https://annegeephoto.com/2025/04/12/lens-artists-challenge344-abandoned/
Photo Credit: D. Hammock
Abandoned
Grass sways by the abandoned house
I cower inside––a trembling mouse
exposed to the bright flash of day
when all else has gone away.
First my father, then my mum
go away and never come
again to shelter, feed or love.
Life is a winging mourning dove
that makes us and then flies away,
making green grass into hay,
the flush of life and then decay,
a harsh light turning shadows gray.
Life swells like paint–a curling blister.
It peels away my older sister,
then also takes my younger brother
and never comes to bring another.
A shadow passes over me.
A sparrowhawk. I dare not flee,
for life is mainly perilous.
It makes us just to feed on us.
Outside I see the preening cat.
It waits for me––patient and fat
in tall grass by the abandoned house
wherein I hide–a trembling mouse.
The MVB prompt for today is Abandoned. (This is a repost of a poem I wrote years ago.)
(Click on photos to enlarge.)
The first photo is of my grandparents and two aunts and their families. The third photo is my dad and his cousins, my grandmother Jane and her sister Susie and my oldest sister Betty Jo as a child.
The Old Homestead
Its barn is thick with echoed thrust
of wings long faded into dust.
The barn owl hunts no rodent ghosts,
no drumming wings the still air boasts.
Those boards you walked now topped with blooms
of mildew, mold and wild mushrooms
that cling and spread and flood the room
with peaceful quiet and sombre gloom.
What footfalls that you might have made
are soon absorbed and so they fade.
Your presence, vital long ago
barely interrupts the flow
of time that passes here so slow.
No lowing cattle, no rooster’s crow.
No bleat of lamb, no donkey’s bray.
All that once was has passed away.
For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 590 the prompt words are: barns thick clung topped blooms walked spread drumming faded hunt peace floods
I was nominated by my friend Konstanze Venus to post one favorite travel picture a day for ten days without explanation, then to nominate someone else to participate. That’s 10 days, 10 travel pictures, and 10 nominations. I may not make it to the end of ten days, but for now I nominate Derrick Knight . Some people I nominate may be on Facebook and others on blogs. Just post wherever you wish but link to me so I know you have. If you are not interested, no problema.
Nowhere in the rules does it say you can’t guess where the photo was taken and that I can’t agree if you are right, say keep guessing if you aren’t.
Go HERE to see my Travel Challenge, Day 5.
For Cee’s Challenge: B and W Houses.
The prompt word for the weekly photo challenge was “Nostalgia.’
All of these photos were taken on Prince Edward Island, Canada.
Photo Credit: D. Hammock
Abandoned
Grass sways by the abandoned house
I cower inside––a trembling mouse
exposed to the bright flash of day
when all else has gone away.
First my father, then my mum
go away and never come
again to shelter, feed or love.
Life is a winging mourning dove
that makes us and then flies away,
making green grass into hay,
the flush of life and then decay,
a harsh light turning shadows gray.
Life swells like paint–a curling blister.
It peels away my older sister,
then also takes my younger brother
and never comes to bring another.
A shadow passes over me.
A sparrowhawk. I dare not flee,
for life is mainly perilous.
It makes us just to feed on us.
Outside I see the preening cat.
It waits for me––patient and fat
in tall grass by the abandoned house
wherein I hide–a trembling mouse.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 