Travel Theme: The Four Elements

What does Ailsa of Where’s My Backpack want to see this week? Pictures featuring earth, air, fire, and water – the ancient “four elements”. Here’s my selection -

Earth – Badlands, South Dakota

Air – Sailboat braving the North Sea

Fire – Blacksmith in Williamsburg, Virginia

Water – Hurrying downhill on the Olympia Peninsula in Washington

(Click on any of the pictures to see the gallery one image at a time.)

Belated NaPoWriMo – Borderlands

(NaPoWriMo was in April. I started the month planning to attempt poetry at least some of the time…but April turned out to be a high-stress and therefore low-creativity month. Ah well. I can still try out some of the suggested prompts, right?)

This is a poem of sorts inspired by the prompt for April 20 – write something using at least five words from a list.*

Borderlands

So show me, where does dry land turn to ocean?
The edge is slippery, elusive, lost.
Beyond the shore, the quahogs mimic stones.
Upwind, the forest generates owls.
Let’s quarry shells and build ourselves a house
Where owls swim silent overhead all night.

* owl
generator
abscond
upwind
squander
clove
miraculous
dunderhead
cyclops
willowy
mercurial
seaweed
gutter
non-pareil
artillery
salt
curl
ego
rodomontade
elusive
twice
ghost
cheese
cowbird
truffle
svelte
quahog
bilious

Weekly Photo Challenge: Escape

This time, the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge asks for pictures symbolizing “escape” – either showing the feeling of being trapped and in need of escape, or showing release and freedom.

To me, this sculpture looks as if the red-orange shapes are being launched upward to fly freely away.

Friday Fictioneers: Out of the Woods

It’s not quite Friday yet, not for another eight hours, but that’s okay. I’m posting my 100 (and a bit) word Friday Fictioneers story now. You can too – just go to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’s Fictioneers page, read the explanation, look at the photo prompt. And share your inspiration with the world.

Out of the Woods

These hills used to be full of farms. Full of people. Now they’re gone. Can’t even get bars on your phone. I wouldn’t be hiking here if this was still somebody’s field – they’d notice and come chase me out. If only.

Old stone wall. Got to sit down. I’ll, I’ll check if the strips of shirt around my ankle are holding. Check my cell. Still no bars.

Time to move on. Something white up ahead? Fence. And over there, that was a house.

And this was a road, once. Now it’s just a gap in the trees. Well, easier walking. Limping.

Check the phone first. Wait – two bars, three, here in the open?

“Hello?”

* * *

Please let me know what you think. I love comments!

Wordless Wednesday

Weekly Photo Challenge: Philadelphia Patterns

(Actually, I’m not sure whether the “patterns” challenge is still open or not. My computer was unusable for a couple of days, and I’ve barely started to go through my backlog of email. But even if there’s a newer topic by now, at least I can come up with a post on this subject after missing half a week – so here goes.)

I photographed these patterns in Philadelphia last summer, but each of them is only a small piece of the original picture. Can you guess what the real subject was?

Pattern 1

Pattern 2

Pattern 3

Pattern 4

And here you are – the uncropped photos:

A bus shelter

An apartment building

A church door

A fountain in Rittenhouse Square

Friday Fictioneers: Heart’s Desire

What’s a Fictioneer, especially a Friday one? We’re a (very) loose group of bloggers who write stories (more or less) a hundred words long inspired (one way or another) by the photos that the one and only Rochelle Wisoff-Fields posts every Wednesday. How do people qualify to become Fictioneers? Check Rochelle’s post, write your story, post it, and add it to Rochelle’s InLinkz page of the week. It’s really that simple. Want to try?

While you think it over, take a look at my story – comments are enthusiastically welcome.

Heart’s Desire

Outside, the sign says “Heart’s Desire”. Inside, jumbled junk. So I confronted the blonde at the cash register.

“Whatever you want, we sell it,” she said. “If you can find it.”

“Sure you do. Like what?”

“Gold, jewels – cheap. Cures for whatever you’ve got. That out-of-print book you lost two moves ago.”

“Youth?”

She grinned. “The lighting in here’s very flattering, and everybody leaves happy and hopeful. And that’s the best part of being young, right?”

“True love?”

“Is that what you want? Well. Magic, we have – and with magic and a little persistence, who knows?”

Who knows, indeed? We’ve been running the store together for years now.