10/8 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

Ah, the colors of autumn. The winner of this week’s contest is Karen Winters. Karen writes: “Coincidentally, this was the painting I was going to post today, so it’s good timing. It represents a small bridge over a stream not far from where I live. The California sycamores put on quite a show when the time is right.” A beautiful and dreamy painting, Karen! Your $10 amazon.com gift certificate is on the way.

From Cathy Jennings: “Here is something for autumn. I made these with my son for his kindergarten class this week. They are gluten-free sugar cookie mix, with currants for eyes and fruit leather for the mouth….All the little monsters like them.” LOL — nice work, Cathy!

From Elizabeth Beck: “i just finished this painting this week….leaves are gone…birds have flown away…it is autumn…almost winter…almost spring again….”

From Cathy Coley, two poems selected from her archives:

No matter the sorrows, still
the yellow tree trembles.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
September

Time does not slip from my fingers.
It runs roaring from the grip
Humanity places on everything.
We’ve wrestled the lion into the measured cage
Of years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes,
Seconds on down to nanoseconds.

But time is no circus lion under the whip
To whom an open door is a forlorn vision of freedom;
Who lays swatting flies with his magnificent tail,
As his trainer waltzes through the creaking iron door,
Steak in hand.

Time is not contained by our definitions.
The Time/Space Continuum does not hold
Its butterflies in the net.

My small attempts to keep Time at bay:
My lists and schedules; I would rather be
forming yoga postures, swimming,
Sitting in the grass smelling starlight,
Running down the beach, sand curling
Between my toes in the shallows of the waves,
Making love, playing cards, talking of dreams,
Listening to friends’ woes, loving my children,
Laughing, laughing, and watching them grow
While wishing they’d hold this moment a little longer
Before losing another tooth or stretching the soft curve
Of their cheeks across a jawbone.

I feel like an ass
Baying against Time.
The moon looks down and shines a gaze
For me to consider her cycles around earth;
Her endless shift of seasons,
Her veils of tides.
The sun doesn’t care but to dry us up.
And the two pass this blue ball between them
In a game we can only imagine because its time is
Too big to consider from our few measured days.

And Time, stalwart, waits and watches
Us grow from buds to fall like leaves,
As we watch now the red and gold
Flip, float and curl in the wind
Toward a pile, wrap in and around:
The tail of a lion
With no flies to swat.

From me (Miranda): A photograph. No poem this week! Just the photo. I drive by this spot every Monday and had been wanting to shoot it for weeks. I was disappointed that this Monday was overcast, because I’d been looking forward to bright sun on red leaves, but I was thrilled with what I got instead.

This week’s prompt: “Tears”

Use the prompt however you like — literally, a hint for colors, or a tangential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 8:00 p.m. eastern time (GMT -5) on Tuesday, October 14. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) All submissions are acknowledged when received; if you do not receive e-mail confirmation of receipt within 24 hours, please post a comment here. Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.