Wordgrove Post & Review

Quoted in the Grove:
A vacation is what you take when you can no longer take what you’ve been taking.
~Earl Wilson

The ant is knowing and wise, but he doesn’t know enough to take a vacation.
~Clarence Day

There’s no vacation from being a parent.
~Chevy Chase

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Posted from the Grove

Summer Vacation

Summer is when real life offers more compelling fun than online fun. This editor is in the middle of finishing a years-long writing project, and the time needed for this, plus normal work hours, means a summer break for readers of the Post & Review. A recent blessed event has made motherhood a factor in attendance, and the current Platform vibe suggests that the time is right for that vacation as well.

This editor will continue posting a weekly Prewritten prompt because he continues to find the workout a useful and healthy exercise, and he very much enjoys the drill. If others find the exercise worthwhile and drops continue on the Prewritten bench, the occasional newsletter will go out to include them. The weekly Word Games schedule is too deeply ingrained, so this editor will continue to show briefly at the usual Platform time to check for new drops. The door to news sharing and chat remains open.

 

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Favorites From the Platform: Songs that made the Platform cry

~Don McClean:  Vincent   (3:57)

~Andy Williams:  Lonely Street   (3:06)

~Gilbert O’Sullivan: Alone Again   (3:44)

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Prewritten for Thurs 07/19 (6:00pm PT/9 ET):  raven, build

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@Writers Platform

Glass Table:
~thoreau: Very short story:
Last Day of Staycation

One final “home project” for this last day of our staycation week: weeding the driveway. It’s pretty hard-packed pebbles, good for absorbing the winter rains, but over the years plenty of tiny weeds, clumps of grass, etc have taken root. It’s warm but not hot today, so I put on a sunhat, start the poetry podcast playlist on my iPod, grab a bucket, sit down on a short stool, and start picking.

Every few minutes, having pulled every weed in reach, I shift the stool a couple of feet and continue. It becomes a rhythm, practically a meditation.

Some oregano from the herb garden in the corner by the sidewalk has started to put out new sprouts into the driveway. I decide to leave them alone, and let it continue to spread where it can — I’ve noticed a pleasant Mediterranean crushed-herb scent lately whenever I get out of the car, which seems like a good thing. The white and purple clovers as well, I leave alone. The bees like them, and I use the green strips as a target in the rear view mirror when backing into the driveway.

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poem: summer moon

summer moon rises late:
the waning crescent carries
tomorrow’s morning

—

It used to be, before clocks, that people could tell time at night by being aware of the phase of the moon. The lighted part of the moon always points toward the sun — as an easy example, a full moon rises opposite to the setting sun, is at its highest point at midnight, and sets at sunrise.

One night, after a hot day, we had stayed up quite late waiting for it to be cool enough to go for a dog walk. As we walked, I noticed the crescent moon rising in the east, a thick curve with upturned points, and I realized that meant the rising sun was trailing not so many hours behind it. And the light I was seeing in that crescent was actually tomorrow morning’s sunlight, already giving a hint of the new day’s coming heat.

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Prewritten:  stairway, arctic

~BarTalk:
Arctic Stairway

Polar opposites, he and she
White bears bearing
But not in the Bering
See, the arctic is barren
Too cold for baring
Barring a stairway
To the southern seas

~

Winter Blues

Bleak grey arctic skies
Cold tundra of her eyes
See, there, the sunrise
Months to Venus from Mars
Timed stairway, the stars

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Dinner Guest

Two sets, different sizes
Hunter and the hunted
Diamond dusted prints
Stairways cross
Blood white arctic fox

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Spectacles   (5-7-5 x 6)

arctic circle rave
aurora borealis
rainbow stairway staged
~
sharp blade, arctic glance
eyes for cutting steel, melting
one dared her stairway
~
horizontal stair
Way of The Gods light the night
arctic moon gone dark
~
Clock’s arc, tick of time
Medussa’s stare-way of death
Mirror’d. <end message>
~
stairway as doorway
arctic ice to tropic sun
journey, still the thing
~
stairway to doomsday
garden to cinder and hell
arctic’s new haven

~ . ~