life

Esther’s challenge this week is to write a poem or prose piece using the word kind. You can join in here: https://estherchilton.co.uk/2025/08/13/writing-prompts-78/

Act of Kindness (shadorma prose)

When I was eight, my sister, Catherine, was four, and Hayley and Laura were fifteen months and six weeks old, respectively, my family moved to a small coastal village called Fish Hoek in the Western Cape. Our cottage was a temporary furnished rental for a period of three months while the partly built house my parents purchased was finished.

Mom was busy all day long with the babies, so Catherine and I walked to the beach on our own. Our route took us through the town and past the local grocery store. Catherine and I had been taught to be kind and helpful to others, especially elderly people. I had also been a Brownie for a few months before my family relocated from Johannesburg. Helping others was an important part of the Brownies Association’s ethos.

During one of our walks through the town, we happened to see an elderly lady struggling to carry heavy shopping bags. In those days the bags were made of brown paper and the bottoms had to be supported or they broke. Naturally, I immediately seized this opportunity to be a good Brownie and rushed over with an offer to carry the old lady’s bags for her. She accepted gratefully, and I carried the two heavy bags to her flat a few streets away. Her apartment block had stairs and no lift, which necessitated my carrying the bags up four long flights of stairs before we finally reached the door to her flat. I remember my arms aching from carrying those bags with the bottom one cradled in both my arms and the second laid on top of it. It was most uncomfortable.

The lady was pleased and invited us in for a cup of tea. This was the beginning of a lovely friendship. Once a week, Cath and I would visit this old lady and have a cup of tea with her. She always provided a delicious spread of homemade biscuits. She loved to crochet and showed me some beautiful pin cushions she’d made. I admired them so much she gifted me one on the day of our last visit before moving to our new home. I kept that pin cushion, bright green with white edging, for years and years.

I have often wondered over the years what happened to her. I hope she was happy and managed to get her groceries home without incident. I have no idea how she would have carried them up the stairs.

impulsive

small act of kindness

brightened life

of widow

living far from family

aging in quiet solitude

CFFC

Dan’s CFFC challenge this week is afternoon. You can join in here: https://nofacilities.com/2025/08/18/time-of-day-evening-cffc/.

All the photographs below were taken in the afternoon. The first three are London scenes from the balcony of our hotel room near Westminster Bridge and the street art consists of photographs of construction walling street art taken in Bruxelles, Belgium. These pictures all relate to one length of construction walling.

Picture caption: You can see The Shard in the background.

Picture caption: I snapped this street art picture on the way to the airport on our last day in Bruxelles

Merril asked poets to write a piece of prosery, no longer than 144 words, using a specified phrase from the poem “The Magnificent Frigatebird” by Ada Limón. I used the phrase as a heading for my piece. I wrote an initial piece and then I edited it down to achieve the 144-word requirement. I have included both pieces as the longer pieces includes a lot more details about one of my favourite birds, the ostrich. You can join in here: https://dversepoets.com/2025/05/12/prosery-ada-limon/

“I have no skills for flight or wings
to skim the waves effortlessly, like the wind itself.”

This is the 144-word piece:

“Mama, why can’t we fly. We’re birds, aren’t we? All the other birds can fly.”

“Well, Little One, we are ostriches. We don’t need to fly. We have evolved to become flightless.”

“But Mama, I want to fly. I want to be the same as my friends. I don’t like being different.”

“You should be proud to be part of a species of bird that has adapted so well to its desert home. It’s more useful for us to have speed and endurance. We can sprint at over 70 kilometres an hour.

“And we do use our wings, we just don’t use them to fly.”

“I remember how you sheltered me and my siblings from the rain and the sun with your wings, Mama. Thank you for explaining. I feel much better now and I’m going to tell my friends how special I am.”

This is the longer and more detailed piece:

“Mama, why can’t we fly. We’re birds, aren’t we? All the other birds can fly, even my friend the kori bustard.”

“Well, Little One, we are ostriches. We no longer fly because we don’t need to. In the distant past we did fly but over time we have evolved to become flightless.”

“But Mama, I want to fly. I want to be the same as all my bird friends. They say I’m not a proper bird because I can’t fly and my wings are useless. It makes me sad.”

“Ostriches are proper birds, my son. You should be proud to be part of a species of bird that has adapted so well to its desert home. We don’t use our wings for flight because it was more advantageous for us to develop speed and endurance on the ground. You must remember that ostriches breed on the ground and we also take advantage of abundant ground-level food sources. Our main predators are hyenas and lions, so we need to be able to outrun them. And we can outrun them. We are the fastest runners of any bird or other two-legged creature in the world. Did you know that? We can sprint at over 70 kilometres an hour.

“And we do use our wings. We don’t use them to fly, that is true, but we use our wings for many useful purposes. Our wings reach a span of approximately 2 metres and we use them in mating displays, to protect our chicks, and to cover the skin of our upper legs and flanks to conserve heat when it’s cold. We also use our wings as rudders to help us change direction while running.”

Little One cuddles up to Mama. “I remember how you sheltered me and my siblings from the rain and the sun with your wings, Mama. You are right, your wings were very important to protect us. Thank you, Mama, for explaining. I feel much better now and I’m going to tell my friends how special I am.”