Menu

Menu

Prompts

Contests

Stories

Blog

Directory

Contests

Magazine

FAQ

Kathleen March

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2020

Stories (390)

Comments

Library

1489 Followers

902 Following

390 Stories

7954 karma pts

?

Into the Water (2/2)

II (Read Part I first) The poem ended, its final lament  for the lack of rain twisted  into the curve of a moan  rushing to split the  horizon… ~Sher Wright The above fragment from her poem was barely uttered, and the skies opened up. Huge, posh rain drops started to assault the pavement, the fields, the ocean, the shore of the miserable pond that had been reduced to muck. The people could not believe their eyes or their skin; what’s more, their brains had forgotten how to say “wetness.”  They feared they’...

8 likes

From the Frying Pan… (1/2)

Drought. That was what they called it, what was happening. What was the true definition of a drought, though? How many days did an area have to go without rain for one to be proclaimed? Prolonged shortage of water supply, below-normal precipitation. Can last for days, months, years. That’s the list of the main features. Of course that’s the one associated with climate. There’s another drought, though. It’s the one that’s a metaphor for creative production, like art, literature, composing music. Writers seem to be most afflicted with per...

8 likes

Can’t buy you love…

Once upon a time money didn't matter. Things like water did. Eventually, money did become important. During the period that it did, there was an enormous group of people who believe that, never doubted that. They had no reason to question the importance of money and the importance of having enough, or a lot, of it.The people who believed in money were certainly not bad people. They just hadn't gotten out into the world as they say so they could learn things. It wasn't their fault, but most importantly, they were ready to get out and mee...

11 likes

The Payoff

"She's perfect.""I agree. She's perfect. The best one for the job.""Exactly. She's the best fit out of all the ones we've considered.""There's just one problem.""What? That can't be!""She doesn't want the job.""How do you know?""I just know. She's not interested in fame and fortune.""Even if the fame and fortune were handed to her on a silver platter?""Not even then.""I don't believe it. Everybody has a price, ultimately.""Then let's figure out what her price is and offer it to her.""Right. She's the best person for the job, man or woman. We...

8 likes

Write Your Heart Out (L2.10)

"It's not fair, it's just not fair." Lavinia was sitting on a terrace in the medieval part of Santiago, the casco vello. She didn't know the woman sitting there by herself with a glass of something unidentifiable but was a blond-colored liquid. There were other small dishes on the table at varying stages of being consumed.  What Lavinia thought was that the person she'd heard had been sittting at the table for a while and was settled in to be there for a bit longer. Waitpersons didn't push you to leave after you had eaten and drun...

6 likes

Green Grow…

Once there was a character who discovered the grass isn't actually greener on the other side… That character was me and even though I am not free, I will tell you my story…. I was certain it was. On the other side. Was grass. Was greener. Always greener. For some reason. I want to know the reason, but… I can’t seem to put things together again. I seem to be broken. This wall that somebody built between (1) the here and ours and (2) us and the others. The wall that was the border between the green and the greener. Or so they tol...

7 likes

Playing the Game

It was quiet and dark in the room. There was a lot of space that refused definition. That was unnecessary, in any event. There were only two of them.She looked down at him, in the midst of heavy, peaceful quietude. (An odd word, but appropriate.) Nothing else came forth, although she waited, patiently.) Then, because it was necessary, she said:Don’t you remember the painting workshop in France?He didn’t answer. She hadn’t expected there to be a reply, but she had to wait long enough to be sure of the silence. She wasn’t sure if the lack of w...

7 likes

Myrtle and Me

When I think of myrtle, I don’t quite know if it’s the flower on the vine, the old-fashioned name (the only Myrtles I ever met were characters in old books), my mother, or the playground. I think I’ll start with the playground, and maybe the other parts of the memory will fall in place. Or maybe they won’t. Because this story is all, maybe life is all, about place, and knowing how things fit into it. So the playground: It was actually not its own space, but rather was what could be seen as an offshoot of the playground area used ...

8 likes

Kintsugi, part 2

“This is a very slow process,” she repeated, but was not at all discouraged. Repair takes time, and she held it in her hands. She had already understood that a fragile vessel is not reconstructed in a day and looked forward to what was to come. Silver thoughts among the gold. A bit like an old song her grandmother used to sing and had passed on to her mother. She liked the silver threads, like the ones she now had, and knew she would weave them well.  [To be continued] ***** That was how the first part of the task of healing t...

6 likes

Kintsugi

There they were, all of them, or most of them. “No,” she thought, “they’re all here. Nothing is missing.” And so she began the painstaking task of piecing them back together. Funny, though: it wasn’t at all like the task that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men had tried to accomplish with Humpty Dumpty. This was her effort, solitary, valid, valuable. And so she set to work piecing every one of them back together. It wasn’t an arduous undertaking, though, even if it wasn’t exactly fun. It was simply something that needed to be...

4 likes

See Clearly

I can see it now. See what? It. What is it? What’s up ahead? Where ahead? Ahead. In the tunnel.  I don’t see a tunnel. Look. It’s there. Where? Up ahead. Well, I can’t see anything. Not a tunnel and not whatever is in it. Open your eyes! They are open. And there’s nothing there. Are you trying to fool me with that old line? What old line. You know the one I’m talking about. No, I don’t, actually. It’s the one that goes there’s no there there. Huh? Yes, it was a famous line. Whose line was it, an...

5 likes

Follow Me, She Said (L2.9)

A nail had once been drivenInto my very heart…That had been Annette Meakins’ 1909 translation of the first lines of the famous poem by Rosalía de Castro. Lavinia thought it wasn’t bad, but for the original - Unha vez tiven un cravo cravado no meu corazón - she would have preferredOnce I had a spikePiercing my heartIt was the cravo cravado  that was a challenge to translate. Maybe a nail nailed into the heart sounded better? Except cravo had two syllables, the verb cravar repeated the root crav- and thus sounded more ...

6 likes

A Poem to No

Please, oh please, don't do it. If you want us to be friends, you're going to have to restrain yourself. If you like, I can explain, so you'll see how easy it is. At the same time, I'm all right with not being friends. Six one way, half a dozen the other.  Don't send me yellow roses, which are my favorite flower, most of the time. Other times I like Rudbeckias, lilacs, or lavender. Oh, please don't send me lavender. It won't survive in my garden becauuse I won't water it on purpose. Not the Munstead variety, not the Spanish kind. No k...

7 likes

Obedience

ObedienceThink outside the box. (DO)Color outside the lines. (DON'T)Rub somebody the wrong way. (DON'T)Touch somebody. (DON'T, unless you mean metaphorically)Mow the lawn. (DO)Walk on the grass. (DON'T)Call people names. (DON'T)Face the music. (DO)Fix the problem. (DO)Get lost. (Either DO or DON'T. It depends.)Other options. Figure out whether it's DO or DON'T for you: BYOBStealYellSpeedSome of us spend our whole lives following the rules and obeying instructions. That especially holds true if you are a good Methodist like I used to be....

6 likes

Friendship: A Prose Poem

They were good friends and their friendship was unique, although the description that follows might sound rather mundane. You will have to decide for yourself.Whether or not they were best friends didn’t matter. She would have liked to look up the etymology of the word ‘friend’ (she knew it was Germanic, though) as well as ‘amigo’ (she knew it came from Latin). When she thought about word origins, she wanted to learn about them as far back as possible. He wasn’t all that interested in those things. Maybe they even bored him. It wasn’t always...

8 likes