HSLC Writing Group: January 2012

Write Now!

This blog started as a 'Lenten Writing Project', where we wrote each day in Lent. Now that Summer is here, let's keep up the discipline of writing with a weekly writing challenge! A prompt will be posted each week and anyone is welcome to join in and post their writing here or participate just by reading it.

Every writer has their own special light to add to this blog and all of your writing offerings are appreciated, whether poetry, prose, essay, thoughts, lists or comments and encouragement.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

The Tree

There is a tree in our backyard

That insists on showing us up.

stereotypical competitive neighbor

Our house is two stories high

But it stands a little bit taller than our house.

We have a big Christmas tree inside

That looks feeble and puny compared to our “neighbor’s” imposing conical structure.

Its ornaments nourish the neighborhood wildlife.

While ours simply hang. Useless.

If we have friends over to admire our decorated Christmas symbol

Continuously crying out for water for its severed trunk

The tree outside has a huge fan club of thousands of birds and creatures

A peace offering: our homemade birdfeeders

Hang rotten

Neglected

From a few of its lower branches

While the upper portion – the aviary VIP lounge –

Is alive with twittering and flapping.

Once we had a birdfeeder resting on our deck railing

But the wind blew it off.

Was it the wind?

Or did a bigger birdfeeder bully it – knocking it out of consideration?

Best not to compete with Mother Nature.

She always wins.

~Ruth Hanley

Monday, January 9, 2012

Surprise!

He knew what he wanted
and he hoped to get it for Christmas!
He actually had a whole list of things he would enjoy
but his real desire was for the item on the top,
the first on the list!
That was the one his anticipation was set on
and he was eager!

He hadn’t written his list on paper,
it was all in his head.
He had made an annual list every year
but it had been at least 10 years
since he had written one out!
If you write out a list
someone might find it.
They might go digging around
and sleuth it out.
Or, they might just “accidently” find it,
opps!

He wasn’t’ trying
to make the whole “gift giving thing”
any harder than it needed to be.
He didn’t want to make life difficult for anyone.
He didn’t want to make life complicated at all.

It took his wife seven years to figure it out.
She fretted and fumed
fussed and fidgeted
until she figured out…
that the thing on the top of his gift list…
the thing that he wanted the most…
was the same thing every year!
What he really wanted….

was to be surprised!

So he quit writing the list down,
she didn’t need it
and he was always surprised!
And he got what he wanted!
~Pr. Larry Morris

How to Post

1.) Click on ‘comments’ at the end of the prompt

2.) Add your work in the comments box and select ‘anonymous’ from the drop-down box above (don’t forget to put your name at the end of your writing piece though! Or you can comment as a different user - anonymous is just the easiest way.)

3.) You’ll have to “prove you’re not a robot” by writing the words you see and then select the option to publish your comment

NOTE: the comments capacity is 4,500 characters per comment (approximately 1 word doc page) If your piece is larger than that, just divide it up into two (or more) comments and post both. We really want to read what you have!