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Fifty pounds of bark
I coon hunted once. The County Judge picked me up about dark. I’da never found ‘em at night. The dogs cost more than their pickup trucks. Coon huntin’ is at night. There’s no shooting—no hunting by humans at all. Dogs ride in truck beds and jump out and take off when they park. There’s usually a fire. We smoke and maybe have a nip. The barking begins. Old Larry says, “It sounds like ol’ Blue got one treed.” The dogs come back without a racoon, and everybody heads home ‘bout midnight. That’s it!
Look both ways to those people who see things differently.
Mind the gaps. But leave the dogs and coons alone.
Click on this graphic to link over to Sammi’s blog and more loquacious 88 word wonders.
Sing It!
With a repertoire
hundreds of songs long, mostly bogarted
from other featherbeds,
(mock, yeah, -ing, yeah)—
as you plagiarize music from lesser songsters,
some people think you’re twenty other birds,
you, my constant yardbird companion,
the most loquacious of creatures
(mock-yeah-ing-yeah-bird-yeah)
mockingbird,
king of harassing selfish bullies,
the loneliest of bellowing bachelors,
master of many colored personalities
tempting ladies who want
to buy me a mockingbird,
“and if that mocking bird don’t sing”
(for a proper mocker, no such thing)
“she gonna buy me a diamond ring.”
“whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa…”
Look both ways in music and life.
Mind the gaps in the birds’ nests in the backyard bushes.
***
Certainly, one of the (if not THE) most famous of married couple duets, Mockingbird sung by Carly Simon and James Taylor. Mockingbird Lyrics & Music were originally by Inez & Charlie Foxx (Added lyrics by James Taylor).
For mid-September, our fantastic Mistress of Friday Fictioneering fantasy, Rochelle, poked us with the picture of Pincushion Hakea flowers provided through the good graces of Trish Nankeville.
The lovely photo inspired my memory, and I considered a quote by Henry David Thoreau that Rochelle has posted on her blog in the past, it’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. Some say it was written as, “The question is not what you look at, but what you see.” (From the essay, “Walking.”) Whatever—close enough. What you see is a good theme.
I’m fascinated by the work of people who see around us the things I miss: the artists and photographers who’s work I often borrow to enrich my world. Through their art, I get to see what they see: a lovely natural world.
Click on Trish’s photo of the red pincushion flowers to be transplanted into Rochelle’s blog where you can learn how to set your roots into the Wednesday, Friday Fictioneers writer community.
Genre: Autobiographical Fiction
Title: Thoreau’s Pincushion Hakea
Word Count: 100
***
We walked the path near the lake. Jay was a talented amateur photographer who did all his own film processing.
He said, “It’s like hunting. Look there. What do you see?”
I replied, “Weeds and stickers.”
We knelt and he spritzed water on the weeds.
“Look closer.”
I looked. “Wow. I didn’t even see the flowers much less that spider’s web. Now it all glistens.”
He said, “Everything is a subject or a scene. I use other things, lighting, angles, and point of view to enhance it. I do more in the lab. It’s the beauty of nature artfully staged.”
***
Look both ways. What you see matters.
Mind the gaps for the hidden fruits of nature’s beauty.
Click on Waken Pond to float over to the FF squares page where more wonderful stories are linked.
Soldiers, farmers, and lovers all seek the same shelter. Protection from nature’s miseries is ubiquitously sought and taken. Adapt or die. Respect not given wisely results in lessons learned only for brief periods.
Her glorious beauty shows in the warm sunrise that follows the night’s frightful, unsheltered story. The singing bird allows for the climax of thunder as from lightening, all seek cover. Even snakes warm in the sun.
Rain or dry seasons, Nature judges the foolish lover, the seeker of warmth without cover, harshly. Live and learn; learn and live.
respect nature first
awesome beauty is the beast
take cover or die
Look both ways when seeking escape or shelter.
Better to mind the gaps and wait for the storm to pass
than to win the latest Darwin Award.
at the park, the
San Gabriel River slow flows as
trees, grass, and gardens grow,
ducks and squirrels search
while dogs wander;
people—few kiddos play,
adults do nothing—just relax while
idle athletic fields recover, empty
picnic tables under shade; and
boulders and benches go unused,
feel the summer zephyr, nice,
some souls are alone, but
I’m with you.
It’s Wednesday. Recover.
Relax. Everything else
can wait.
Look both ways — up and down stream;
mind the gaps for crossings over to another side.
Sometimes just go and be — hear, feel, and wait and see.
I think the a/c has been running since May. It’s August now, driving hotly through a summer of record temperatures and daily threats of more Texas power grid snafus. I just missed being born in this horrible month, but I know several who are so saddled. Yes. I should be grateful. Maybe I am, but.
I’m also somewhat non-clinically depressed and worried, not about me even though if I ain’t dead in ten years, I will be in twelve and if I leave the world better, will it be good enough?
Fourteen billion eyes, ears, and feet, for now; and I only ask for a couple dozen or so to be alright. Go ahead. Ask. How’s that workin’ for me?
Half of humanity seems nuts and hates the other half who hate back. There’s a hypothetical, conjectural god who seems completely cavalier about it all and is dismissal about unbridled slavery, too. They insist I stock credence and believe. What? Why?
The most important thing, apparently, comes conveniently after, and it’s not heaven. It’s hell. That’s where August takes all three-hundred and sixty-five days and nothing was last or is next and some guy keeps asking, what if this is as good as it gets? Ever?
Sweet dreams are made of this,
Amen to that,
Bill
PS: Everybody’s looking (both ways) for something. Mind the gaps for what some of them want to do. Who am I to disagree?
I woke to a surprise this morning when I discovered that the Maven of freestyle, the Mistress of the breaststroke, and the Madam of fictioneering, Rochelle, had slipped in a prompt photo I took out in the wilds of my daughter and son-in-law’s west Texas grange.
Click on the remnants of the greenhouse to spread over to Rochelle’s blog camp so you can grow your own stories of 100-word micro-fiction.
Click on my prompt photo to go to Rochelle’s page with all the fixin’s.
Genre: Horticultural Fiction
Title: Greenman Phish-heads
Word Count: 100
***
What happened here?
The well-water went bad years back. The plants died. Now it’s only what grows naturally: mesquite, cactus, and other wild things. The Green Man makes his home in there now.
What’s over there?
That’s Uncle Billy’s Phish Camp. That’s Julie’s cat house over to the left, and that big building is the main house.
Green Man isn’t real.
He’s real. Come back next Spring and you’ll see his magic. It’s beautiful. Get in the truck and I’ll show you the business end of the Greenman rebirth. Maybe you’ll meet him. It’ll make you a believer forever.
***
Look both ways and learn to grow new beginnings.
Mind the gaps as you turn tragedy to treasure.
Greenman is all thumbs.
It’s never too late.
Click on Billy or Julie (in the current Greenman Nursery) to read other fantastic stories inspired by the prompt photo.
Click on the west Texas Green Man to learn more than you ever wanted to know about him.
Click the graphic for Sammi’s page with links to other 67-word wonders.
Texas is not a State
of sameness.
Variations abound.
What animal husbandry
and agriculture
ain’t changed.
Yonder are
the Gulf of Mexico Coast
Great Planes,
Interior Lowlands,
Basins, and Ranges
overlapping with
Pineywoods,
prairies, marshes,
savannahs;
south, rolling, and
high plains;
storybook names
like
Trans-Pecos;
mountain ranges
like
Franklin, Chalk, Chinati,
Chisos, Christmas, and Davis;
Guadalupe, Palo Pinto,
del Carmen,
Diablo and Vieja.
Texas is many places.
Look, “Highway 6 goes both ways” *.
Mind it all; the gaps, the plains, and the mountains.
There is not another place like Texas.
*Texas Highway 6 runs 476 miles, from the Oklahoma border to Galveston, Texas. The quote is a pejorative quip or gibe at Texas A&M University for complainers who dislike the place. It’s like don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. In other words, the same road that brought you here can take you away in two directions.
Click on the graphic for more 54-word wonders and Sammi’s blog page.
Damn Reality
Here I go again reading
Bukowski’s clear vision voice
poems lacking picturesque pastoral principles,
with plainly different aesthetic dispositions
of attitude nobody loves.
We know that deep inside,
his way is part of us;
part of him, hides in us.
How many ways
can we paint the same picture,
or tell the same story.
Look both ways reading anyone’s poems.
Mind the gaps hiding deep within when writing your own.
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