dread cannot hold sway
darkness yields to morning light
hope renews again
©2026 Jill Witherspoon. All Rights Reserved
Thanks to Jill for the chance to get my haiku on. Happy new day!
a new day
The (Crushed) Orange
At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—
By dinner it had begun to stink
Rotting from the inside out–
I tossed it in the kitchen sink
Out of sight out of mind
I went to bed, perchance to dream
But nightmares rose from noxious fumes
And woke me with a desperate scream
Now I know to clear the stink
and find the joy in simple things
The orange must be crushed
By the constant wave of beating azure wings
Thanks to the W3 challenge for the chance to share.
https://skepticskaddish.com/2026/11/04/w3-prompt-236-weave-written-weekly/
This not so subtle verse was inspired by the opening line of Wendy Cope’s The Orange. I tried to keep the same sense of style / whimsy / gratitude while also flipping it a bit.
VOTE for HOPE
I am holding hope
nestled in my bleeding heart
to care more not less
an effort worth the heartache
to begin the end of this
Sharing a Bit of My World
1. Do you drive, and can you remember your first car? I’m from a midsize midwestern city in the US so driving was a given. Once I got my license (at 16) I shared a car with my dad. It was a red 5-speed (manuel) Toyota Corolla. He got it during the day to drive to work (so I still had to take the bus to school) but I had it at night and on weekends. Loved that car!!
2. Have you ever ice skated? Like driving, ice skating is a given in a midwest town. I had my own white leather figure-skating style ice skates. We skated at the city park ice rink but also on the lake. Learning to do a halfway decent spin was my crowning achievement.
3. What was your favourite sport at school? Ice skating and bike riding were not school sports, so the answer would be NONE. I have horrible memories of kickball and dodgeball and softball and basketball and ….
4. What was the last movie you saw at the cinema? I’ve seen two movies in a theater in the last five-ish years: Project Hail Mary and Barbie. Fist my bump!
Gratitude: Check back with me tomorrow. I’m too fearful about the elections to channel much gratitude this morning.
Thanks for the inspiration.
the lover
her remorse glimmers gray and pale
a graveyard penance for lost times
tattered like a ghostly veil
the lover pines
she bows her head
fragments cut like a crown of thorns
still she holds the memory of the dead
the lover mourns
I gave it my best effort but I couldn’t get “folk” to fit. Oh well. Thanks for the inspiration Brenda.
Here’s the Sunday Wordle words: dead pines penance mourns folk glimmer graveyard remorse ghostly fragments lover shadowy
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