A friend recently expressed confusion (and a little contempt?!) that I reward Daily Shorty milestones with virtual treats. Occasionally the treat is something I acquired and photographed before inhaling it but typically, no, these treats come from Wikimedia Commons or friends kind enough to remember me and snap a photo before inhaling their own delights. In my defense I can only say that I love looking at these pictures. And that if I I ate all of the treats decorating this site I’d have to exercise twice as much as I do already, and these old knees can’t take it. So enjoy with me this gorgeous fruit tart, which caps a week of shorties inspired by poems posted at Poetry Daily. Today’s shorty was birthed by the haunting “Horse People” by David Mason (Southwest Review, Volume 97, Number 3), which literally gave me chills. It also gave me my favorite shorty of the week, which I wrote in a daze immediately after reading the poem for the first time. First four lines of the poem as teaser: “Quanah Parker’s mother as a young girl / saw her family lanced and hacked to pieces, / and was herself thrown on the hurtling rump / of a warrior’s pony whipped to the far off”
Working Title: Hair Color of Moon
1st Sentence: Too many John Wayne movies on Sunday afternoons.
Favorite Sentence: He is the noble savage but also the thief of little blondes, also cannon fodder for the likes of Mr. Wayne.
Word Length: 383
Photo by Kimberly Vardeman, May 2008.
Daily Shorty 