by Julie Williams

I strolled up the hill.

The rasping call of crows
Cut through November’s crying wind,
An owl swept into the old cottonwood,
Talons reaching for a gnarled branch.
My heart yearned for spring again,
Not the cold of winter

Slipping into late autumn.
Julie Williams
(c) 2008

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Some people are pure extract, and others are imitation flavoring.
Julie Williams © 2005

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Winter’s Twilight

In that silken hour of twilight
Betwixt silent night and yawning day
The prairie hills and midnight sky
Met upon horizon’s bower.
The moon bent low
With streaming hair
To lay her lips
Upon the hills below;
Then reaching outward
Through the heavens,
She flung her diamonds
Across the fields of snow.

Julie Williams (c) 2006

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Exercise #2334 Create something in 50 words or
less, using these six seed words. (from http://groups.yahoo.com/group/writerspark/ )

Tinker
Diner
Nestle
Rumble
Floss
Signal


“You’ll tinker with dinner, but not at the diner”,
He said with a rumble and roar.
“You’ll wrestle, not nestle, with pillows in bed
And leave me no room but the floor.
Your signal is clear, I should floss, then get lost!
Well, FINE!” and he stomped out the door.

Julie Williams (c)

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Time Enough

Laura patted the dough’s floured surface and turned it into her grandmother’s bread bowl . She laid waxed paper across its worn antique rim and laid a warm damp towel over the top. Laura glanced at the clock on the far kitchen wall. Just a few minutes she thought to herself, a few minutes before the school bus rumbles down the road.

The screen door slammed behind her. She walked through the backyard, past a patchwork quilt flapping on the clothes line, and towards the meadow. Laura slid carefully between the strands of barbed wire and jogged toward her favorite place. Kicking off soft brown leather boots, she wiggled her toes in the cool grass and gazed out across the sweep of grassland.

Meadowlarks and black birds trilled and warbled; a pheasant squawked in the distance. Cedar Creek, swollen from the rain, spread into sparkling sapphire pools. A breeze sent the water licking against emerald grass that rolled over the hills to met the sky. It had been only eight years since marrying Thomas, but Laura had come to think of this as her land, her prairie. It was where she belonged –- home.

Julie Williams (c) 2008

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Boulder Lake

Come to the rest
Where boughs bend and sway
Come to the water
Where the deer come to play

And drink in the call
Of the haunting loon’s lake
Then watch the sun rise
When from darkness it breaks.

Carry on wings
Of Easterly breeze
The warm healing sun
That cleans and brings ease.

Dip ‘neath the surface
With purified hand,
Let the water run through
Like hourglass sand.

Clothe your strong feet
With sandals so bright
Shod in the glory
Of Love’s blinding light;

They’ll carry you forth
Into new territories
Discover the secrets
And retell the stories.

Beyond the sight’s place
Where horizons are lost,
You’ll journey the pathways
Casting off all the dross;

And ‘ere the road ends
Where the world passes sight
You’ll run in the laughter
‘round the last bend
taking to wing to lift off in flight!

Julie Williams (c) 1994

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