Pastor Peter was all a’flutter. There was the baby. There were the parents. There was the baptismal font. And there was Mick Mooney, to whom he had given bottled water for the font, boasting a malicious grin. The unopened bottle stood, tragically, on the chancel rail. Peter prayed, opened the font. It was filled to the brim. Afterwards, he confessed his surprise to the happy couple. “Oh, that was me,” the new mother said. “I just wanted to say a prayer over the font before the service began when I saw it was empty. I didn’t do wrong, did I?”
100 words; fiction
For Rochelle Wisooff-Fields' Friday Fictioneers
Click on the frog and join in!
“Call me to lie down in fragrance.” D. Margoshes ~ Season of Lilac (epigraph for dVerse’sPoetics: Beginning at the End)
This large expanse of space captured with the Hubble Space Telescope features the galaxy SDSSJ225506.80+005839.9.
if there were no skies to darken in hues of blue to contain green scents what would I see but infinity’s reach my heart torn lungs bursting in timeless space racing stars hastening at your call arriving in final destination to find that after all the unmoored spinning the vain rectifications of physics and philosophy that vast expanse I was traveling through was you
Acts 17:28 ‘In him we live and move and have our being’
Lisa at dVerse asks us to write a quadrille (poem of 44 words) using the word “way.” Here’s my drowsy offering as midnight creeps closer. Click on Mr. Linky to join in!
Photo by Steve Johnson from Pexels
When sleep comes my way darkness warm like mother’s milk lulls my hungry wakeful eyes, I sink at last in ocean light to caverns deep where you await a Prospero’s Ariel caught betwixt reflections of the world above and the mirrors of my mind.
Is it possible from this rank earth for such flowers to grow? Yet here they are, positing their glory for the world to see A speculative assumption uncertain of its predication That out of this sodden ground, mulched by weather The boggy stink of which permeates the air Blooms would appear from unseen dimensions To cluster in diamond silk, emitting starry transactions Their thrusting ebullience beyond science, even wonder Simple testimony of leaf, stalk and flower, to primum movens* Of power ingrained elementally to be, just be And being, yearn hungrily for the Light that clothes it.
*primum movens (Latin): Aristotelian term for the “unmoved mover”
Flower of the Day, for Cee Neuner's FOTD, January 21, 2021 Writing prompt: Paula Light's Thursday Inspo 92 theme "flowers"
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week is Patterns in Nature. One of the things that strikes a naturalist is the singularity and uniqueness of things in nature, even where patterns exist, like a snowflake, for example. But that paradox gives us more cause to wonder at creation, and the hand behind it.
Growing by the sidewalk suburban ever so wondrously!
Mushrooms on the march on the median
They’re not tribbles, but they do like to burrow.
Like the backside of your maiden aunty’s bloomers, they like to flaunt it!
Gorgeous green with no paucity of purpose: chlorophyll growing and glowing
Petrified Tree Trunk from the Triassic Period about 200 million years old (in front of the Smithsonian Musuem of Natural History), found near Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona
I’m loving the Psalms this morning, especially those whose words have sunk deep into my heart. Of them, Psalm 121 always comes to mind. And how it causes me to say, in the words of Psalm 13: 6, “I will sing the LORD’s praise, for he has been good to me.”
I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?
My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.
The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.
Psalm 121 (ESV)
Audrey Assad, “Good To Me” (lyrics below)
Good To Me (Audrey Assad)
I put all my hope on the truth of Your promise And I steady my heart on the ground of Your goodness When I’m bowed down with sorrow I will lift up Your name And the foxes in the vineyard will not steal my joy
Because You are good to me, good to me You are good to me, good to me You are good to me
And I lift my eyes to the hills where my help is found Your voice fills the night – raise my head up to hear the sound Though fires burn all around me I will praise You, my God And the foxes in the vineyard will not steal my joy
Because You are good to me, good to me You are good to me, good to me You are good to me, yeah
Your goodness and mercy shall follow me All my life I will trust in Your promise
Yeah, Your goodness and mercy shall follow me All my life I trust in Your promise
Your goodness and mercy shall follow me All my life I will trust in Your promise
Because You’ re good (You are good to me, good to me) So good (You are good to me, good to me) You are good to me
“Tweet me not weary in this whirligig of time.” She stabbed the Styrofoam cup with the stick end of a small American flag. “I’m homeless by design unmet by need. You need not apply.”
The politician’s flunkie grimaced. “Ma’am, we’ve been told to clear the area.”
“Nobody’s here. Starbucks brothers in the Amazon, sister’s Facebooking. Red Zone, Blue Zone, Ozone. Google it.”
“They’re armed,” he warned.
“Say, Moby Dick’s back from the dead. ‘Sometimes the great bones of my life feel so heavy.’ Tell them Ambergris is worth a fortune.”
“Ma’am?”
“Eyes and pearls. My home’s on my back. Your bones are too light. ‘From hell’s heart, I stab . . . .’”
A shot rang out. The bag lady crumpled, fell.
“’Ye damned whale’,” said the flunkie, winking at the FBI agent. “’I don’t give reasons. I give orders!’”
Written for dVerse's Prosery: Bone Weary -- 144 words utilizing
the line: "Sometimes the great bones of my life feel so heavy."
All other quotes are from Moby Dick by Herman Melville.
Common-Place or “Locus Communis” — a place to remember
Anglo-American poet W. H. Auden wrote “September 1, 1939” at the outbreak of World War II in Europe. It’s a poem that’s often quoted during times of crises such as ours, and only seems to highlight the recurring cycles of political dissimulation and media exacerbated fury that escalates into tragedy. While battling a virus, we’ve “cancelled” each other and branded each other racists and bigots. We’ve listened to politicians and oligopolies wildlydenounce opponents of their agendas as terrorists. We’ve been witness to unchecked brutality this past year as our cities burned with mob violence during which thirty people were murdered, and neighborhoods and livelihoods went up in smokewhile governors and mayors watched.
Auden began the poem with these words:
I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night.
In the penultimate stanza he cautions: “We must love one another or die.” The same holds true today.
All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die.
Defenceless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.
excerpt from W. H. Auden’s September 1, 1939
Read the complete poem at poets.org. And hear the poet Dylan Thomas read it below.
This Jolly Beggar 