It’s fun to share what we write/have written. Try this one:

Greta Contemplates the Infinite

Oh, Greta:

Admit it. You miss your old green truck. It was like nothing else. You had to stomp on a floor starter to get it going. It had a first gear so low, it seemed to walk. Curved, side-to-rear windows made you proud, as if they were works of art, yours alone. That floor shift and high cab made you feel mighty.  You were young and poor, but you had a 1953 GMC truck that ran. You’d hide a joint under the rubber floor mat to smoke on the twenty-four-mile ride home from work at midnight, along the curves of Highway 57 by dark, tree-covered hills, singing at the top of your lungs. You cranked the window down, dreaming about songs and spotlights and wishing your voice didn’t crack. The seat had a fine bounce when those mushy shocks bit a bump, and you went up-and-down, giggling, having no idea what life had in store for you around the next bend.

Greta replies:

But I do know what came next. I know all the episodes after those night rides. I had to trade that truck for two baby calves and a Buick with a cracked head that needed bump starting, but no matter, I lived on a hill. Two kids, three husbands, ten moves and four decades later I bounce on different seats. I still giggle, alone in the dark with my truck window open, and sing at the top of my lungs, keeping an eye out for signs of what’s around the next bend.

Death weighs in:

I’m waiting and watching too, not that I’m bouncing or giggling much. Not my style. But I’ll take a fine Cuban cigar if you’ll leave one for me under the floor mat. I’d like to puff away while I contemplate mortality, eternity, and the unfathomable possibility of being. I do know what’s around the next bend. I’m always here. Think living would make sense if I weren’t?

And yet, one more, unidentified speaker has a say:

If babies can giggle as well as cry, perhaps that’s enough while we carve out our path and try to peer around the next bend. So before you slam the door on your latest old truck, Greta, pick up the candy wrappers, plastic spoons, bits of gravel, and paper clips from the rubber floor mat, toss them into a paper bag, shake it up, and then pour it all out onto a page to see what meaning you can capture. You were always good at making sense out of nearly nothing at all. Now kick the door shut for luck. Still feels good, doesn’t it.

Here’s what I’m writing now. How about you?

I’ve written two novels and also put the content of the old workshop into a book called, “Beginning Writers Workbook.” I’m working on a third novel, but not fantasy. I’m going to graduate school next June to get a MSA in writing from Bennington College. I’m going there to learn. I’ll share as much as I can about any new things I’m discovering about writing and how to write.

I’d really like to hear what you’re writing and how it’s going. Write me!

More writing. Poems, scenes, thoughts…let’s hear your words.

The End of the Day

It’s time to come in, but we don’t,

even though Mom’s voice hollers, “Supper!”

We’re invisible with one tree for you; one for me.

We know our territory, our hideouts, the land,

every animal hole in the low grass, every baby tree struggling in the high.

Dad’s not home yet so we don’t move. My stomach rumbles. 

I bet it’s leftover spaghetti tonight.

I bet I can race you back to the house and leave you in my dust.

I bet tomorrow we’ll have rain, but then I know better than to hope.

Things shift around, even the ground blows away.

Dad’s late again.  Mom hasn’t called a second time.

Maybe I’ll live here now.  Under my maple tree.