Wednesday October 20th, 2010

The exercise:

Let's go with: transformation.

Put together our bathroom vanity this afternoon. All I have to say is: whoever made those instructions should be buried up to their neck in a field of hungry ants.

Tonight we bought a used fireplace for a really good price. Now I want to chop even more wood! Perhaps one day I shall not talk about fireplaces or woodchopping.

That day is not today.

Mine:

These were trees in a forest at some point. Now they're stacked in the field, waiting.


Now some of it has been chainsawed down to size and chopped to bits with that axe you see there.

And now it's burning away to nothing in the fireplace, warming the house in the process.


It's been interesting watching transformation on such a large scale. It makes you think about other conversions we don't get to witness. Like how and when and where did that bit of cardboard that's doing such a fine job of containing the milk come from?

4 comments:

Greg said...

It always seems odd that you can buy a used fireplace, as the word kind of suggests a permanent location for a fire! However, I'm sure you've picked a beautiful one :) As for assembly instructions -- I believe that the writer's guide is a piece of paper that just says "Keep them guessing!"
I love the little photostory you have there for the prompt this morning! Obviously none of the rest of us can do that in the comments though.

Transformation

A coffee cup,
plain, unadorned, and large enough
to drown kittens in.
(If that weren't a waste of good coffee.)
Filled almost to the brim,
brown nectar trembling at the rim,
clutched in claw-like, grasping hands.
And with the first sip,
a miraculous transformation occurs.
Tense muscles relax,
air sighs in a subdued breath,
and the manic energy of the day focuses
and becomes organised.

Zhongming said...

Marc – I absolutely love all the pictures you posted today! The clarity, color, brightness are all in great form when you took them. The first one had so much meaning when you looked at it, that blue sky couple beautiful clouds, mountain seen from afar, that neatly stacked wood in the field and the field itself. And those huts made me wonder what peaceful days they are going through. It’s fabulous! :)

Greg – That’s a wonderful poem, I bet coffee lovers will have the same experience :)

Transformation

After looking at such beautiful pictures taken from the field and those wood chopping and fireplace, I really feel like moving to somewhere secluded.

It makes me want to put my hands onto those woods and start building my own hut, furniture and doors!

I think people who live there is really lucky. It looked like a peaceful and quiet place (like first picture up there) and it’s my dream home! It doesn’t have to be fanciful, high-tech or full of facility like condo. A place like that easily best a condo or multi-million houses.

I can feel the freedom by touching the whole natural environment and that is so much different compared to city lifestyle, where people are always racing against time and money and all.

It just didn’t feel right to me.

summerfield said...

transformation

the old man sits on the bench under the tree, clutching the collars of his coat. the wind blows every now and then and the leaves of the old sycamore behind him flutter to the ground, kissing the grass before the wind carries them farther.

it never fails to amaze him, this tree. in the spring it has been the keys that fell from it, and in the summer it has been its shelter that he has sought every time the sun shone too long up in the heavens. then as autumn approaches, he stares in wonderment at its changing colours. when winter comes, he knows, the view would still surprise him with its snowy covering, as it has done all these eighty years.

it is a cycle he never gets tired of. and he knows, the tree would still be there while his own body has been ravaged by nature.

---

marc, i particularly love the first photograph - nature in its full display, it's always amazing. but the other two are also very good. gheez, my friend, is there something you are not good at? :-)

as to the milk cartons, i have a story about it, but i will tell it in the future.

greg, as usual, very vivid description i watched as the tense muscles relaxed as the coffee is ingested.

zhongming, when i was young i wanted to be a farmer, but i very sooner found out that it was just the "romantic" in me. because i need running water 24/7. make that clean running water.

Marc said...

Greg - I don't know if it's beautiful, but it should do the job :)

When we build our proper home, then we'll get a right proper fancy one :D

Ah, your love of coffee comes shining through once again. Lovely poem.

Zhongming - thanks very much for the kind words on the pictures. I think a lot of people can relate to how you felt there (I know I certainly could just a few short months ago). Sadly (to me at least), not too many people act on those feelings.

Summerfield - gorgeous imagery. I particularly liked your first stanza.

And thank you :)

Rest assured though, we do have clean running water 24/7. I'm not that country quite yet ;)