I ended up writing three pieces for the Flare challenge celebrating the june solstice and the full moon falling within the same week. The third one was the sweet First Spark about luring fireflies to spell out the words I Love You. The second one, Only The Dust isn’t as strong or sweet but it also plays with avoiding romantic entanglements: yes, that is the Winterlark hiding from a summer fling who refuses to stay flung. But considering it’s her, he must be pretty damn special.
The first one… is very different from my usual fare. Not so sweet or comic, and written in the first person. I wrote it on the monday, after turning over phrases while walking from work to the supermarket. It got worse on the tram home with my groceries; the closest scrap of paper was the shopping list so transcribing the notes into coherence later was interesting:
whispering in chinese red, yoghurt, something crispy, they said it was all midsummer moon my madness, minestrone
Something like that. Thee and I wrote itself and once I’d recovered I could see all sorts of resonances in it. Ophelia was fairly obvious, a bit of Narcissus and Wuthering Heights, some Janet from the Tam Lin tale, Lady of Shallot. I think I like it; I’m not sure what I’ll do with it long term, except hope her lover is waiting on the other side of the pond/moon-made mirror. Anyway, it’s featured in the Blue Room this week, chosen by the lovely Bellmusker.