My first post for





The weather was grey and threatening rain, when these photo's were snapped, so here are the G's for ABC Wednesday,

Grey clouds gloom, and grey trunks hoist leaves into gusty wind.

 A fallen tree, and that is not a piece of orange grafted into the grey log.  A little piece of fungi best left in the forest.

Grass neatly tucks itself into the trunk of a grey box gum tree.

This tree stump, cut before its prime, is now gouged and eaten by white ants.  No-one wants the wood for heating too much grit and mud, but the white ants don't mind.













Good gracious what is this? Looks like an alien invasion growing on this gum tree.

Bird Walk

Metal is strong, tough, and makes a good roof.  One thing I didn't realise is that birds land on a roof, like I placed landing lights and a sealed pathway on an above ground runway, and they find a reason to hang around up there, like they have a social group meeting.

Whatever they discuss makes at least one bird, scratch and peck, peck peck, peck, peck peck peck, the rhythm is relentless,  and today's bird has been on the roof for the last half an hour, yes, I have kept an eye on the clock.  I wanted to know just how long one bird, can spend on my good solid metal roof.

This last month is first time I noticed that the bird population has a fascination for the roof.  The only reason I am home at the moment is a slow down in sales, so I have time off,  the boss said he would call when he needed me, so I wait for a call.  And while I wait I listen to the bird walking on the roof.

No-one wants to do much about the bird noise, the take offs and landings and pecking.  Off course the others in this house don't hear anything, they think that I'm nuts.  Maybe I am, I just wish that the bird was walking on the moon, that was silent up there, and I don't mind that the birds walk all over the roof, I just want silent footprints, like it was on the moon.

"Turn the TV on love," says Bob, when I complain about the noise.  The only trouble with that is the programs on TV, either I don't like them, or I have seen them before, and mostly once was enough.  The News is okay, and so are NCIS and CSI, and Criminal Minds.

Which reminds me, Bob said he had something on his mind, or in his mind, never mind, think the bird with its whacking is getting to me.  And now I think I'm hearing a truck outside.  I'm not expecting anything, or anyone, but that sounds like someone is outside.

Well I'll be.

"Hi love, says Bob. "Thought of something to muffle the sound of birds on the roof, by tomorrow arvo you wont hear a bird on the roof, not after the insulation batts have been installed."




for Inspiration Monday:BeKindRewrite

House Sitting

Big Room, 1948, by Andrew Wyeth 

The clock chimes 

two strikes for the hour

and now that the cobwebs

dust and ash 

from vacant care

are gone

starved for fire's renewal

the warmth of company

a chair pulled close

a good book

my room waits.

 

Under The Bridge

Mag 131

Under Windsor Bridge, 1912, by Adolphne Valette

He had found the picture on a trash and treasure stall.  It was a copy, he knew that, but it was the bridge.  Janice didn't like the picture, "You shouldn't keep something like that, it will only bring you sorrow."  Janice was big on advise, he usually ignored.  

He could see that she was convinced of her view, there is a look, a stance, and you just know there is no point to argue, the best course in that situation is to take an offensive position.  He had done that, and found that Janice took offence.

The picture stayed with him, no-one but he could understand that the bridge, the place, was where he found and lost the love of his life.  

Roads Less Travelled.

Prompt

Felecia sat on the sofa watching the TV screen flash through scenes of Kojak.  If she was asked she would not have been able to tell anyone what the episode was about.  The TV was company, something she needed, but the TV was not able to give her an answer and perhaps no-one could really give her an answer.

For the first time in her life she had to make a decision.  A decision to keep going to the job she had known for fifteen years or take the offered payout.  Felecia wanted the world to stay as it was, but even if she stayed at the job she knew the world was about to change.  Three of her workmates had said yes to the payout already and that was going to change the place, she would miss them.

Then there would be less work, the boss had said that was a guarantee, what he didn't say was that work might scale down to no work.  That's why her workmates had taken the money.  

She sighed, wondering if she had a choice?  "Take the payout," Bruce had said, when she phoned him to let him know what was happening.  So very simple for him, he didn't mind life on a less travelled road.  "It will be okay," he assured her. "The payout gives you a chance to look around and maybe do something different for a bit."  

She had wanted a longer conversation, but Bruce had a meeting and couldn't talk.  That was five hours ago, must be a long meeting she thought.

Her phone rang, it was Bruce, "Hi," she said.

"Felecia, take the payout, pack a bag, and be waiting for me to pick you up tomorrow afternoon.  I'm going on one of my tours and I'd like you to come with me."

Felecia was stunned, she hadn't expected that kind of offer, she wondered if it was the offer she wanted? Did she want to be with Bruce more than a changing unhappy workplace?  Seconds ticked, she crossed her fingers and decided to leap of her well travelled road "Okay," she said.  "I'd love to travel with you for a while."

Travel Assurance

'Be careful', warns Almon. 'Wrap yourself in woollen cloth; cover every part of your skin.  Under no circumstance, remove your eye glasses, the nymphs are tricksters and will make sure your eyes see fog thick and solid as unspun fleece.

The stories you hear about the ones touched by nymphs begin and end here, in the sheoak forest.  Be careful, the nymphs are invisible.  Their touch causes human form to dwindle into a lace, thin, curvaceous, binding its victim in threads, thin as hair, to the alcoves governed by the nymphs. 

Do not under estimate the strength of this thread, it is stronger than any fabric or metal we can make, the thread is a chain that gives the touched ones only a past.  Sorrow exists in memories, make sure that you have a future, the woollen cloth that now covers you may prickle and scratch your skin, but this quality keeps the nymphs at distance.

Hear the trees.  The trees are not the only ones that sigh in this forest.  The human prisoners also sigh with the trees.  Listen to their howls ricochet around the lands narrow contours, no maps can record their spin.  Only the wind can carry the laments higher, which only increases the lamenter's misery.  Their cry is not heard by their loved ones.

Remember, the nymphs are tricksters, your senses will be flooded with sounds that cry, and laments will weave a desire to rescue the touched.  Your ears will scream with the desire for relief and rescue.

Do not trust what you hear, even when your eyes see the touched, this is the nymphs, the touched cannot leave their alcove, once touched you cannot be freed, not yet, our scientists have not been able to unravel the strands of thread.

Instead, trust in the garments you wear, trust the prickle and the scratch.  While you feel this discomfort, you have not been touch.  If you are touched you will find yourself fade and dwindle, and bound to the nymphs who will carry you to an alcove.

This is your pathway instruction.  Now the instruction is finished we can start our journey, by nightfall we will be in the granite country, there we can rest for the night.  We will remember the touched, in the field of names, this is the journey every initiate of science takes, knowing the question is the first step in finding the answer.' 

Soon

You see the moon

and wonder

if you are the first

to question it's age

it's older than you

still no-one calls it old

the moon can even

take a night off

and soon you hear

there is a new moon

as if there has been

a new model released

you wish that

it was as easy

for you to become

new every twenty eight days

because soon

you are told

you will wear out

it is called age

and so you wish

to be like the moon

no-one will call you old

but soon you will

see the moon

and think

it has come too soon.

Turn Over

Attachments to animals can be made before one realises that a bond has formed and even then, you may not discover that there is a link until that link is broken.  Hurt, because you have been left to feel the emptiness of a place once filled and because you did not give permission for the loss to happen.

Sadness, yes, for self, left to sit and cry, bemoan the why of the situation and falter when what others want is strength and the assurance that ‘she’ll be right mate’, but all you can think of is that the situation just can’t be right.  

Then you reach a point where emotion is no more, you do what the diary had planned for the day, simply because you can’t think of anything else to do.  Days convert too weeks, just when you think you have formed your new unemotional being you hear a noise in your closet and feel, frightened.  

Hoping that some nasty rodent has not invaded your space you release some of the self-sorrow and plan an attack.  Opening the closet door as quick as you can, you shift the hanging clothes, because you can hear the noise coming from the bottom left corner, and when the clothes move, they reveal Tabitha.  She is no rodent to be demolished.  You thought Tabitha the second cat had left you too, because you had not been good company.

Beside Tabitha, you notice a wriggling mass that you cannot resist, and because you have not been your best lately you find some manners, and ask permission first, to touch and stroke each of the six kittens.  Tabitha blinks and purrs, looks you in the eye, and you swear she is chiding you for hanging onto what is not, life brings change, and will never remember loss for long, because something new is just is around the corner.  Life always moves on.