Saturday Centus, Fresh Start

Saturday has rolled around again and that means Centus. In  my world that is so hot and boring, Jenny is doing her part trying to help me avoid a melt down by priming my creative pump! This week she gives us the right to use a picture, made more words available, and tossed in a prompt of "You are my sunshine..." Did she know any wording with sun right now might push me over the edge?

We are on our way to another 106 day here. I have watered flowers, dumped pots that couldn't make it water or not, and been to the farmer's market for tomatoes and cantaloupes. I have read other Centus writers this morning, and their takes are a lot lighter than mine--which is often the case. Something about writing bring out my serious side. While I drove to the town square my Centus formed in my head, unbidden, and I am going to go with it.

The picture is my great-great grandfather of Cherokee lineage who lived on the Missouri/ Oklahoma line, among other places. One of 16 children, he died in 1919.
For more Centus to read and complete rules to play today, go to
http://jennymatlock.blogspot.com/2011/08/saturday-centus-you-are-my-sunshine.html

                                                   Fresh Start
John Walks Forward was sitting on a rock ledge by the Illinois River thinking about his life. Two years ago, he and Star Morning had lived through the Trail of Tears, but not without paying a premium price. They had buried the baby just before crossing the Mississippi at Missouri’s bootheel. Then they lost their son somewhere after leaving Springfield in the frigid march towards the White Man’s Midwest.



He and Star Morning swallowed their sorrow and started again in a leafy area near the Illinois. No forest could be as dense as those in Carolina, but they made the best home possible of saplings they found. The garden was dug, planted and now grew squash and corn. Five cows of the Walks Forward place grazed on an Ozark hillside. Now he waited for his wife to deliver them a new baby, a new hope.


He heard the woman whistle him up and headed back. He stood over his wife’s sweat-riddled face as she prayed thanksgiving. “You are my sunshine, that which puts light into my sky, that which will put stars in my night. You will give me my song again.”


“He is named,” said John. “Star Morning’s Sunshine.”