Standard

Posted by

Posted on

January 27, 2014

Posted under

Poetry

Comments

49 Comments

Of Crystal Palaces and Brothers

IMG_3741

A crystal palace
Surrounded by the sea,
windward, starward
Without flower or tree.

Light refracted into rainbows.
She dreamed of beauty
Wrapped in downy blankets.
Origins a mystery.

Finally safe and alone,
No one to harm or disturb her
She wandered through crystal halls.
Ocean waves did not perturb her.

So the dreamy days passed,
Nothing growing or green,
Just white, rainbow light,
No other faces to be seen.

Curled up in her blankets
Her memory, growing a bit hazy,
Was of the last hug she had, and
Missing it, even if her brother was crazy.

Yet, he was always fun.
How he would laugh to see
Her crystal prison, white on white,
With no where to flee.

“Nichi, Nichi, wake up,”
She felt her blankets tugged off.
Her brother was the one tugging,
saving his breath for a last scoff.

“You are always in your dream world,”
Nathan said, “You’ll be late!”
“I’m home!” Nichi exclaimed happily,
For once not feeling any hate.

Complete solitude,
Without memories or play
Was not as fun as she thought,
Not how she’d want to spend a day.

Nichi surprised Nathan with a hug.
He asked: “What’s that for?”
“Oh Nathan, I missed you,
I was in a crystal palace far from shore.”

“You were dreaming, Nichi,”
Nathan smiled, “You were right here.”
“No, I was in ice, crystals all around!”
“Ice crystals on a plate, my dear?”

Nichi then remembered
A plate of ice crystals last night
Marveling over their shapes,
Rainbows thrown out in the light.

“A dream,” Nichi finally realized.
Her crystal palace was a dream.
Days had passed, and yet
Things are never as they seem.

Brothers can be fun,
Solitude quite a bore.
When play is never done,
Sleeping seems a chore.

Copyright 2014 Brenda Davis Harsham

Note: Inspired by a plate of ice crystals, an irrepressible imagination, a child-like temperment and an epigram prompt by Painttheworldwithwords, who has challenged poets to write a witty, rhyming brief epigram. I don’t know if it’s witty enough to be compared with Oscar Wilde’s famous epigram: I can resist everything except temptation, (I’m thinking not) but it does rhyme, so you be the judge. Are the last 4 lines above an epigram?

Two Sample epigrams from the prompt:

Candy
Is dandy,
But liquor
Is quicker
 — Ogden Nash

Sir, I admit your general rule,
That every poet is a fool,
But you yourself may serve to show it,
That every fool is not a poet.
—  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

49 thoughts on “Of Crystal Palaces and Brothers”

  1. Lovely poem! I really must say, you painted such a beautiful story here and that too, an epigram! This really hit home for me Brenda. I thank you for your participation in the challenge and you did an amazing job writing this!

    Regards

    Like

    Reply
  2. Pingback: PTWWW “Be Inspired” Weekly writing challenge #14 | Paint the world with words
  3. Pingback: Overdue Thanks | Winding Road

  8. crystal walls…reflecting colors of the rainbow…
    this is a wonderful flow of dreamland Brenda…
    also the memory or was it a dream….I brought back when I crossed over to the otherside..
    I didn’t have a tunnel…I had a crystal room…LOLs
    )0(

    Like

    Reply

    • I’m so happy you think so. Every once in a while my daughter is happy to see her brothers, and at times they are caught off guard. It is sweet when it happens. Usually, it’s: “Oh, it’s you, don’t take my toy away!!” LOL

      Like

      Reply

      • I wonder what part of that they’ll remember – the joyed? Or the annoyed? 🙂 I mean, as their family myth grows. Me, I picked the joyed. Probably should’ve mixed it up with at least a LITTLE of the annoyed. You know, to get something closer to the truth. Ha. Yes. It’s good they’ll have this as a document to refer to. (Sorry, I need to ‘ha’ again. 🙂

        Like

        Reply

        • Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and being home while they are elsewhere make her miss her playmates. She was chasing one brother around today, Cinderella dress bunched up in one hand, saying: “Prince, come back, Prince! The Prince doesn’t run away from the Princess. I’m Cinderella. We have to dance!! Prince!!” Hilarious!!

          Like

          Reply

    • Thanks! I gave up trying to make the green ever work out. No matter what I changed, even after customizing, something was always unreadable somewhere. I had to stop sinking time into it. And actually, I got kind of tired of the green. 🙂

      Like

      Reply

Comments welcome!

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.