There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.
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For my flash piece "A Diminished Thing," I wrote about a man with a 4-inch penis who could not be loved by the woman he adored (a poet). I thought Frost might like that reading of "a diminished thing."
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So that's your Friday prompt. Take something from Frost's "The Oven Bird," and make it central to your flash. So many things to choose from, yes?
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