Found Hope Prompt
Write a brief story (or poem) about found hope” inspired by Linda Pastan’s poem “Spring” (below). Include a season, a plant or flower, and a ghostly sensation.
Prompt words: air bubble, fringe, leaf mulch, smooth, salty, grin
Paid Subscribers, Please feel free to post your stories or poems in the comments section.
This Keeps Happening
I’m in the garden in my mother’s fringed shawl, sifting through the soil on the back of old dreams that lag behind me here. Why is the dark never dark enough? I curse the gloom for wavering as I kneel before a shudder of petals. Touched by the color of abandonment, they ride a stem riddled with sharp stars that wound my thumb. Because there is no one here to say Don’t, I gather the smooth buds to my face. Since there is no one, I kiss them open to a grin of new beginnings.
Above the tangled roots left in the leaf mulch floor, one blackbird strews salt across the heavens.
LatchKey
My parents called my sister Hope
In the sense that she wasn’t around
all the time, and her visits were unexpected
Some birthdays she’d make her presence known
While others she kept me waiting
At graduation
I only saw her release a cluster of balloons
At my wedding
There was only a bite-mark left in the cake
When my wife gave birth to our oldest
The medical staff took him as he disappeared like a little gray air bubble inside their blue celled circle of scrubs
I felt Hope’s hand trellis up my arm like Winter Jasmine, breaking the thaw of the delivery room,
We both stood and watched the team of nurses and doctors use skills
they’d spent a lifetime learning,
Hoping each waking day
they’d never have to use.