Today’s prompt was a challenge to write a poem about a very large thing. It could be a mountain or a blue whale or a skyscraper or a planet or the various contenders for the honor of being the Biggest Ball of Twine. Whatever I wanted.

So I sat down to write and this story happened. Weird and a bit quirky, but I tend to trust the process of writing and flow with it.

Happy Monday!

The Squamous Juke

The size is what she remembered the most.
It was silver and purple and looming—
With dragonflies dip-dashing overhead
And red tiger lilies blooming below.

Imagining it all belonged to her,
she reached out a tentative fingertip 
And immediately regretted it.
The tingling moved quickly from her fingers

to her arm, and slid slowly to her heart 
here the tiniest sliver embedded.
They found her like that, clutching at her heart 
and resting serenely under the stem

of the giant squamous juke tree. The peace
on her face showed a kind of contentment
she never knew while awake, and for that 
she couldn’t fault the tree. When she woke up,

she was different somehow—a changed woman
who loved mammoth trees, dragonflies, and sun.
A woman who would forever carry 
A tiny sliver of tree in her heart.

—cjpjordan