The exercise:
Write a four line poem about something or someone that is: soaked.
Packed up the truck this morning in a light drizzle. It rained steadily all the way up to Penticton, aside from two brief periods of absolute downpour. Setup the stall in a light drizzle, then the rain stopped for a while. And then came back. And then stopped for quite a while. And then downpoured around noon. And then it stopped and the sun came out for the end of the market.
On the way home there were two downpours (one on either side of Oliver), otherwise no rain whatsoever. It was just one of those days where the rain couldn't fully commit to falling all the time, but it sure as hell wasn't about to stop entirely either.
Thankfully the crowds were pretty much undeterred by the weather. We sold all of our peaches, apples, plums, zucchini, blackberries, all but one of our onions, cucumbers, and bags of green beans, and all but two of our pints of cherry tomatoes. Oh and we still had about half a crate of nectarines on the ride home. Sold some garlic and greeting cards as well.
Needless to say, that was an exponentially better market than I was expecting on the drive up this morning.
As for my poem below... it's inspired by what happened at the bakery stall next to ours during pack up. Pretty much all the tents at the market collect rain at their edges when it rains like that and it's always a challenge finding time and space to shake it off before too much collects and it runs over the side all on its own.
Mine:
Mama pushing toddler in a stroller,
He gets an unexpected downpour.
Screams, tears, utterly inconsolable...
Until a free cookie brings peace, restored.
2 comments:
That rain sound like it must have been slightly worrying; every time you think it's settled, suddenly it comes back again, and then gets really heavy as well. l can imagine you driving there constantly wondering if this is going to be a complete washout just because people can't trust the weather!
As, poor kid. Though perhaps I should be saying poor mama, since she doesn't get the cookie and still has to get the child dried off and settled again afterwards. Though part of me does think that people should know that the edges of the tents are a little dangerous in wet weather!
Soaked
The carpenter surveyed my table with dismay
Hoping, perhaps, that I'd take it away.
"Tell me the worst," I said, "is it, well, broke?"
"S'bad," he replied. "S'oaked."
Greg - yeah, I was definitely tempted to turn back. But by that point I was pretty much committed to the damned thing. As it turned out, good thing I was!
I was surprised she took it so well. Maybe that was because she felt at least partially at fault?
Hah, I always appreciate your tweaks on my prompts and this is no exception. Never in a million years would my mind have gone in this direction with that prompt.
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