Silica Packet? [15 Words or Less]

Hello, and welcome! This is 15 Words or Less Poems, a low-pressure way to wake up your poetry brain (guidelines here), and I’m very glad you’re here. 

Photo: Laura P. Salas

I’m not going to tell you what this one is. It’s whatever you make of it! 

This image makes me think of several things:

  1. the silica packets inside shoes
  2. dried seedheads in the snow
  3. the view through a microscope

And here’s my first draft. Oh, my, I struggled with this. I so wanted to write about a vampire who wanted to suck moisture from air instead of human blood. But just couldn’t find a way in 15 words.

 

 

It’s your turn! Have fun and stick to 15 WORDS OR LESS! (Title doesn’t count toward word count.)

 

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26 Responses

  1. What a fun tribute to those hard working silica packets, Laura. I saw a bird bath in early winter.

    leaf boats
    in icy bird bath
    frozen flotilla

    1. Margaret, your words are timely this morning, for sure. We can all identify with the bowl full of sorrow.

    2. Sometimes it feels like we’re always trying to scrabble up the sides of a bowl full of sorrow. Thankful for light, including the light of your poetry, Margaret!

  2. I going to guess a bucket of salt for snow

    poem by Jessica Bight

    Snow Cones

    Grape and cherry smiles
    giggle slushy sloshy slurps
    of surgery iced crunches
    of happiness

    1. Good guess, but nope! What a tasty poem. Funny how writing about something so cold brings back so many summer memories!

  3. Never mind the vampire Laura. You can’t go wrong with the word “sneaker.” My first glimpse prompted a dinner-sized stoneware plate placed in front of a little boy. Overwhelming!

    Little Johnny’s Dinner

    One beet eaten
    peas pushed aside
    scarfed mac ‘n cheese
    basked in mama’s pride.

    1. Oh, my, the memories of dinner table battles when I was a kid. (Never over mac ‘n cheese, though!)

  4. Thanks for the inspiration this morning, Laura.

    Hershey Park with Dad

    I am seven again
    holding a
    sweet blue raspberry snowcone
    my heart
    and fingers numb.

    By Ann Magee

    1. Ahh yes Ann. And I wonder if we experienced what we now know as “brain freeze.” Sweet memories!

    2. Ooh, Ann, I am pulled in two emotional directions here. This feels like part of a deep story. Love the detail of that sweet blue raspberry snowcone…

  5. A poem about silica, Laura you never cease to amaze me. All I saw was a bowl of sugar. I was up all night making Donkey cookies in Red, White, and blue sugar crystals for my son’s Presidents Day treat. He was Andrew Jackson, so hence the Donkey cookies.

    Donkey Delight

    Sugar, sugar, sugar;
    Cookie snack today.
    Little Presidents delight,
    and shout,
    “Hip, hip, hooray!”

  6. I like your mystery photo, Laura. But it looks like your site forgot who I was again. Oh well, here goes!

    Cradle a bowl
    of blue in your hands-
    little flowers, high sky,
    a grandma’s rheumy eye.

    -Kate Coombs

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