My streams of thought meet here
Hello everyone.
Our Ragtag Daily Prompt is LEADERSHIP and I’ll respond by giving you a few of my impressions, with a little help from Pixabay images.
Images credits:
1 — Halstead 77
2 — DigitalDesigner
3 — Michael_Luenen
4 — bdabney
5 — RomanFavier
The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is LIKE A CIRCLE IN A SPIRAL.
I suppose almost every spiral has a circle at its base, like the one in this image posted by KseniaK on Unsplash. But my mind went to another circle: that vice at the bottom of the downward spiral people sometimes find themselves in. Whatever the addiction that entices, when it takes hold, it tries to suck us down.
So here’s my verse, only lightly polished, as my response to today’s prompt:
THE SPIRAL
that first circle
a few young teens giggling
sipping into somebody’s
daddy’s stash of bottles
another whirl, the parties
everybody drinks at them
the high school dances
quick sips in quiet corners
circles spinning her round
somehow, sometime
the bottle reached out
grabbed her by the throat
and wouldn’t let go
fun turned to pain
and the spiral started
pulling her down its dark path
half-sober, she dimly recalls
those coins she once had,
the people she wanted to love
yes, she grabbed for them
wanting desperately to hold on
but one by one they rolled
lost among the empties
the spiral drew her down
the husband who didn’t stay
washed away in the foam,
her children, their eyes round
as they watched their mother
stagger across the house
then downcast, ashamed
when their friends saw her too
they left as soon as they could
and her life was full of empties,
so many circles in her spiral
she sheds a few tears
there in the dark stairway
when she’s sober enough
to remember what she once had
how much those clanking circles
cost as they bottled her
she needs another drink
the blinking neon beckons
across the road she stumbles
not seeing the bright lights
round eyes bearing down
a squeal, and the world spins
the pavement so bruising
perplexingly rises to face her
sirens pierce the night
scream through her brain
colored lights flash
bouncing off the pavement
hurting her eyes – such pain!
gravelly voices rock her mind:
Ma’am? Ma’am can you hear me?
the steady circling, circling
of those flashing lights
wailing, wailing
– or is that her?
The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is BLOOM
Where we live, this is definitely the season for blooming. Flowering trees and shrubs, including the chokecherries in the woods beside us, are blossoming in preparation for another summer of production. Spring bulbs are blooming; gardeners are setting out bedding plants.
However, my mind went to another kind of blooming. I’m sure you all have stood on a sunny day and watched the cumulus clouds above you expand and change.
I have, and I find observing that process of change fascinating. Before my eyes they seem to bloom. Little white lumps spreading up and out — it’s like watching the time-lapse of a cauliflower developing.
Thoughts are like that in a way — at least mine are. I see a writing prompt and ideas start to form. This morning I chanced to hear another blogger and fellow Christian speaking about the importance of sharing facets of godly wisdom by means of storytelling, and brainwaves started to billow. (Click here to listen to his inspiring talk.)
Thinking of sharing our inspirations, and how ideas and wisdom circulate, I wrote this verse two days ago:
She left a thought that echoed;
her friends bounced it around.
It wasn’t meant to shake the world
but still it seemed profound.
It resonated with her friends
and spread from ear to ear;
whenever it seemed fitting
someone was bound to hear.
It spread to their descendants
this bit of wisdom kind;
it lightened many labors,
eased many a troubled mind.
They were not so outstanding,
those words that soothed one fretter,
but her homespun bit of wisdom
made all our lives the better.
Take care everyone, and don’t be afraid to share your bit of life-learned wisdom today. Who knows but what it may bless many other lives.
The Ragtag Daily Prompt today is GOSSAMER.
If you’ve taken the time to check out this word over at Merriam-Webster, you’ll find that it has an interesting etymology. Gossamer comes from “goose summer,” a time that would roughly correspond to our Indian Summer. And not because they were flying south, but because they’re at their plumpest for the roasting pan.
Gossomer was also the Middle English word used to describe filmy cobwebs floating through the air in calm clear weather, apparently because somebody thought the webs looked like the down of a goose. If you see them in the early morning on the grass, wet with dew, you could almost think of down.
Today we use it as a rather poetic synonym for thin, light, flimsy, filmy. As in:
The weary travelers sighed for some break in the heat, but the gossamer wisps above offered no relief.
Ragtag Prompt Word today: SURRENDER
Word of the Day challenge: QUICK
Things are going slower than usual this morning, since I surrendered to an extra two hours of sleep. I let the cats in at 5:30 am, but decided it was just too early and went back to bed. So it does.
I got to thinking of de- words, like delight, deform, debase, etc., and wrote a post over at Word Buds on the word DESULTORY. This has quite an interesting root, salire meaning TO LEAP. You can read my post HERE.
As I was typing merrily away, posted my work, and went out to the kitchen for something. Came back and found my cat Angus — always quick to seize an opportunity of this nature — was curled up in my desk chair, prepared to nap for a few hours. Too bad for him! I wanted to do more on the computer and would not surrender my chair. “I’m going to sit here,” I informed him as I pulled him off and dumped him on the floor. His disgruntled look expressed his displeasure.
But another opportunity afforded itself; he headed for Bob’s vacant chair and with one quick leap he’d claimed that. It looks like he may even catch forty winks before the owner thereof returns to demand it back. And by then I’ll be occupied with other things and my chair will be empty.
The Jibber Jabber with Sue prompt word for today is SILENCE, and I guess that apart from her scheduled writing prompt words, there is silence over at her blog as she takes a writing break.
There may be silence at our house — especially since I haven’t put in my hearing aids yet — but there’s no silence outdoors. The birds start expressing their views at dawn and twitter until the daylight fades. We had a real treat yesterday afternoon, looking out the dining room window and seeing goldfinches at our niger-seed feeder. First ones we’ve seen this spring. Friends say they saw some, too, so the flock must have just arrived from the sunny south.
Farmers have been seeding in hope. They are brave souls who seldom surrender to the elements, but it’s been quite dry. We’ve been promised an inch of rain Wed and we sure hope it comes. I remember back about thirty years ago environmentalists being concerned for the survival of migratory birds because so many sloughs and small lakes — their breeding grounds — had dried up. We may be back to that before long.
The old farmers talk about weather cycles, about ten years of wet followed by about ten years of dry — and we’ve seen this played out since we came back to SK. Back then the prairie was in the grip of a very dry spell, then the wet cycle started and we had 8-10 years of plenty. Sloughs hereabouts were as full as any of the old-times could remember and gravel roads needed to be built up higher. Now we’re into a dry cycle again; the huge sloughs beside us are dry.
Maybe our focus is very small, but prairie folks don’t soon get panicked about climate change — especially those who’ve lived through the 1930s. But drought is something we understand too well; all of us older ones have been through a number of these cycles. Our young teens haven’t seen a real drought.
Please pardon my ramblings. Stay safe and have a great week, everyone.
Stores here open tomorrow. 🙂
The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is OVERCOME
And here’s my response, a one-sentence autobiography fiction tale:
Overcome by the waves of free books offered by authors seeking reviews, Olivia the Optimist filled her spare room and committed herself to ten years of writing book reviews.
🙂
