by Joy Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ · Book · Writing · #2326194

A new blog to contain answers to prompts

#1109957 added March 6, 2026 at 12:41pm
Restrictions: None
Counting Sheep
Prompt:
Have fun with these random words: land, myth, duty, duke, requirement, denial, number, document, bush, and normal.

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Here's a story-poem, so to speak.*Laugh**Rolling**Laugh*



Counting Sheep

Some said a *duke
once lived there, on the edge
of a quiet *land, where hills
leaned against the sky
and the wind often told stories
older than maps,

and people spoke of *myth,
*normal for them, though
what's normal can be iffy,
for the duke lived
not in a castle of gold,
but in a small stone house

behind a crooked *bush
of wild roses,
a life, almost unusual
for he counted his sheep,
carrying under his arm,
a worn leather *document

and not minding the whispers
of the villagers who
claimed of a *requirement
cast upon him
a *duty of sorts from long ago;
a promise with a *number

signed and sealed by a king
whose name has now slipped
into myth, his decree saying
the duke must remain there
guarding the sheep,
the land, and its silence,

and when people asked him,
"Why stay here alone?"
the duke smiled in gentle *denial
as if the question
was far from the truth;
then, maybe it was,

for some promises
are meant to be lived
and not to be explained,
just like the story the wind
repeats through the branches
of the Duke's rose bush.

 

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