If Beets Were Blue

Having suffered a tangle of weeds

as the grass shrivels and dies

their shoulders emerge

pink, golden and red.

Breeching the glacier-laid loam

they broaden and grow

sweeter for frost

and the equinox sun.

Come see my beets

like rosy-cheeked girls

in red skirts and pink scarves

reclusive and shy

as the red-breasted finch

that flees from the jay.

But I'm glad beets aren't blue.

Aren't you?

A little fun for the turning of the sun. And for open link night at dVerse  the Poet's Pub 

Ghost Of The Dinner Bell

October corn the hue of the tumbleweeds

that choked my sister's desert fence,

rustles and bows to the toll of the bell.

But the one who pulled the rope

and filled the plates fills only dreams

and the bell lies on the cellar grate.

I wrote this poem (a Quadrille) for dVerse, the poets pub. Quadrille are poems in 44 words. This week's prompt, which is to take the meaning of one word and transform it into 44, is BELL.

Here in Michigan, we saw snow yesterday, and with the corn still standing outside my window and my dad's dinner bell (and his dad's before) still erect and majestic in my mind's eye, I composed my bell poem. Thanks for reading. Visit dVerse for more poems about bells. There are more meanings than I had realized, jarring forgotten memory.