Posted by

Brenda Davis Harsham

Posted on

February 14, 2014

Posted under

Holiday

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33 Comments

Happy Valentine’s Day!!

There is no key to happiness.
The door is always open.

— Mother Teresa

Love comes to the door,
Peeking through the keyhole
Slipping through the letterbox,
Making its demands,
Leaving footprints on your clean floor.

Life is never the same.
Happiness follows with friends:
Laughter, feelings of flying,
Stomach turns somersaults,
Spinning in dizzy, dancing circles.

Then those friends grow up with you,
Happiness turning into contentment,
Laughter growing into smiles.
Spinning somersaults drift into a slow waltz.
Love settles into sharing and commiserations galore.

First our hearts are on our sleeves,
And then they are on our door.
In secret, they flutter still, quietly.
The sound of a roughened voice,
The slide of stubble against a smooth cheek.

Happy Valentine’s Day !!
To all those who love and are loved, whatever makes your heart flutter,
It’s a day to pause and be grateful for those tiny wings. 🙂

Warmly, Brenda

Posted by

Brenda Davis Harsham

Posted on

February 10, 2014

Posted under

Poetry

Comments

33 Comments

I Can Fly

Sunlights slants through the trees, blinding me.
Smoke rises from the chimney carrying an acrid scent.
Wind showers me with sparkling fairy dust from the trees
Making me blink, blink, but then I feel like I can fly.

Posted by

Brenda Davis Harsham

Posted on

February 7, 2014

Posted under

Humor, Photography, Poetry

Comments

45 Comments

Captured for the First Time!

Used with Kind Permission of Tracy at Wanderlust

Never before photographed in the wild!
The elusive, secretive Ice Snails —

Ice Snails clinging
Before the big race
Little hearts singing
Hoping for speed and grace.

Cloaking devices active —
Only frost fairies see snails —
Rainbow refractive.
Snails leave glistening trails.

One will finish first,
Blest by the Frost Queen,
Putting on speed in a burst,
Winning rights to preen.

Fairies celebrate with hot cider,
Made from Autumn’s windfalls,
Berry tart and mushroom slider —
Feasting and fun within Fairy halls.

No wild life were harming in the making of this post. 😉

Inspired by Tracy’s Ice photographs at Wanderlust. Check them out, they are awesome!

Posted by

Brenda Davis Harsham

Posted on

February 7, 2014

Posted under

Humor, Photography

Comments

27 Comments

I’ve got my Eye on You

Anybody seen my other eye?

Posted by

Brenda Davis Harsham

Posted on

February 3, 2014

Posted under

Photography, Poetry

Comments

34 Comments

Weather Witch

Tempers ran high when the snow started to fall.
Frog would not come out of his palace at all.
Orla Fairy drank cup after cup of tea.
Jake the Forest Snip, belligerent was he.

Down the slippery village road he stalked.
Approaching all the closed doors: Bang! bang! he knocked.
A Siberian tiger paced and snarled,
Snow piled onto his fur, nails old and gnarled.

Forest Snip banged on the Weather Witch’s door,
Calling out, “What are you thinking, you great bore!”
“You tell her,” said the old tiger with a grin.
“Stop your banging!” came a shrill voice from within.

Out with demands came a magnificent mouse:
“Stop making a racket in front of my house!”
“We all talked and decided, it would be spring!”
Jake the Forest Snip’s words had a rousing ring.

Fairy Orla put down her tea, now resigned.
Outside, she said: “Mags, an accord was designed.”
“Don’t you dare call me Mags,” the Weather Witch grumped.
“But why did you change your mind? We are all stumped,”

Fairy Orla inquired. “Dear, we all see snow.”
“Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, you know!
How can I ignore that?” asked the Weather Witch.
The tiger’s black and white striped fur gave a twitch.

He growled: “Don’t tell me we have to wait six weeks!”
Fairy Orla sadly brushed snow from her cheeks.
“All this cold for a Pennsylvania rodent?”
Fairy Orla snapped, ending quite despondent.

The witch scratched her mouse whiskers with tiny nails.
“There might be a way, but if done wrong it fails.
Gather some helleborus, ginger root, moss,
Shrew coat clippings, raven feathers, grassy floss,”

The Witch listed, hugging her pink coat tightly.
“Gather all that, my friends, gather it sprightly.
A brew will I prepare that will end this storm,”
Gravely she spoke, looking at snowflakes, forlorn.

All but the ginger root came quickly to hand.
Not one could be found on fairy village land.
They bartered for roots with five passing tinkers,
But Forest Snip lost them dicing with drinkers.

Now all were snarling at Jake the Forest Snip.
He left to go south on an extended trip.
More and more snowflakes drifted quietly down.
“Each thing has its time,” quoth the mouse with a frown.

Posted by

Brenda Davis Harsham

Posted on

February 3, 2014

Posted under

Photography, Poetry, Tales for Kids of All Ages

Comments

34 Comments

Beauty in the Broken Places

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

— Leonard Cohen, Anthem
Read remaining lyrics here.

The broken parts have the deepest beauty.
A road is just a road until you stop and see a turtle hiding.
The crack in perfection is where new life takes root.
Magic is in how you look at things.

Posted by

Brenda Davis Harsham

Posted on

January 22, 2014

Posted under

Poetry

Comments

26 Comments

White Witch in Winter

Conjure me a warm day;
Bend holly into a wreath.
Leave trinkets where they lay,
Intertwine grasses from the heath.

Weave in some dried lavender,
Intersperse some winter berries,
Neglect not magical provender,
Add a curl of thyme for the fairies.

In the gloaming, carry it nigh.
“With some warmth, you’ll be blessed,”
Spake the White Witch’s soft sigh.
“I take with joy these things for my nest.”

Notes: Inspired by the Sunday Whirl, Wordle 144.

Posted by

Brenda Davis Harsham

Posted on

January 15, 2014

Posted under

Humor, Poetry

Comments

36 Comments

We’re not scared!

To the drooling snow monster,
who swallowed my thoughts of spring whole,
the sun will be coming for you,
in a month or two.

A few budding artists were inspired to draw their own snow monsters:

By M.H., aged 5, via his mom at Complexity through Joy

Coloring Page by Kyle H., aged 9.

Note: Thanks to Janna at Complexity through Joy for the kind permission for use of her snow monster.

The church is near but the road is all ice; the tavern is far but I’ll walk very carefully. Russian Proverb

Posted by

Brenda Davis Harsham

Posted on

January 8, 2014

Posted under

Humor, Poetry

Comments

36 Comments

The Best Evening Look

A look that never goes out of style: the classic sunset.
Each tree takes her time dressing,
Wrapping herself in an ermine stole for a winter fete,
Mother Nature extends each a blessing.

Continue reading →

Posted by

Brenda Davis Harsham

Posted on

January 6, 2014

Posted under

Poetry

Comments

31 Comments

Grasses Sing Haiku

snowflakes fly sideways
grasses sing in the fierce wind
nature bows to storm

Note: Embracing the classical beginnings of haiku, as this author understands them, and as described in the post: Carpe Diem Goes Back to Its Roots #4 by Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. I cannot hope to explain haiku better, so I just link in zen appreciation. Peace and Joy!

Posted by

Brenda Davis Harsham

Posted on

January 5, 2014

Posted under

Fairy Tale for Boys, Fairy Tale for Girls, Tales for Kids of All Ages, Young Fairy Tale

Comments

46 Comments

The Dragon and the Phoenix

Yangshao never knew what woke him from his thousand year sleep under the frozen taiga. His muscular, golden legs and long limber back snapped and creaked. His lungs filled with crisp, clean air, as he emerged from deep under the ice. Brilliant lights at the far horizon drew his sharp dragon eyes south. The night sky filled with swirling reds, yellows and oranges, and these colors reminded him of his best friend, Xin-Yin, the Phoenix. Brilliant blue star shapes expanded, filling the sky as the other colors faded.

Yangshao’s back rippled side to side like a snake as he flew up and over the larch and birch forest, his vertebrae cracking like saplings in an ice storm. His golden claws clenched and released, easing their stiffness, then reached up to itch between his horns. His whiskers trembled in the cold wind, and he started to feel alive, his senses filling with the forest fragrance. He brushed the tips of snow-laden spruce trees for the joy the showering powder gave him. He felt his magic renewed from his long years of slumber.

His senses expanded over the lands searching for Xin-Yin. Where was she? Continue reading →

Posted by

Brenda Davis Harsham

Posted on

January 4, 2014

Posted under

Poetry

Comments

43 Comments

Back to the Beginning Haībun

Picture used by kind permission of Ines Williamson

In the yellow light of a new night, the cobblestones echo my thoughts back to me. “Why are you here?” Here is where I started, in a small apartment past that iron gate. The first sunshine I ever remember seeing flooded into my tiny room there on the third floor.

My friends and I played stickball and tackle-tommy in the Magic Between. That special time between school and dinner is what I miss most, that magical time when parents were busy and kids could play. I remember the Between as one big blur, like an endless summer day: my homerun, Jack’s skinned knee and when Bats broke his arm swinging over the fence instead of walking through like everyone else.

I rang in the New Year with my folks in their new place across town, but this golden gateway is where the little-me, my memory, still lives. I remember when Stefan’s snake escaped, and Mrs. Nolan came screaming down her stairs, after finding it curled under her stove.

Is home on these cobbles? Or in the window glass I looked through on a night like tonight? My sister and I wished on a star. Wishes are secret, but mine was to fly in an airplane one day, to be inside one leaving a contrail wide enough to be seen all over the city, knowing people were looking up at the roar I made. Then my sister and I realized the only star in the sky was moving, not a star at all, probably an airplane. Do wishes made on planes come true? This one did.

I came back to my hometown on an airplane, home to see my folks, so happy in their new apartment, all their things reduced and rearranged. My sister is busy with her three kids and their teenage angst, but she came to see me and our parents. I don’t think she really saw me. We barely spoke. I couldn’t think what to say to her. I wonder what her wish was, all those years ago. I know better than to ask. Now a new airplane will take me home to Boston, my other home.

home is in my heart
not here on this cobbled street
but I hear its echo

Inspired by the first Līgo Haībun Challenge of 2014, part of a picture prompt from Ese at Ese’s Voice.