Skip to main content

Vita Divine, Lucid Gardener

 Sharing with The Sunday Muse #235. Poetry is the usual rule of the venue, but the community is generous and welcoming. Come share!

They had voted against keeping chickens in these suburban yards during the last election, but Vita could hear neighbor’s birds, restless and outspoken as the neighbors. She could also hear the tiny chick that someone had left just under the hand of the statue in her garden, trying to inform it’s family of its location. It had been sitting quietly until it noticed Vita. Those kids probably assumed it was St. Francis rather than the Rambler when they snuck it into her backyard. Everyone assumes the pomegranates are apples and my yard a metaphor for Eden. She leaned against old fence section she’d converted into a plant stand and stared at the bird, who stared back at her. That one knows who’s protecting her. Vita wasn’t sure whether she or her garden could claim any protection from the saints of Green House. Fae saints weren’t into that.

This week's submission is slightly different, owing to my working through my NaNo projects this month. The above is the beginning of a short story inspired by my being more interested in the bottles in the wine store than the wine (it all tastes like medicine to me). I ended up walking the aisles and writing down the names that caught my eye for use during November's daily writing efforts. They seem to have, in combination with this week's prompt, turned into the potential apotheosis of a singularly worried suburban chick, who may or may not hold the fate of her family in her tiny beak. We'll see how it goes. Chickens, by the way, are another creature that scares me more than I should admit. Deer, chickens, coyotes, and stray story ideas that turn out to be more feral than tame. 

Hope you're having a cozy November, perhaps plenty of cocoa and good music and a furry book close to hand. :)

-- Chrissa

Comments

  1. HelenNovember 5, 2022 at 2:04 PM

    Well now, I do love a nice glass of wine with dinner. Pour me a St. Francis 2016 Reserve Merlot if you please. Your well penned prose made me do it!!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. C. SandlinNovember 6, 2022 at 6:42 AM

      We just returned with a chocolate peppermint bottle to flavor homemade whipped cream. Raising a spoonful to your merlot. :)

      Delete
  2. DoraNovember 5, 2022 at 7:49 PM

    Funny, chickens scare me too. But this one chick seems as curious to have found a sanctuary as the garden's owner. Oh and the hot cocoa sounds fine for a November evening!

    ReplyDelete
  3. robkistnerNovember 6, 2022 at 12:55 AM

    This was wonderful Chrissa! 🙂✌🏼❤️

    ReplyDelete
  4. Gillena CoxNovember 6, 2022 at 6:11 AM

    Nice one Chrissa. Bravo. Happy Sunday.

    Much💛love

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sherry Blue SkyNovember 6, 2022 at 10:53 AM

    I enjoyed this reverie. An interesting take on the image, and a good read.

    ReplyDelete
  6. TruedessaNovember 6, 2022 at 12:58 PM

    An entertaining story. 'That one knows who’s protecting her" - I felt the small chick was protected by an angel statue of some sorts.

    ReplyDelete
  7. qbitNovember 6, 2022 at 5:15 PM

    "Everyone assumes the pomegranates are apples and my yard a metaphor for Eden." - wonderful. Look forward to the rest!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Keith's RamblingsNovember 7, 2022 at 7:24 AM

    A delightful tale which sits alongside the image pefectly!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Carrie BurttNovember 7, 2022 at 7:37 AM

    The image led you in a wonderful direction my friend! I love this and the yard bing a metaphor for Eden! I too have a fear of chickens and roosters!

    ReplyDelete
  10. KATHERINES PLACENovember 8, 2022 at 3:43 AM

    This is wonderful & I look forward to reading the rest. Hot Chocolate sounds delish right now :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. purplepeninportland.comNovember 12, 2022 at 5:16 PM

    Wonderful beginning!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Turn Away

  Sharing with The Sunday Muse , for #193. Turn away, like the moon, listening... Listening to the planet that rumbles with a hundred million slaps. All the feet, all the rockets, all the  pistons in the cars on the asphalt over the chasm where the veins run deep, blue in sunlight, black at night. Running over the chasm.  Once or twice they ran to you. Once or twice they ran by. Greetings and salutations. The sky is an entertaining shade of concrete yellow as the rain promised earlier in the week makes good on its arrival. It's a disturbing bright sallow sky, the kind of sky that puts you in mind of old movies and degraded film stock and the pops and crackles incidental to the main story.  Several years ago I made a resolution to journal more and last year I came across a video that suggested I actually re-read those journals, at least those of the previous year, at the beginning of each new year. Technically, I have kept the journal resolution, making daily notes in...
15 comments
Read more

The Soul and The Spine

  Sharing with The Sunday Muse #195 . Come and share! When it blew out the candle, It began to speak, voice low,  eyes dimmer than flame. Jenn believed, once upon a childhood (she's still there... but it's waning), it inhaled fire. Spines, tonight. Gears ladder bones and metal and plastic, all that lived, rungs to heaven. Heaven is a level of space where you can't breathe  so they used to send the dead. When the flame goes, it takes our memories with it. But not bot files. Maybe it believes  she'll sleep easier if bots go breathless, too. It continues murmuring and she pretends she's hearing a confession in a box Like the song her mother plays when the dark stretches  between signals We can handle shocks. She can handle the dark, the small  not-flame of its eyes. It's finally winter!! Which means bitmapped frost on the roofs, cold mornings, and a table full of succulents that are pretty much glaring at me because the kitchen window isn't the same as full su...
14 comments
Read more

A Single (Terrible) Poem

 I did not buy the poetry book whose sample Was page after page of essay and praise. I'm not following the trumpets. Today I follow the ringers-- Huzzah and call out the streets! Lift your arm, swing the bell; Call out the quiet, call out the neat Call out the loud, call out the bold Call out the wrong, call out the wise We remember the bells We shiver the skies.    This isn't about...anything. It's not about nothing. It should go without saying that a poem shouldn't need an essay or a textbook to be what it is. And I'm not sure why, with a stack of poetry at hand to be read, one silly Kindle sample (and writer's block and anxiety and...) would push my buttons so badly. But seriously. Where is my parody book full of fake blurbs that runs for 50 pages and ends with a single (terrible) poem?  -- Chrissa
11 comments
Read more