I work hard to corral the horses before they stampede.
Still, someone asks, “How did the buttercup escape?”
I turn to see a hoof crush a flower.
Yellow stains on my hands, I crumple and weep.
Just a thought 51
Photograph of buttercups courtesy Pixabay
Sharon Lynne Bonin-Pratt began her writing career the way so many others have done: by first doing everything else. Winning entries in grade school art, story, and essay contests convinced her to become a writer, but the real world intruded in adulthood and demanded she pay bills, raise kids, be a contributing member of the community. Along that rutted path she worked in the commercial art field designing patterns for surfer shorts, bikinis, and Hawaiian style shirts, taught after-school art through a city recreation program, and structured an art curriculum for three private schools. Ten years ago the writing muse, struggling to breathe in letters to friends and art articles, found its way to the surface. In a two-week period Shari wrote 60 pages of her first historical novel, and didn’t stop for three years. By then a second book demanded paper – OK, computer space – and now the third is in final revision stage. Of course, final revision is two words with a long shadow and a little footprint. Some folk claim they will write when the floors get vacuumed, the family accounting completed, the new garden planted. Shari is proof that all those things can be successfully ignored but not the urge to write. Her fiction explores human relationships, revenge, rage, forgiveness, redemption, and all the labyrinthine quandaries that mess up otherwise perfect lives. She resides in Southern California with her husband who’s learned to vacuum but not to cook. And the garden needs help.
Sharon Bonin-Pratt's Ink Flare 
Comments on: "Buttercup" (12)
Ahh …Sharon, I do understand so your beautiful poem. We don’t want to crush anything
and yet every footstep – or hoof step can do. The buttercup is still alive and will give you another bloom in forgiveness. 😊💕 .
miriam
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“Another bloom in forgiveness.” I hope so, Miriam.
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Don’t worry too much, Shari. They feed the land, to grow grass for the horses, and then their beautiful blooms regrow. The circle of life.
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I know you’re right, Jacqui, but it still seems a bit sad.
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Beautiful sentiment, Shari, from one who rescues moths and spiders from inside my house and throws them outside 😉
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Glad you liked it, Terri.
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Me too! My brother-in-law visited us for a while and thought he was doing me a favor vacuuming the cobwebs.
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I’m giggling – (sorry about that.)
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We try so hard not to cause pain but it’s such a big part of life. Sigh.
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If there are two sides to an issue and ten people discussing it, there are at least twenty points of view, and everyone thinks theirs is the most valid. Most of the time, pain is not caused with malice but from misunderstanding.
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This is only too true, Shari! Misunderstanding is the cause for so much pain and trouble.
But buttercups are very resilient so it will come back. 😊
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Buttercups are resistant – other beings, not so much. You might be the only reader who understood the poem.
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