Today I have two pieces of writing that I’m very excited to share for Microfiction Monday. The first is a Concrete or Shape Poem that I created during the Creative Writing Workshop that I taught. I have transcribed the writing from the poem below the photo so you don’t have have to follow my little ant letters while rotating your phone (please don’t rotate your monitor). I have also decided to share an excerpt from the current beginning of a short story that I’m working on. After getting to share a before and after with you guys from my camp story, I thought it might be fun to try it again. I would love to know your thoughts! Give me some guesses of where you think the story is going in the comments!
Concrete or Shape Poem
A fairytale story told again and again until it is a soft worn blanket wrapping our hearts and souls with the warm coziness of their well known words; we tell each other these stories to get past the surface truth to a truth that is deeper, the throaty thrumming song of ourselves, reverberating backwards and forwards in time, an endless melody.
Excerpt from Story-in-Progress
The early morning damp fog is dripping down my neck, a labrador panting over my shoulder from the back seat. The thermos of tea clutched in my hands is the only thing keeping my fingers from becoming brittle and snapping off in the cold air whipping across the ferry deck. I watch waves crest against the bow and shatter into diamonds, shimmering in the anemic sunlight. I see the island come into view and it is magnificent. The trees shoot towards the sky, serrated knife blades that pierce the low hanging cloud cover, blanketed like gossamer silk over the branches. The tide licks the craggy cliff head and arches backward into beaded foam falling back into the white ocean caps.
As the ferry makes its way around the top bend of the island we pull into a hidden cove, protected from the fierce ocean currents, a calming bay tucked into the u-shape formed by the island’s crescent shape. A neglected dock is our only welcome, looking barely steady enough to support a mouse’s weight. I breathe out a sigh and a ghostly puff escapes my lips. While the skipper carefully secures the ferry to the rickety dock, I step down from the main deck and into the sheltered area of the ferry to get my pack and my horse, Gunpowder.
My eyes adjust to the shaded light as I step up to Gunpowder’s side. White puffs rise from his gently flared nostrils and fade into the crisp air. I run my hand through his black and white flecked coat and up to his dark head and give him soft scratches between his eyes and rub his ears. I retighten his girth and check that the saddlebags and everything in them are secured. I grab my own pack from the ground next to him and swing it onto my back, latching it into place across my chest. Then I lead Gunpowder up onto the deck. His ears swivel to catch the island’s sounds as his feet high step across the deck and give soft clops when they come back down.
I see the skipper down on the dock smoking a cigarette as he stares at his ferry and waits for me. I try to remember his name, Hank maybe? All I know is he wasn’t happy to take me to this island and probably wouldn’t have if I hadn’t offered him twice what he normally gets on a day like this when none of the local tourists want to leave the warm cozy coffee shops to go on a cold ferry ride with the views hidden by the recalcitrant fog.
Gunpowder and I walk down the ramp and onto the dock to join Hank. Or was it Harvey? We look at each other for an extended moment. What is there to say? We barely know each other.
“Well, good luck,” he says as he gives me a nod.
Before I can even thank him he takes one last deep pull on his cigarette before flicking it into the water and walking back up the ramp of the ferry.
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