Jolly Beggar

Before You Go

I could feel her soft, wrinkled hand tightening on mine. I don’t know how long we stood before she finally spoke.

“I was looking out that window over the sign. I saw your grandfather’s mother kill mine. Just because she wasn’t the same color. It’s been seventy years now. It feels like just yesterday.”

I got my tongue working. “Grandma, how could you marry him?”

She turned, soft brown eyes wet with tears. “It wasn’t easy but love won. Hate lost. You’ll be going off to college soon. You won’t forget that, will you?”

“Like the sign says, Grandma, ‘NOPE’!”

word count: 100 
written for Rochelle's Friday Fictioneers
click on Rochelle Wisoff-Fields's hand-drawing of the frog 
for more tales of a hundred words or less.
And join the fun!

Maybe it’s just that the camera angle caught it just right, but these viburnum leaves seem to form a perfect cross and mid-center, flowering buds. Can our daily crosses be thus, as roads to the heart of hope realized and yet to be realized? I suppose it’s all in where we place our faith, or rather in whom, the One who bore a cross for us and walks the cross-roads with us.

I have set the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.
Psalm 16: 8

Golden Red Marigold

Cee’s FOTD Challenge

9-8-2020

As if she needed a late afternoon shower to freshen her up, this tiny marigold emerges with golden pistils blazing, her scarlet gown lined with gold.

So too does hope emerge out of the dark clouds of the day.

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation
Psalm 42:5

Share Your World 9-7-2020

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)

We’re into week five of SYW’s two-parter, with Share Your World meeting the world of Harry Potter. We’re answering Melanie’s muggle-themed queries alongside those of Roger, this time with The Order of the Phoenix in mind. Check out everyone’s answers and join in.

Steadfast and True

What we wouldn’t do to have a steadfast friend, true and faithful through the seasons of our life. Sometimes those who seem most frail in our eyes to share the storms of life prove to be the most true and steady, bending with the winds and holding strong where others break.

This tree has stood on the periphery of our walks through early spring, summer and now at autumn’s slow appearance. It never allows us to pass without acknowledging it, standing alone as it does, but somehow reassuring, like a cross on a hill. Whereas the Cross bears testimony to an eternal significance and a love eternal, this little tree somehow reminds me to take the temporal at the pace of eternity, one day at a time, knowing He whose eyes are on the sparrow watches over me and holds tomorrow in His loving hands.

So let us be, steadfast and true to Him, trusting, one day at a time.

Along with my Green, some Yellow

Jude’s Saturday Symphony #9: Write about something green.
Show us its character, its emotions.

Along with my Green
I would have some Yellow.
While on the former I’m keen
(Growth I’d hardly disavow)
I like it best beside the Yellow
Speaking a joy of Love unseen.

With You by sidewalk and wood
Yellow sparkles like water
In a glass of Green

Let Green be my banner
Of life reborn, alive to You.
Let Yellow be my manner
Of joy bubbling through
To speak of Your great favor
Whatever the day’s hue.

With You by sidewalk and wood
Yellow sparkles like water
In a glass of Green

So Green of the grass
And Yellow of the flower
I celebrate both, for alas,
One without the other
Would be like a glass
Without sparkling water
By sidewalk and by wood.

Red Petals in the Pink

For Cee's FOTD Challenge.

Pages: 12

I Can’t See the Stars

I can’t see the stars 
For too long.
They hurt my eyes with longing 
For the unseen.

I can’t see the people
For too long.
They hurt my eyes with longing  
For what could have been.

Long years built walls and ceilings
Dressed-up plaster neighbors
Who do not hurt or rob me
Arcana to surround me
Where blue skies cannot spurn.

But somewhere in the concrete
My hardened heart lies buried.
No tender arms will hold me
No twilight rays enfold me
In twinkling eyes of love

And I can’t see the stars.

word count: 94 
written for Rochelle's Friday Fictioneers
click on Rochelle Wisoff-Fields's hand-drawing of the frog 
for more tales of a hundred words or less.
And join the fun!