This week’s photo comes from an art teacher whose specialty is photography. Jennifer Graycheck (click to read an article I wrote about her family for our local newspaper) is a young mother of two adorable children. Her talents at capturing and sharing her experiences add light and love to my social media feed. Recently her family took a beach trip. That’s an ironic statement when you live in South Louisiana. Our coastline is marshy with spider-leg inlets cut to allow for boats carrying fish and oil. Not many beaches to speak of.
Jennifer’s family took a Sunday day-trip to “The Point.” Cypremort Point is a local state park where many families have camps. The man-made beach is a far cry from white sands of Alabama and Florida. But Jennifer and her family did not let that stop them from having a safe and fun day together.
This photo of Jennifer’s daughter, Lorelei, may take you somewhere else, and that’s the point. Be creative. Imagine you are the child. What is she dreaming? Write a poem of 16 words or so. Be sure to comment on other writers with encouraging support.
Cajun Queen
Margaret Simon, draft
senses sun in her soul
becomes one with the mud
whispers Follow me forever.
Reflections on the Teche 
Margaret, your poem seems to perfectly capture Lorelei’s spirit and bliss! I can’t figure out which line I love the best. Your first line’s words and alliteration grabbed me, your second line reminds me of a child’s freedom in play, and your third line makes me want to lose restraint, get in the mud by her side, and “follow” her “forever.” Children are gifts.
Thank you for sharing the amazing moment in this photo and your great prompt, which took me to three different places and poems. Here’s my third poem.
fill up the tin
smooth chocolate wetness
mud pie
That first line is such a great invitation! “Fill up the tin!”
Thank you, Molly.
Delicious response!
Thank you, Margaret.
Love “fill up the tin”.
Thank you, Donna.
Oh, I wish I came up with something pretty like Cajun Queen–that title is the bees-knees, btw. Alas, I went a weird direction.
Chiaroscuro
Daedalus
fraught with grief
searched for Icarus
who lay
out of touch,
silenton the sea
Apollo’s smileemblazoned
on his face
amid wax
and fallen feathers
Oh, Linda, this is wonderful! I love how you’ve incorporated mythology brilliantly here–the photo does have an otherworldly feel to it. Fabulous response.
I never see the formatting ooppps-es until I come back later. Several in this. Argh.
I love the connection to mythology and your title, one of my favorite words.
Linda,
Wow….just wow. How your mind is so full to bring this poem to life from the photo. I am not a very adept mythology student (never had much in the way of classroom teaching or in my curriculum so a deficit area) though I do know Icarus……you make me want to know more.
I appreciate that your poem captures the way this image – so alive – also subtly speaks of death. The connection to Icarus is perfect – the link to mythology somehow captures the nature of the photo.
What a great photo! I love your rich poetic response, and especially that alliterative first line. Cajun Queen is a wonderful title, too.
Here’s my response:
Life Lesson
Freckled with filth,
sinking
into the embrace
of warm mud,
she smiles.
Love freckled with filth alliteration.
One with nature…..that is the life lesson to me…..and loving nature’s embrace. How lucky to be able to spend time in that peace and beauty and wonder. And to appreciate it……lovely poem.
of warm mud,
she smiles…..brings back happy memories. My poor mother and the wash she had to do!
“freckled with filth” – now that’s a great line!!
Ooh, love your alliteration. Your sensory details of “sinking/ into the embrace/of warm mud are perfect and I can feel them. Thank you for your response.
This brought back my childhood. I was so lucky to live by the ocean and the Sound.
Joy in Summer
We race toward crashing waves,
jump foamy surf,
build castles.
Nestle ourselves
in cool grains of sand.
Smile and smile and smile.
PS Happy to be back. Away for a variety of reasons. Missed this.
“Nestle” is a great word choice here! Thanks for painting and sharing this joyful scene.
Glad you are back! I too had childhood memories that involved a lot of dirt and smiling. LOL. I think that’s a good sign.
I’m glad you are back. I love the bouncy beachy fun of your poem. Yes to the triple smile!
This picture is just haunting and yes, I, too, wondering about the ears! I like how the Cajun Queen senses the sun in her soul. That amazing gift of the young, to have a smile to melt our hearts and share their joy. So that smile…brought me to a happier poem, though I also had the sense of a corpse….wondering if she was holding her breath under shallow water and it gave this grandma the creeps….kind of a Mona Lisa photo!!!
Janet, I resonate with your poem and love your sensory details, “race toward crashing waves/ jump foamy surf, nestle, and cool.” It brought back happy memories. Do you still like to race toward the waves and jump over them? I do.
Gail, I am so drawn to the ocean and hope to get to a beach on the Jersey Shore sometime next week. While this photo shows dark sand, I focused on the sweet smile and felt transported in time to joyous days by the water. As far as jumping waves and dashing in, well, I am older but still young at heart. So….I try. LOL.
“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”
I am not a poet, I am a carpenter. I love this girl and her family. I guess I have seen to many crime scenes in movies, but she looks like a corpse. Odd thing is she is totally at peace with a subtle smile.
Daniel Noack
I guess if we have to imagine that she is dead, it’s nice to know there is peace in that. Thanks for stopping by.
I, too, saw a corpse for a moment – and I don’t watch crime movies! I love the John Donne quote that this brought to mind for you – and I spent a few minutes looking for a link between the meaning of Cypremort & the odd mirage of death in life that I saw here – the bliss & the peace.
You made me look. Cypremort means dead cypress tree. Oh, my, the connection I didn’t connect! We pronounce it “sip-ruh-more”.
That’s the same response I had….perhaps it’s because I’m currently running through Cold Case on Netflix?
This photo and poem inspired me. Both are timeless.
Innocence untouched by time
Sun-touched face
Just free to be
Lessons for me
Ah, that freedom of a child to just Be!
I, too, saw something timeless in this photo. You capture this well in your first line & “free to be”.
Sue, “innocence untouched by time” is perfect and grabbed me. I love your poem. So true how children give us “lessons.”
That first line is so evocative.
Super sweet and perfect gift poem for a child.
Yes, that face and its untouched innocence. Oh how the young can be so totally in the joy of a moment…….and you are right, lessons for us.
Cyrpemort Beach
Lay back until
mud stuffs your ears until
water seeks your hair until
sand stipples your skin.
Shut your eyes.
The world becomes everything everything
more than this half-mile stretch of man-made beach.
I love the sound of until, until, until in your poem. I do wonder how Jennifer got the mud out of Lorelei’s ears.
Amanda, I like how your repetition of “until” moves the reader to the next line like a page turn. I love the effect “stipples“ gives your poem. Just beautiful.
Thank you, Gail. I appreciate your comments!
There is such masterful use of repetition here–the until’s and also the everything’s. Thanks for also reminding me to look deeper into words–I totally missed “Cyrpemort.” How utterly fitting.
Margaret, your title is really evocative, and I really appreciated your use of alliteration – so much so that I found myself wanting to use it in my own response. With that and the word “whispered” you capture the interior sound of being buried in the sand, off in your own little world.
I leave no print
When I arise
From this place
But an impression
Remains
Ah, that indelible impression! Love it!
I love that double meaning of impression inferred.
Donna, I love your take on the photo! I can see your poem happening.
Ah…to leave an impression….through words, or actions or a simple act of being present. And then….in the lives you touched. Nice poem, Donna.
After I left this post earlier today, I realized that I really wish I’d written a response poem entitled “Madonna in the Mud.”
Ooh, I love that title!
How Do I protect her
I am younger
I and know her fear and
her pain lushing our mom
to cancer the
one we both turned to
watching our childer move
on their own, I’ve walked similar
road but always being an adult
I realis somehow she ran to throws
safer moment of youth
I sit in the car in the cemetery and watch
she makes airplane wing skipping
through the grass know that this is
a scary moment for her also
How do I keep here safe from
the future she has ahead
form the thing my family say when
she not around
I let her visit I listen to the talk
of lands, I don’t understand
it is difficult it is uneasy
I try to embrace ill her hurt
children and let her be free
she is older than me
I’m her little sister
she is the one the always took me
to the ocean and now her
world is an uneasy see
one that I am uncertain how to
protect her from
I love her I love I love her
if only that were enough
poem By Jessica Bigi
Such beautiful, raw emotion in this piece. How to express such love? You have.