WE PAW Bloggers E-zine — Issue 76
Thanksgiving Special
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The writing prompt was to share five hundred words or less, in poetry or short fiction, about hope and gratitude in this season of Thanksgiving.
Only members of the WE PAW Bloggers group on Facebook are eligible for participation in the prompt and publication in this group online magazine.
Thanksgiving Feast
We are blessed with or without money
Because we have family and friends,
We are sinking in a sea of love
Thanking God for the drowning
That puts breath into our lungs.
Perspective is the key word
That unlocks thankfulness,
Thankfulness is the door to true happiness
And happiness is what feeds love,
Helping it grow stronger
Than the roots of all evil.
Lets all hold hands that connect our hearts
Into one big feast on Thanksgiving Day
That will keep us full all year long.
© 07 November 2018, Dale Vincent Deadmond, a.k.a., The Rock And Roll Cowboy (REBEL WITH A CAUSE)
I WILL
Cat had always wanted an autumn wedding. She imagined herself in a long, white, classic-style wedding dress, walking hand-in-hand with her new husband through the churchyard gates, while family and friends showered them with bright colored confetti. And, how beautiful the wedding photos would look; her family would be gathered around on the green, freshly cut church lawn, while orange, crisp leaves, fell from the trees and crunched beneath their feet.
It wasn’t an impossible dream, but one that was nearly shattered by the horrific car accident Cat was involved in. Months of physio and excruciating pain followed. Nevertheless, Cat was determined to prove the doctors wrong and to walk again.
She sat nervously in her wheelchair, while her father pushed her up the churchyard path. Her disability wasn’t going to prevent her from marrying the man she loved, nor from wearing her dream wedding dress.
Cat waited until they were inside the church before asking her father to stop. She then held out her hands to him and pushed herself out of the chair. It took Cat several minutes to walk down the aisle to her awaiting husband. The groom’s eyes filled with tears as he watched his beautiful bride’s determination and courage.
by Karina Kantas
Enlightened Gratitude
You were born in gratitude
our tiny bodies eat and sleep
with gratitude, our caregivers
tend to us with gratitude
It is our responsibility as we progress to extend that gratitude, no matter how complicated or hidden to our next encounter. And, us waking up to that sacred duty is the first real step toward enlightenment.
Enlightenment is a wonderful and powerful experience that is most certainly a job.
I grew up hearing about enlightenment in a different way: We called it being saved. I always thought that once you were saved your work was done. I was wrong, actually it means you’re just getting started.
I can’t help but think of the first step in AA, admitting you have a problem; then and only then can the remaining 11 steps be approached.
I’ve had a complex and transforming relationship with a life in gratitude and the deliberate relinquishing of my burden, predetermined (karma) and otherwise. After many hard fought years from step one, I can finally say I have developed the allowance and receiving to be [in gratitude] and if need be, die in it.
Because… above all else I’m thankful for whatever comes next.
by Chad Bittner Hurt
IN A PRIVATE ROOM
As a child, Mona read about Pandora opening the gilded jar releasing all the evils of the world. Hope remained behind, imprisoned by the container that held it. For some years now, she accepted hope as the most devious of all the gifts sent by Zeus. With nothing but time left, Mona dedicates her mind to understanding life and hope. How have these brought her here to this nursing home?
Silently, she distances herself from existence and tries to understand the choices she made. There is peace in knowing that a minor decision is a roll of the dice and each roll changes everything.
Comforted with the awareness that her days are measured in dwindling digits she ponders on with a school girl’s ache and a desire to understand. Mona nurtures the innocent child she used to be. The ghost of her youth always present is tucked under the wrinkled skin peeking out from the mirror with curious eyes. The girl’s naivety believes in the best of each person she encounters. Now through the clarity of time, Mona understands that being raised by kind, honest people often made her vulnerable. Years, counted in decades, were spent as a human magnet for manipulation and disappointment.
She ponders statistics, anecdotes, movies, and books lamely telling stories of straightforward emotions. They all fall short, never enlightening the complicated tale of a realistic continuation. Life doesn’t end with bluebirds and flowers because each day blends to gray, then black. No matter how dark, eventually, a breath of sunlight and another new morning breaks through. Only in a life lived for over a century, with optimism, can anyone come close to a complete epic.
Mona understands every time a story ends it is just the beginning of a new adventure. Confident a broken heart can mend, she knows it will always carry a scar. Promises uttered in carelessness will forever taint the victim. One lie, sometimes told by omission, becomes another’s truth. Mona’s own experience has proven that love is a shapeshifter that not only builds but also condemns. But yet, Mona holds on with hope, as a survivor washed up on the beach of a solitary old age.
Her mantra today is that life boils down to a long journey with more laughter than tears, but the tears are what color the memory. With no more regrets to atone for, Mona discards the taste of bitterness and re-embraces hope. At this moment, she knows that if she ever exchanged words of love, the affection lives on. Every time the word was spoken, it endured.
On this morning, she rises to sit on the side of the bed in a sterile room. Mona makes a plan with hope in her heart; today she will learn one new thing that is honest and true. Then Mona is convinced when she lies down for her final sleep there will be a smile gracing her lips and then she will finally know all of the answers.
by Author, Toni Kief
If you wish to contribute to this ezine, please join the group on Facebook. All writing creatives are welcome.
D. Denise Dianaty, Editor and Graphic Designer for the WE PAW Bloggers E-Zine. Administrator for the writers forum “WE PAW Bloggers” group and its sister group “Pandora’s Box of Horrors” on Facebook. In addition to being a self-published author and poet, artist, art-photographer, and administrator of the group, “WE PAW Bloggers,” Denise is a graphic designer with 25+ years experience, predominately in print media.
