Friday, March 15, 2024

Friday Writings #118: Strange Springs

 

In my bit of the world, Old Man Winter is melting away and the Spring Maiden is blooming in. There are so many things I love about this time of year: starting seeds, celebrating my birthday, visiting graveyards… If you think the latter strange, you aren’t alone. I’ve been visiting graveyards, to celebrate the arrival of spring, for many decades. And every year, at least one person tells me: “You’re very strange.” Fine, they don’t always say it aloud, but I can hear it in their eyes…

I don’t mind the reactions one bit. I delight in strange. And for that reason, my dear poets and storytellers, for today’s optional prompt, I invite you to write poetry or prose inspired by strange spring traditions. Nothing peculiar springs to mind? Well, you can find some inspiration HERE and HERE and HERE.

Required: Add the direct link to your response to Mister Linky. One post per participant, please, 369 words maximum (excluding title), for prose and for poetry.

Optional: You may share old or new pieces of poetry or prose, and you may write to the prompt or to a topic of your choosing.

Requested (not compulsory but recommended): Visit other poets and storytellers. Read their contributions. Let them know what their words bloom out of you.

for next week, Rommy will be asking us to find inspiration “In memoriam”: write about a person, place, or thing that is gone.


photo by elmimmo
from The Shinto Kanamara Matsuri (Festival of the Steel Phallus)

 

5 comments:

  1. Magaly, I, too, have a story about visiting graveyards in the spring! I think your tradition of doing that is cool, and makes sense. They're always so peaceful and there's the first rush of spring in the green grass and the robins flitting about. Maybe I'll link it but already did for another prompt.... Anyway your prompt really caught my eye!

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    1. Peaceful, quiet, and full of histories... What's not to like, right?

      Glad the prompt calls to you, Yvonne.

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  2. In the Southern States visiting graveyards in spring is traditional. The poem is about Memorial Day, but the grass has to be mown and weeded before the big day, so family graveyards get attention in March and April too.

    PK

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    1. Makes perfect sense to me. We do the same in the autumn, in the Caribbean. So that the place will be pristine for the approaching Day of the Dead.

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  3. Every year around this time, 10 days before or after the 4th of April, the Chinese diaspora here will visit their ancestral graves to clean the graves or niches, pray and make offerings of incense and food. This is an important festival in their calendar. It is called Qing Ming. :)

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