Edge – Trifecta

 

Here’s what this weekend’s Trifecta is all about:

“This weekend we are playing another type of word game with you.  Below are photos from the 33rd page of one of our very favorite books, Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge.  What we want you to do is to scour the page (click to enlarge), choose 33 words, and reshape those words into a piece of your own.  Your piece does not have to tell an entire story.  We just want to see what you can do with this particular word bank.  Punctuation is up to you.  Use whatever you need, whether or not it appears in the photos.”

 

 

I absolutely love this!  It has bones and flowers and children and rifles, such intriguing contrasts. Here’s the 33 words I chose:

 

Blackness carried him along

Wild woods of his mind

Starflowers so hollow-boned

Entrails of umbrage

Ripping, flapping panic

So hidden

Beneath the green leaves

He picked up the rifle

Edge of life came

Nature of Happiness

Deep below, under the stubborn ice and mouths frozen shut, the roots of life still linger. Slowly, they string their fine fingers upwards, infiltrate the army of snow flakes besieging us. Those fingers, you can feel them caressing your skin when you fall your cheek pressed to the iron-cold ground; sprigs and sprouts of onion being born, the sweet-tasting sap brewing, the birch babies and oak saplings still playing hide-and-seek, until the day that earth’s anticipation, its certainty of spring stronger than thousand ice ages, breaks all winter’s barriers and blossoms into light leaves of coltsfoot, pansy, primrose and thistle. But not quite yet my dear, not quite yet. First, we have to live through this concerto of whispering winds, nothing but rumours of life budding. That way we can have two summers; one blossoming in our ears and one, in time, blooming up from undeground, inviting us to a flower field dance.  

Waiting for the spring is a sweet expectation, it is like waiting at the train station for an old friend to arrive. Peace and love, and warmth to melt your winter fingers! Take care.