Fantasy, Haibun, Poem

The Watcher

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

Written for Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative
Challenge #061. I chose Pic #2.
Here’s where the image took me.

© Crispina Kemp

I have stood here through the turning of leaves, watching them shift from summer’s deep green to these flames of amber and rust. My yellow dress catches the afternoon light, and I wonder if the trees envy my constancy of color. The cottage behind me, with its thatched brow heavy with moss, drifts lazily while I keep watch. The fragrant aroma of roast turkey, potatoes, and pumpkin pie tickles my nose. Children pass and wave; some afraid, some delighted. The white picket fence marks the boundary between their world and mine – they in motion, I in stillness. Through rain and sun I remain, faithful to this patch of earth, this drowsy cottage, this procession of falling leaves that carpets the world in gold.

Autumn wind tugs hard
my straw heart stays rooted here
I watch everything


NAR©2025

This is “Thanksgiving Song” by Mary Chapin Carpenter

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #061

All text and graphics are copyright for Nancy’s Notes 🖊️🎶 and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.

32 thoughts on “The Watcher”

  12. A truly brilliant piece of writing, Nancy … my poet friend, Robert Okaji, would be happy to see such a fabulous story about “Scarecrows” …

    Robert Okaji: Scarecrow Votes

    I am no citizen, but here I reside in the fields

    among my dark friends. We’ve laughed

    together, but they will not miss me. One day

    I’ll vanish without ceremony, tossed into a

    rubbish heap, or burned. My absence will harm

    no one. Even ripped away, existence denied,

    circumstance denigrated, no tears will fall and

    the crows will continue. But can a young bird

    stolen from its mother thrive? How do we justify

    such action? What logic requires that the weakest,

    least harmful, be severed from their families in the

    guise of security? Crush the nest, then incinerate it.

    Vilify the victim. Spread falsehoods, repeat the lies.

    Cut their wings. Cage them. Prohibit touch. They

    serve no purpose, are less than human. Is this your

    truth, your legacy? Your desire? I am no man, but I

    stand in these fields, listening, singing. My voice,

    swelling through the wind-blown grain, expands

    across the plains, casts my vote with every gust,

    acknowledging humanity, asking: where is yours?

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