12 | Mar | 2021 | willowdot21

A new Home for Sue Vincent’s #writephoto. The first Challenge Behind the Door.

KL Caley at Novel Ideas has offered to take on Sue Vincent’s #writephoto as a weekly challenge now it has become too difficult for Sue to continue.

K.L. said : “I am sure so many of you will already know this wonderful story but a little over five years ago, the wonderful Sue Vincent of Daily Echo (and The Silent Eye) posted the most intriguing image:”

The convent was surrounded by an ancient stone wall. For centuries there was no entrance or exit gate or door. Novices when first admitted had to use an old wooden ladder and take a leap of faith to enter. Food supplies and correspondence was pullyed over the walls by means of bucket and rope.

The nuns lived a complentative life, growing what they could and tending their animals and themselves with the minimum of contact with outside world. The had a well, a library, a hospital and they were self-sufficient. They survived plagues, the Refermation, world wars and up until now any influence from the modern world.

Suddenly one day the sound of stones being chiseled could be heard in the nearby fields. The press and media were alerted and rushed to see and report on what was happening. Over night a beautiful round door appeared in the wall.

The door was opened once, briefly, by a tiny little Nun who looked escance at the gathered media. She shook her head, slammed the door shut and locked it. Things carried on just as before. After a while the media gave up on the story.

Midnight Haiku … #midnighthaiku

The perfect book to end or start your day.

Sue Vincent's Daily Echo

For around five years, I posted a haiku every night at midnight.

I like the constraint of the seventeen syllables of the classic ‘haiku in English’, exploring brevity to capture multiple layers of meaning. I like the discipline of writing at least one poem a day… for a poem demands engagement from a different part of the mind than a factual or opinion piece, even though a poem may be both. And I like the personal challenge I set myself most days, of dredging up a random photo from the tens of thousands on my computer and writing the haiku about that photo without argument.

I do rather miss writing them now. So, instead, I put a year’s worth of them into a book. It was curious to see how they worked together, running into each other and illuminating the ideas each poem held.