THE ROAD TAKEN

From The Imaginary Garden comes a prompt imagined by Kerry O'Connor - from Elizabeth Bishop, The Fish, "Our Open Link provides us with the opportunity to write a promptless poem, to plumb the depths of consciousness and present our own visions in the form of poetry."

The detour led us off the highway

and onto a gravel road,
past shacks and crooked trailers.
The gravel in the wheelwells

amplified the quiet in the car—

our children in the back suddenly paying attention.

We’d crossed an invisible border

and entered a country where people sit on porches,

stare at the oddity of traffic, and don’t wave.

The road led us deeper into the woods
and through hills fit for a brochure

but outside the window garbage overflowed the ditch—

discarded tires and old car bumpers,

scraps of metal and broken glass signaling for help.

Dust hung in the air and breached the rolled windows,

and I wanted the highway, manicured rest areas and speed limits.
Our detour through this country inside a country

made our children put down their books

and ask questions we couldn't answer.

And what I remember more than what I wrote is the sense of fear that permeated the car, fear of the unknown and resentment at having been thrown into such an uncomfortable situation. We did not want to see what we were forced to see. And while it's been a while, I still see the vacant stares and feel the stillness that hung in the air.

Flash 55!

I'm  happy to join  this month's Flash 55 now sponsored by The Imaginary Garden with Real Toads.

Purpose

Woman walks down the road
with a scissors in her hand,
kicking a stone with a scissors in her hand.
Bleached skull in the ditch
stones ricochet and skip.
Eye on the road, eye cast to the ditch,
cresting the hill, she chases a stone.
Hips swing and sway
with the scissors in her hand.

Pretty Things

When you change your routine, regardless of reason or desire, it is difficult to re-calibrate your day. A rainy day is a writer's best friend, and a visit to the big lake (Lake Huron, for those of you who aren't familiar with this blog), brings me back to my organic roots.

Oh, how I treasure this life, our lakes, and the written word. Even when I'm never here, I'm always here.

Pretty Things.

A freighter drifts out of the mist.
We watch it crawl along the horizon.
Two girls braid their hair in the shallows

and a woman in a red bathing suit
and pink bandanna looks for something pretty.
A twin engine plane putts overhead

following the shoreline, putt, gasp! putt.
Buoys that mark the safe swimming boundary
bounce as a speed boat skims by.

Sail boats peak the horizon, bothering nobody,
seemingly not moving, but when you look back, they are gone,
swallowed by a lake that makes pretty things.

One ale later, we have to turn our heads to see the freighter
chugging for the straits with determination
and the woman is on her knees, looking for something pretty.