fragrant leaves
rough with musky spice
song of summer
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: This is a good-bye to my herb garden, which spiced my soups and stews this summer and fall. Pictured are two varieties of purple sage, which are not culinary. I also grow lavender, green sage, thyme, oregano, basil, parsley, tarragon, mint, chives and rosemary. When my herb garden goes dormant for winter, I’ll be waiting for spring. Only the basil and rosemary won’t come back.
Torn and nibbled,
not one undamaged leaf remains.
Frost-rimed in the morning,
and then rain-drenched all day.
Beset, bewildered and bedraggled,
yet they shine.
Inner beauty shines.
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
Paris, you shine. Nothing anyone does can take that from you. From your diversity to your bridges, churches, parks, islands, to your museums divine, you shine. Vive la France!!
A prayer for healing and peace with Arlene at Dreams and Escapes. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” ― Martin Luther King Jr
Kindness is
planting milkweed seed
for a monarch butterfly
we’ve never met.
My daughter and I
dig a trench along
a wooded path,
where just a bit of light comes in.
It’s place where a caterpillar
might live its days in
emerald twilight,
munching its favorite food,
until it winds hope about itself.
Then it can be still,
listening to the wind
and the dog walkers,
the trail joggers
and the children finding pebbles
among the leaves and earth
in this green place of wishes.
Kindness is hoping it grows.
Kindness is carrying water in two hands,
sloshed onto colorful sneakers,
dribbled onto a rumpled trench.
Kindness is wishing all winter
for not-too-cold, not-too-dry,
for that seed to remember
the loving hands that patted
the soil into place.
Kindness is imagining the world
orange and yellow,
full of fluttering wings,
Without a care for oneself.
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: A few days ago, my daughter and I planted a hundred milkweed seeds along the edge of a wood. We watched for rain and imagined the seeds putting down tiny roots. We hope for a dozen milkweed plants come spring. We hope monarchs hear the milkweed song and come dancing along. Have you a kind act to share? Today’s Little Ditty has a challenge from editor Rebecca Davis to write “a poem about a specific act or moment of kindness. You can write it from any point of view– as a participant, a beneficiary, or as a witness. The more specific and vivid, the better!” Some of the poetry will be published by Today’s Little Ditty between now and Thanksgiving.
A toddler oak glints like rubies.
Too young for acorns, trunk,
Or boughs, just a sprig,
a sprout, a snip of joy,
with earth between its toes,
it has unfolded proudly.
Its leaves flower in fall,
alight, aglow, aflame,
crimson with yearning for spring.
Its sire has amber leaves and brown
scattered about the ground.
Does the tiny tree dread
gale force winds, ice and snow
more than its older kin?
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
The ad was enticing: “River view, private entrance, doorbug, generous acorn storage and no neighbors for several fae furlongs — a successful fairy’s dream residence.” Mister Fister the Fighting Fae was tired of ducking admirers and signing the wings of fluttering fans. The East Tower was perfect for a beleaguered celebrity. Much more salubrious than the Fungus Lloyd Wriggle Condopolis down below!
In he moved, shouldering his thistle-woven boxing gloves, his collection of iridescent scarabs and a bevy of trophies. He wandered, room to room, looking for the perfect chair. The silence was louder than a roaring crowd. He missed his Russian Stag Beetle neighbor’s pine needle symphonium. He even missed the relentless creole creaking of the Louisiana crickets.
He moved back to the condopolis within a fortnight, and his fans welcomed him with a party that lasted a week. Noise complaints lodged with the FES (Fae Enforcement Squad) resulted in the deployment of several FES officers, but they joined the party. The Nectar Nippery was drank dry, the Buttery Bakery eaten empty, and the Pudding Palace was completely consumed. Several bankrupt fans fled the trolls, and Mister Fister lost his next match. He never regretted a moment.
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
flight
one perfect moment
remembered
fingers curled in longing
to relive one’s height
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
Do you have one time in your life you would relive if you could?
leaves rain
tree tears spiral and tumble
mourning summer
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
Text again, for text to speech readers:
Bat
haunts
dark trees
in leaf costume, hunting.
The full silver moon hides its eyes.
© 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: This is offered for the 5th Annual Halloweensie Writing Contest at Susanna Leonard Hill’s blog. Susanna is a children’s book writer, and she is offering awesome prizes for contest winners: critiques, magazines and books, oh my! I imagine mine is too short to be taken seriously, but if you have a 100 word or less story or poem, done by midnight tonight (I know, right? But I just found out about it half an hour ago!) with some form of the words dark, haunt and costume, then throw your hat in the ring.
Freckle Goblin wriggles under gourds,
tired by a night’s divine carousing.
Freckle dreams of youthful fun in fjords.
After chasing ghosts, he can’t help drowsing.
Boom! He wakes to sulfur scents and peril.
Freckle peeks. He spots fair Glisten Rue.
“Enemy!” he hisses, turning feral.
“Flee, you witch!” he snarls. She pouts: “Listen, you
ruined parties, chased a lovely spirit.
This will be your Halloween goodnight!”
“No, my lady,” Freckle shouts, “I fear it
will be you destroyed!” He swings his right.
Acorn squash, gourds and pumpkins tumble.
Mashed and bashed, she flees. Trip and stumble!
Goblins rule on Halloween night —
even scary witches flee with fright.
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
Notes:
Happy Halloween!
The first 14 lines of this is a sonnet, rhyming ABABCDCDEFEFGG. It didn’t feel quite finished to me, so I threw in a bonus couplet for those trick-or-treaters reading to the end. For the meter nerds in the crowd, it’s written in trochaic pentameter. In plain English, each line has ten syllables, alternately stressed and unstressed, with maybe a few variations. It took DAYS to write!! Now that’s frightening!
This is linked to the Third Annual Spooky Writing Challenge at the Writing Works in Progress Blog. Also, this is my entry for Poetry Friday (if a bit late in the day), hosted this week by Check it Out. Yeah for poetry! Thanks to all the great poetry writers and fans in Poetry Friday’s crowd!
Note: My surgery has allowed others in the family to be the hero of their story. Here my oldest is giving a ride to my youngest. If you have a tender moment, please link to Cee’s Photo A Week Challenge: Tender Moments.
No cellophane or styrofoam
enclose vegetables that
ripen with deep roots in loam.
But tomatoes need attention
from sunshine and gardener —
saving seeds is an obsession.
A good soaking for the seed
then planting in warm soil —
water, fertilize, stake and weed.
Year after year, they grow
Are they fruit or vegetable?
They’re silent. They don’t know.
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: I harvested the last of my tomatoes before the recent frost. They were a poor crop this year. Free roaming turkeys ate most of my garden. Ten roost in the maple outside my bedroom window, nearly invisible, except when coming or going.
Do rusty blooms taste bittersweet,
of summer gone, left incomplete?
Thick stems are braced for swirls
from wind, even hurricanes whirls.
Honey formed on shortening days
might fizz, pop and amaze.
Will a bit smeared on bread
come with warnings of danger ahead?
Perhaps tea sweetened with that nectar
would raise an unholy specter,
a white vision of winter coming,
icy, pale dreams thrumming.
I recklessly stir it into a cup,
unafraid of what might turn up.
The stillness of a perfect day
belies the storms headed this way.
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
Friendly Fairy Tales 