Aug 9, 2017 Original Poetry
Ars Longa
August 9th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Wanting to be everything at once,
Dazzled by life and people, and birds,
She lunges into the air, grabs
Every passing fancy, every fleeting thrill,
Learning, leaving, moving on,
Soaking in all that rains down.
What she wants is to be everywhen,
To be new, and young, and middle-aged, and old
To push into the cocoon before conception,
To peer around the rich red womb,
To slice through her days like a swallow
Slicing through a rain-storm,
To part the heavy clouds after she dies,
And soar, spiraling, into the endless sky.
Then, remembering hunger and thirst,
And chores and unfinished dreams,
And playing the part she’s meant to play
The part she wove into her own nest
As she spun out her days, she retreats,
Finds a patch of sun on a branch,
And hums her life into existence.
This is good, she thinks, humming.
This is life, full of fineness.
The sun glows gold, the branches hold,
Here is food, and shelter, love, joy,
Leave striving behind, and ambition.
Leave the unrelenting stress,
Of things needing to be accomplished –
Leave it all, sit and stare, and hum.
Ars longa, vita brevis,
Ars longa, vita brevis, ars longa …
The humming becomes louder,
As the sun sinks in the saturated sky,
Here is a piece of beauty to be carved out
and reshaped, to gaze at and adore.
What can she do, but adore it?
___________________________________________________________________________________
Apr 13, 2016 Friday Fictioneers
Word Count: 100 words of text, exactly
Genre: Fairy tale
Ars Longa, Vita Brevis
©April 13th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
A castle stood deep in a forest. An imposing tower frowned upon the trees that ringed it. A timid moon shone behind the smaller turrets around it.
The oaken gates opening onto a courtyard revealed a strange scene:
On a velvet couch, lay a maiden with floating hair, and star-flecked lashes. Her scarlet cloak lay athwart her shoulders, and her hand held a knife.
Into this space stepped a man in a whoosh of air.
Holding a palette and brush, he began painting the rest of her.
Awaking, she saw him, smiled slowly, and asked, “What took you so long?”
_____________________________________________________________
Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, our Fairy-Blog Mother, for her lovely hostliness while maintaining the purity of Friday Fictioneers, and kind words to all of us from every Wednesday to the Tuesday of the week, as we struggle to put our stories into words. Thanks, also, to Kent Bonham, for that mysterious photograph. I had to figure out what to do with it. It was fascinating.
Tags: #ArtvsReality, #Galatea, #Original 100-word Flash Fiction based on a photo-prompt, #Pygmalion, #VitaBrevisArsLonga