Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Kenesaw Mountain


Time has erased
the blood in this place,
No trace of the brothers
Who fought one another...
shooting from anonymous
lines of smoke.

The gray morning
Turned blue.
but they never knew it.



Kenesaw Mountain, Georgia, 1864

Our three words: Erase, Trace, Meadow.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Super-hero


"Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere."

This quote from Elrond in Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring is one of my favorite quotes about heroes. No, they weren't super heroes. In fact, when the most difficult time came, they would have faltered but for a grasping enemy who expedited their task. And yet they were heroic-- persisting, assuming certain death at the end of the journey, yet plodding on. They had no special powers, no mighty, earth-shattering abilities, no extraordinary mental acuity. Nothing, really, to qualify them for adulation and fanfare. That's the kind of hero I admire.

There are many such heroes in the world today; we just don't know their names.



Our Sunday Scribblings prompt was super-hero

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Noble Intentions

Long he worked in golden fields
while gems bloomed beside the fences,
and in his sweat, he dreamed of hidden treasure:

Ancient secrets, sacred writings,
silver fountains, long since silent.
Just the thought of his ambition brought him pleasure.

But the sun each year was hot; rain was scarce; the tractor faltered; prices tumbled every time the yield was rich.

There was just enough to raise the kids, enough to pay the taxes,
So his left his dreams of treasure in the ditch.

Now he sits and quietly listens to the memories of their laughter--
as his children come, concerned, to hover around him.

And he never roamed the world,
never dove for a single pearl,
never panned a stream...
but somehow treasure found him.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

In Theory

In theory...
They are ambitious--
Ambling over high Andes
Nimble on narrow corridors of clay that were
fired by a thousand hoofs and time.

In theory...
They are disdainfully defensive
Spitting on strangers who come to photograph the flock
or simply stop to watch the sheep as a diversion
from an early morning walk.

In theory, that is...
I couldn't get this fellow to budge!





Three word Wednesday--theory, nimble, budge