FREE WRITE FRIDAY
supplied us with the prompt
MESSAGE
Since I shall die on this lonely shore
And all my being be no more,
I write these lines with shaking hand,
Seated on the unfriendly sand.
All around is desolation,
This bottle my only consolation.
I'll send it forth upon the waves,
Where it will float over drowned men's graves.
I will toss it to the ocean
Overwhelmed by my own emotion,
But, once upon the churning sea,
It will journey heartlessly.
My message will merely owe its fate
To something completely inanimate.
The bottle will travel I know not where
And, by then, I won't even care.
Some stranger, walking by the sea,
Will find this summing-up of me.
He'll open up my little note,
To ascertain the things I wrote.
The message he will read is brief;
Not reflecting my pain and grief......
'To you, now walking by the sea,
As I am you will one day be.'
*
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TEA AND SYMPATHY
(At my daughter's house)
Beyond the window the untidy world.
In here, a quiet place for tea and sympathy.
I hear the clink of cups in the kitchen.
*