Magpie Tale #70

        Tess Kincaid brings it every week. Every week, another photo, another invitation, another chance to hone our writing craft.

       This is the 70th Magpie Tale, and your mission (if you choose to accept it) is to write a poem or a short vignette, using the photo as inspiration.

        After you write one, link it via Mr. Linky at Magpie Tales and read and comment on the others' tales.

         Following the photo is my Magpie for this week.

         She held the photo in her hand. The number meant nothing to her. Last summer, her great-granddaughter had gone through the dusty, thumbed-edged portraits and together, they numbered them chronologically. She said, "Nana, now we'll have like a timeline of you and what you looked like. Isn't that tight?"

          Tight? What was constricting about it? She let it pass, not understanding, but just nodded a bit.

          Photo # 199 was Margaret at 19, already a mother, but still so beautiful. (Even if she did say so herself!) Her eyes clear, her skin flawless, her face unlined.

           More than six decades had slipped between her fingers since that portrait was taken. Now her eyes were a milky blue. Her skin was as fragile as crepe paper. Her face was cross-hatched with deep crevices.

         Where had the time gone?  And how many other photos were waiting in the wings, still untaken?

(Only after I read Tess Kincaid's Magpie did I examine the photo once again, and felt silly. Of course it is a price, not just a three-digit number!  Since I realized that too late, I went in another direction when I wrote my Magpie Tale.

Which is okay, because as long as we're writing, we're using our writing muse-cles, which means we're working on our craft.)