Tag: sand

Wind voices

Wind voices

Wind from Africa,
sand-cloud billows,
shakes the poplars dry,

rattles the water-hiss from the leaves,
leaves only the angry crackle of breaking
and the distant tonguing of flames.

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There are things we never forget

For Paul Brookes’ challenge, 30DaysWild.

Painting by Mary Cassat

There are things we never forget

like skies, windy,
with the cutting edge of spring,
scudding clouds
and the song, drifting earthwards,
of the skylark,

still light, throbbing with heat
and only half-cool shade,
limp leaves,
sunlight sliding like melted butter,
butterflies and bee-buzz,
first blackberries,

and the heavy air, salt-sticky,
loud with gulls and the crash of the waves,
foam-hiss,
the running rippling of outgoing rills,
rolling grains of sifted sand
between bare toes.

Where we trod

I’m almost at the end of Jilly’s Jim Harrison challenge. What’s a few months between friends?

This quote is:

“Only the water is safe” ~

 

Footprints in the sand left where we walked,

traces in the mud of where we trod,

and in the dust our dancesteps, all effaced,

while from some lofty cloud, the finger points

at the mess of lives, of mirror sand.

Your handprint on the handle of the door,

breath that mists the window of the train,

the word you wrote backwards for me to read—

love, it said—before you turned away,

and rolled away on dull gunmetal rails,

your perfume lingers, oil daub on my face.

 

I wade through water now,

my tread silent as fishes,

my passing leaves no trace,

no tears cling to this slickness.

Like sand between the fingers,

and grains of star seeds falling,

no words have yet been written,

in the story of the river.

Microfiction: Boredom

This is the photo prompt for this week’s Three Line Tales from Sonya.

Photo credit Fabio Rose

tlt14.jpg

“Is this all there is? Just a load of sodding sand?” He stared in dismay at the dunes running like an arid sea to the horizon.

 

“What did you expect?” she asked wearily. “Polar bears? It’s a desert.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t expect it to be so sorta monotonous. Giddyup,” he said to the camel, “let’s get this over with.”

 

But the camel snorted, sank to the ground and arranged itself back to the rising wind, as the first plumes of sand rose along the razor-edge crest of the dune, and the raging orange demon of the desert storm whipped the air into a whining, gritty hell.