Phrase Prompt, Prose, Prosery, Theme Prompt, Writing Challenge, Writing Prompts

What Remains

Nancy's Notes 🖊️♬

Written for dVerse Poets Prosery –
Paul Laurance Dunbar. Our host, Dora,
asks us to include the line below from Dunbar’s
poem, “Sympathy” in a 144-word piece of prose.
Here’s where the prompt took me.

“And the faint perfume from its chalice steals–“

Image by Me & Copilot

The old man kept an empty birdcage on his windowsill for years after the bird was gone, and the mornings remained unchanged without it. His life was stuck in a meaningless loop.

He would notice the faint suggestion of dawn arriving before sound, before memory fully awoke. Then the rich perfume from the jasmine outside would drift in through the gap in the window frame from its shrub planted somewhere in the tangled garden below. On the sill beside the cage sat a clay chalice his daughter had made in school, and something from it steals into him still: its charming imperfections, her small hands, the morning she presented it to him with such ceremony.

He never replaced the bird. He never moved the chalice. To do so seemed somehow wrong.

Some vessels, he understood, are not meant to be filled again. Only remembered.

NAR©2026
144 Words

Nancy’s Notes: The line from the poem may be used exactly as written, or it may be changed with brakes or punctuation without altering the order of the words.

This is “Empty Cages” by Dan Fogelberg

Prosery — Paul Laurence Dunbar

Everything on The Elephant’s Trunk was created by me, unless otherwise indicated. Thanks for your consideration. NAR©2017-present.

24 thoughts on “What Remains”

  2. I cannot chastise you as Dora was unclear in her instructions.. Normally the rules are more clear 😉 This is beautiful writing.

    Now, I challenge you to do this according to the rules and regs 😉

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  5. I so enjoyed this fine piece of storytelling, Nancy! Absolutely melted my heart. I love the slow movement from loss and emptiness to the rich fullness of love remembered. So exquisitely done.

    (No worries but I need to mention — only for future reference’s sake! — that dVerse rules don’t allow for the prompt line’s words to be separated from each other. I’m sorry I didn’t make that more clear! Thanks for joining in, Nancy. I wouldn’t have liked to miss this story. ❤️)

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    1. Thank you for your lovely comment and appreciating my efforts, Dora. I’m sorry for the miscommunication on my part. I was under the impression, after reading the rules, that the line from the poem may be used exactly as written, or it may be changed with brakes or punctuation without altering the order of the words (a direct quote from the dVerse page). The italicized words in my prose are in the exact order as the original line. Please enlighten me: how exactly did I break the rules? I really need to know so I don’t make the same mistake in the future. Thank you.

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      1. Yeah, you can break up the line by adding or changing punctuation — commas, dashes, or even periods. But you can’t add words in between the given ones. That’s all. Confusing, I know.

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        1. OK, I understand. Perhaps it’s time for the rules to be rewritten because you’re right, it is very confusing. 😊

          Perhaps you would consider this for clearer instructions: The line from the poem may be used exactly as written, or it may be changed with punctuation breaks only without altering the order of the words.

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  8. An absolutely beautiful finale two lines dear friend …
    “He never replaced the bird. He never moved the chalice. To do so seemed somehow wrong.

    Some vessels, he understood, are not meant to be filled again. Only remembered.”

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