VJ’s Weekly Challenge: snippets

March 29, 2021.Reading time 1 minute.

Popping the bubbles on a newly tarred road… occasionally losing a flip flop and hopping one-footed to retrieve it. Climbing as high as I can up the Willow tree, where hidden from the world, I eavesdrop on passersby. Contemplating how beauty has never fit with the equation of self. All the glamorous dresses my father […]

Birds: “ch” & “ck”

March 25, 2021.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Quick quacking duck Red-breasted nuthatch (Featured bird is Black-capped Chickadee. For Cee’s Photo Challenges: CMMC and CFFC)

Change of Scenery

March 23, 2021.Reading time 1 minute.

“After the nurse leaves, let’s go for a ride.” For months it been hospital stays and doctor visits that have dictated our outings. Now that the weather has improved, we needed to get out for enjoyment. “Bring the cameras!” We drove cross country, through little towns, and wide open spaces, until we came to the […]

VJ’s Weekly Challenge: Spring Acrostic

March 22, 2021.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Last. week was a mind teaser. This week we’ll keep it a little simpler (hopefully) Choose any word that relates to Spring and create an acrostic poem. Here’s a sample: VibrantEarthRenewingNurturingAll Life To participate, create a post and link back here, or drop a note in the comments. Looking forward to your creations.

VJ’s Weekly Challenge: Describe but don’t reveal

March 15, 2021.Reading time 1 minute.

Post a poem, prose, art, photograph, or other that illustrates but doesn’t reveal the subject. (Don’t forget to link back here.) Here’s an example: A Friend Indeed Friend, you guidemy brain-fogged,somnambulist limbs –like a mindless automaton;I follow, barely registeringmovement – grateful fordeliverance into thefullness of day. Once, I abhorredyour consistency,your stifling repetition,found your dependencymind-numbing, soulless […]

Fish Eaters

March 13, 2021.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Great Blue Heron, Osprey, Common Mergansers for Bird Weekly: birds who eat fish primarily.

VJ’s Weekly Challenge: scam/ con/ catfish

March 8, 2021.Reading time 1 minute.

Hello pretty lady, want to chat? No, just here to play the game. Where are you from? I don’t reply. I’ve downloaded the Words with Friends app, hoping to improve my mind. Seems every other opponent is just here looking for a mate. Do people usually meets partners on this site? I messaged one man. […]

Canadian Couple

March 5, 2021.Reading time less than 1 minute.

For Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge: pairs

VJ’s Weekly Challenge: dig

March 1, 2021.Reading time 2 minutes.

As a kid, I believed that if we dug deep enough, we could come out on the other side of the world. It was a hopeful thought, and I’d rally the neighbourhood to dig forts and tunnels. Science kiboshed that theory. Then there was the famous escape from Alcatraz: three inmates allegedly digging their way […]

Sssss….

February 23, 2021.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Shoe store, succulents, snow day, and snake for Lens-artists Photo Challenge: things starting with S

An Escape Plan

An incorrigible hagengages my loneliness –like an assassin sniffing outany scent of vulnerability I am lowering standardsthis history of imprisonmentenabling inappropriate openings I cry for new perspectiveponder after boundariesintending to defend Like an unwanted bullseyeI am pursued on repeatmalice considering mea problem to be solved Who is this old womanwhose thoughts are daggerswho calls upon […]

Making of a Woman

I know that abyss –swallowed up as I waspunch-drunk on darkness Bled as I emerged,each reach a scrape –there was release too Revived now, I honourthat passage, recognizethe making of a woman. (Making of a Woman first appeared here, December 2021. Image: self portrait in ink)