Haibun, Haiku, Poetry, Theme Prompt, Writing Prompts

A Moment After

Nancy's Notes 🖊️♬

Written for Reena’s Xploration Challenge,
where she has given us the sentence below as
a thought-starter. Here’s where the prompt took me.

“A thought brushed my palm, then scattered like a startled bird.”

Image by Me & Perplexity

I had been sitting at the edge of the garden for some time …. long enough for the light to shift while watching a spider weaving its way between two fence posts. I was not thinking about anything in particular, which is to say I was thinking about everything at once. Then it came: a thought brushed my palm, then scattered like a startled bird. I felt the small wind of its leaving. I could not have told you its color, or where it meant to go.

I stayed with my hand open; there is a discipline in that …. in not closing the fingers, not pretending you caught what you did not catch. The spider went on with its work. The light moved another inch.

Later I would not remember what almost arrived. Only the sensation of it: something warm passing through.

open hand, then gone…
the garden holds its stillness
I forget to close

Inside the house the kettle had long since gone cold. I noticed this the way you notice the end of rain …. not when it stops, but a moment after. Some things announce their departure only in the silence they leave. I washed the cup anyway; the water was warm enough.

cold kettle, warm hands…
what was almost understood
rinses clean away

NAR©2026

This is “Hummingbird” by Seals & Crofts

Reena’s Xploration Challenge #432

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

23 thoughts on “A Moment After”

  1. Pingback: Reena’s Xploration Challenge #433 – Creative Experiments and More

  6. First off, Seals and Croft- such a unique sound- love them.. There are so many dreams like this- you think you have captured something special- only to wake and find out you have no idea what…

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  9. Wow! I love the term “noticing when the rain stops – not when it stops, but a moment after.”

    It is akin to the principle that our memories are Version 2 of the event – what actually happened and how we felt about what happened.

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