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    Parker Owens
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Stories posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 

Disasters, Delights and Other Detours - 91. Mourning Dove Days

Another midsummer excursion into free verse. You will have to judge whether you think it works.

Mourning Dove Days

 

 

 

These are mourning-dove days,

when the air is a plush green velvet blanket

moving in languid caresses

like a lover’s breath on your neck

and colored in maple and aspen whispers,

rumors, retold by the waving buttercups and blue-eyed grasses

to a world slowed down enough to listen

to their songs

over the voices of tanned, teenaged boys wading barefoot,

like restless egrets stalking

in clear, cool, creek waters

where mysterious ducks swam at dawn

and wily trout still lurk and ponder the habits of gnats and mosquitoes

under overhanging cottonwood roots

as twelve times the distant church bell greets the sun,

warm as an embrace,

yet watching warily the western skies

where thunderheads build themselves into towering cities,

full of noise and fury,

enough to rouse the fir-clad mountains, roaring in distant reply,

like a weary parent demanding a return

to tranquility.


I am grateful to anyone who reads these offerings; and I'm doubly glad to see comments of any sort, good or bad, in response.
Copyright © 2017 Parker Owens; All Rights Reserved.
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Stories posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 
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This was a journey, a lovely journey evoking all the sights, sounds, and aromas of summer. The first part was as if you were talking about the northeast end of my paddock and the woods beyond. I love the swaying buttercups on their thin stems, and I really hate that I mow them about once a month to keep the weeks down in the entire paddock. Fortunately there are always more the next time I bring out my tractor. My teenage boys are grown now, but I can still hear them calling back and forth with their sisters in the woods. Memories, ours and others, echo in all the magical places nature has wrought, timeless to those who go there. Beautiful, Parker. 

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18 minutes ago, Headstall said:

This was a journey, a lovely journey evoking all the sights, sounds, and aromas of summer. The first part was as if you were talking about the northeast end of my paddock and the woods beyond. I love the swaying buttercups on their thin stems, and I really hate that I mow them about once a month to keep the weeks down in the entire paddock. Fortunately there are always more the next time I bring out my tractor. My teenage boys are grown now, but I can still hear them calling back and forth with their sisters in the woods. Memories, ours and others, echo in all the magical places nature has wrought, timeless to those who go there. Beautiful, Parker. 

Thank you for letting me walk with you this summer, listening for voices and sounds on the wind. Today, there is rain drumming on the roof, and they tell me thunder may rumble later on. But in this, we can still walk in the sun and enjoy these summer days. Thanks a million.

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dughlas

Posted (edited)

Your words took me back to a time half a century ago when I was a teenage boy wading in the cool waters of the creek just down the road from my grandparent's home. Thank you.

Edited by dughlas
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4 minutes ago, dughlas said:

Your words took me back to a time half a century ago when I was a teenage boy wading in the cool waters of the creek just down the road from my grandparent's home. Thank you.

I'm glad these words evoked good memories for you. Even now, I cannot pass a creek without at least a tiny urge to stop, take off my shoes, and go wading. I hope you can enjoy some of these days that are left to us this summer.  Many thanks.

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4 minutes ago, chris191070 said:

You've just taken me on another wonderful journey.

Thank you for making a summer visit with me in this poem. These are days to treasure and store up for the cold winter ahead.

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I delight in seeing the same world you see, depicted through words strung together with such care and love. Teenage boys as egrets is a vision only you could summon. And it is perfect.  😘

PS Chapter 91? Time for a new book maybe?😏 

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Lovely and evocative, you hit all the senses, including the one for the carefree days of one's youth :yes:

 

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1 hour ago, AC Benus said:

Lovely and evocative, you hit all the senses, including the one for the carefree days of one's youth :yes:

 

Those days from my youth echo in memory, all the more loudly in these soft-edged summer days. I can still see the colors of water beaded on skin and hear excited voices at the appearance of a water snake. Thanks very much for reading and for listening with me. 

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1 hour ago, northie said:

I delight in seeing the same world you see, depicted through words strung together with such care and love. Teenage boys as egrets is a vision only you could summon. And it is perfect.  😘

PS Chapter 91? Time for a new book maybe?😏 

Long legged teens in cutoffs faded pale, still growing into their height… egrets came to mind immediately. I’m glad summer scenes such as I remember - and still experience today - can come to you all the way across the sea. Thank you for reading and commenting on this. 

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Mmm! Summer! What a beautiful, peaceful scene you paint. And I actually love the possibility of summer storms on the horizon, and the idea of the mountains giving them the wary eye.  Summer thunderstorms are often exciting, a little wild, and very invigorating when viewed from a covered porch in the company of a special friend. 🙂

Thanks for the reminder!

 

 

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9 hours ago, Geron Kees said:

Mmm! Summer! What a beautiful, peaceful scene you paint. And I actually love the possibility of summer storms on the horizon, and the idea of the mountains giving them the wary eye.  Summer thunderstorms are often exciting, a little wild, and very invigorating when viewed from a covered porch in the company of a special friend. 🙂

Thanks for the reminder!

 

 

There’s nothing quite like the building anticipation of a summer thunderstorm moving in. In some cases, there’s real reason for fear, in others, there’s the promise of weather drama, followed by the sun. It’s always better to share such experiences with someone special, I agree. Thank you for reading, and for your comments. 

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A perfect painting of summer, and a true sensory experience.  I especially liked the image of the boys as egrets.  

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1 hour ago, Valkyrie said:

A perfect painting of summer, and a true sensory experience.  I especially liked the image of the boys as egrets.  

The summer light is fainting, but the images of these days remain imprinted on my brain. I hope you could see them too. Thanks for your thoughts and comments. 

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