Month: June 2022

Six Word Story (73)

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Though cracked and dry, the riverbed is still there.

The broken boat evidence of past actions.

Our hearts? Can they still hear the whispers of the waves? Can we still praise in the drought?

It’s hard, but nature doesn’t forget past blessings even as the landscapes change. The earth buries its evidence in layer after layer of newness.

I will try to sit, be silent, and remember the sound of waves lapping the shore. I will remember past blessings. I will praise.

©2022 Mary Grace van der Kroef

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Layers of Years

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I am privileged
To watch youth fade.

I am blessed,
To count the whispers of gray
That wave.

May I be privileged
To taste the wisdom on temples,
Hold the gentleness
Of fingers,
Love the layers of years
Within you.

©2022 Mary Grace van der Kroef

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Six Word Story (72)

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Interruptions. Changing of plans. We rarely look for those things, but if you know anything about river adventures, you know that a portage is often unavoidable. What do you do when you find a proverbial canoe on your shoulders, instead of in the water where it belongs?

Keep walking, carry a good compass, bring a friend along to help with the load.

These are things easier said than done. When your legs ache, when you’re tired and it’s dark and you can’t read your compass, when you and your partner find verbal combat easier than carrying a canoe… In the middle of at a portage doesn’t always seem like an adventure, but that’s life. We don’t always recognise the adventures we are on when we are standing in the middle of them.

Perspective. This is my reminder to remember and check my perspective.

©2022 Mary Grace van der Kroef

Photo sourced from unsplash.com.

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Butternut Squash Soup

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Thankful for tears
as I chop onions.
Release,
I didn’t know I needed.

Raw bitterness
dumped
atop sweet
orange flesh.

Juice
flows past my firmest grip.
Gentleness,
mixed with curry spice.

Squash and pear.
present with sadness.
Stewed together
then blended smooth.

A prosses,
as the bubbles rise.
God met me here.

The soup is done.

©2022 Mary Grace van der Kroef

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Walnut Greens, Falling Purpose/Door is a Jar Magazine

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I have been waiting in great anticipation to share this publication with everyone. It’s always such a blessing to my heart to see my words in print, and as an acceptance from Door is a Jar Magazine was unexpected, it makes it even sweeter.

I first connected with this magazine on twitter #writingcommunity.

Door is a Jar is a print and digital literary magazine of poetry, short fiction, nonfiction, drama and artwork. Our publication focuses on writing that is accessible for all readers.

Door is a Jar Magazine

Their emphasis on accessibility for all and clarity so that everyone can enjoy and understand the stories and poems they publish is right in line with what I am all about. I enjoy academic and literary works but my heart is where the simple becomes beautiful.

“Within the cover letter please include your full name, contact info, and a fun 3-sentence bio, which will be published in the magazine. (We’re not as interested in how many degrees you have, or how widely you’ve been published. Instead, we want to hear about the real you. We want to know about the little things that spur you along.)”

Door is a Jar Submission page

My poems Walnut Greens and Falling Purpose appear in Issue 23 Summer 2022 alongside the work of 49 other writers. This issue is available on Amazon as an ebook and in print.

If you are a writer, I encourage you to take advantage of their rolling submissions.

Mary Grace van der Kroef

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Six Word Story (71)

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Do you have an arrow you follow? A compass? Something that guides you when you lose sight of land?

We all do, whether or not we realise it.

Sometimes, the guides that we follow are not very clear. Or, their arrows are not true and it’s difficult to discern if we are heading the right way.

How do we know if our guiding arrows are trustworthy? Have you ever had to find a new one?

I have.

Now, my compass is the Holy Bible. What is yours?

©2022 Mary Grace van der Kroef

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Lovers Getaway

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The joy of wriggling feet in wet sand as waves tease toes with cool kisses, one after the other in the rhythmic love of touch.
Whet sand sticks to heals. Tinny particles embedded in natural valleys of skin, playing as if they lived there when it’s vacation day.
The sand paper feel of brushing particles of rocks from flesh, and finding them attached to palm and fingers and hiding in, in between places.
Better to walk the shores barefoot, letting the warmth of sun and wind do their work? Watch the dark sands lighten to dry dust.
Brush hands together to cast tinny stones aside. Now ankles can be cleared of minuscule boulders, only the finest of glittering flecks remain as reminders of earth and skins dalliance.
Sandals laced. Only a stone here and there, stealing a peck from human follicles. Goodbye, kisses. Reluctantly brushed aside.

“Tomorrow.”

We whisper to the waves as the beach house light beckons. The courtship of human hearts and beach lasts only a day.
In the morning waves crash and clouds weep their farewell as a drizzle, on our last beach walk.

We can hear the gulls cry, “Don’t leave!” The salty breeze seals love like heartache to our memory with scent we won’t forget.
He holds the suitcase as I hold him.

“We’ll come back someday.”

The sand hiding in spaces between sandal leather and sole won’t let me forget this promise.

©2022 Mary Grace van der Kroef

Lovers Getaway was originally published in Dwelling Literary Issue 8: BEACH HOUSE.

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Six Word Story (70)

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The worlds that we are.

The magnificence that each body represents.

Even when flawed, or experiencing illness.

I have had to sit and watch the IV drop in silence, more than once in my life. Have you? I didn’t feel like a masterpiece in the middle of my pain. But that doesn’t change the fact that I was and still am, one.

So are you.

©2022 Mary Grace van der Kroef

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Aracknid Atrist

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Silken strands strung stunningly,
a woven web of artistry.
Secretions from innovations soul,
yet born to place each strand,
just so.
Elegant economic pattern,
drops of diamond dew bespattered.
Stops one dead in tracks this morn.
Now to face arachnid
scorn.
To such a masterpiece destroy…
A humbled apology employ.
Hours spent on spinning threads,
a masterpiece of newness
spreads.

©2022 Mary Grace van der Kroef

Arachnid Artist was originally published in The Dwelling Issue 7: BUGS UNDER THE RUG.

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