I only had two students for the writing group, but it went well.



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The idea that we covered was personification. That's when you take something that isn't a person and make it seem like a person. In kids' cartoons this might be a singing and dancing carrot. In poetry this might be a cloud that is described as happy or sad. It is used a lot, and it's great.



The prompt for the day was "big tree." We talked about the biggest trees that we've seen. Neither of the girls have seen the redwoods or the sequoias, which are amazing, but they have encountered other rather large oaks and pines.



The youngest wrote about a dragon that was in the top of a tree. A person climbed up to help the dragon, named it Tiny, and fed it a cow.



The oldest wrote about a palm tree that was all alone, but who eventually was able to find his own kind. The tree was personified.



Here's what I did.



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Seventy-five dollars. Bucky von Buckminster would make seventy-five dollars from this article. That wasn't bad for one of his short magazine articles. The only problem occurred when he started adding up his expenses. Gas plus food added up to half of that. So, it would be another assignment where he made almost nothing.



Bucky drove through the forest staring up at the giant trees. Sequoias were his favorite trees. Maybe he just took this assignment to have an excuse to come here.



He parked the car with no one around. The park was almost empty. It had looked like a rainy day, but now everything was clearing up. There was that wonderful smell in the air of fresh rain, soft earth, and sunshine.



Bucky stopped and looked straight up as a rainbow grew across the sky. He dropped his notebook and pen as his jaw opened in astonishment. He thought, "That's not possible! This can't be happening!"



But the rainbow continued on its path nevertheless, ignoring its own impossibility. Bucky's eyes followed, his head tipped down, and he witnessed the very moment that the rainbow touched the tree and the world stopped.



The rainbow made a shadow against the bark of the sequoia's trunk. It was shaped like a door with a rounded top.



Bucky didn't think, he just moved. He moved like a man possessed. Like a man pulled toward something he couldn't resist, he couldn't refuse, he couldn't deny.



When his hands pressed against the shadow he didn't feel bark, he felt the smooth finish of a door. "How?" he wondered. He looked down and saw the simple wooden handle. He grasped it, and pulled.



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Inside I'm imagining it may be some kind of magical spiral staircase that goes high into the tree. But maybe it also goes down. It's hard to say.



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Read more of what Jeff deems worthy of attention at: http://www.JeffreyAlexanderMartin.com