June Prompt: Here, take this. We don't need it anymore.
On a bookshelf at the back, in a room reserved for guests, a pretty vase sits, long-forgotten; a thin mantle of grime and dust concealing its true palette and pedigree. Open-mouthed, it awaits a higher purpose-- the chance to hold and quench the thirst of phlox or rose or mum. It’s all just stuff: collected, neglected-- bits of stuff and nonsense. The need to hold on tight strangles owned and owner both, until what we keep eventually keeps us. Linda Hatfield is a retired teacher who has been writing poetry since she was a teen and is working on penning a CNF/memoir. Her poems have been published in the ARTA magazine, the YYC POP online exhibit, and the Wine Country Writers’ Festival Anthology in 2021. She just received word that two of her poems placed in the Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Contest and will be published this fall. She is a member of the Espresso Poetry Collective, who self-published an anthology called Uncommon Grounds in the midst of the pandemic. When not engaged with the written word, Linda loves to read, travel, garden, and create with paint, fabric and photography. She lives in Calgary with her husband, Rick Smith.
4 Comments
Janey Bevan
1/7/2023 01:06:23 am
Congratulations! I enjoyed your poem so very much, tender and full of observation, with the final line that brings the focus. Thank you so much for sharing it with us.
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Linda Hatfield
19/7/2023 09:00:31 am
Thank you for your kinds words, Janey!
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Heather Bonin MacIntosh
15/10/2023 07:33:43 am
Nicely observed and terrific last line!
Reply
Linda Hatfield
2/11/2023 04:25:40 pm
Thank you! I'm glad it resonated!
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