The Hairy, Scary Spider

When I was growing up, I often wrote stories with my sister Cassandra. I have fond memories of writing a little book of poetry, short stories, and songs with her. Unfortunately, we lost that book and most of our writings from childhood. We moved a lot, and something always gets lost when moving homes. Now that we are adults, we both continue to write: she writes a lot of short stories whereas I've been writing mostly poetry (though I'd still like to write short stories and a novel eventually). Like me, Cassandra also writes stories for children. She self-published her first book: The Hairy, Scary Spider. It's a children's story that she wrote and illustrated.

You can see some of her work at her blog: cassandralynnmiller.blogspot.com. If you're interested in purchasing The Hairy, Scary Spider as an eBook you can find it at this link: https://payhip.com/b/RK7p. 

Dust Catcher

This thing catches the dust so it doesn’t gather somewhere else in the house.


It’s big, but sneaky and quiet as a mouse.


No one ever sees it working so diligently,


Hanging onto the dust for dear life,


Never wanting to let go,


Knowing the dust will be ripped from its arms again and again.


It just wants a friend.


Written by Candace Shultz


I wrote this poem based on a swap I joined on swap-bot.com. I had to pick the 7th book from my bookcase and turn to the 7th page and choose the 7th sentence to be the first line in my poem. I chose Thing Explorer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words by Randall Munroe. Here is the 7th page for reference:

Slumber

I hold you in my arms,
your soft cheek pressed to my chest,
and we rock gently back and forth.

Our breaths slowing with the beat of our hearts,
I hum a lullaby and stroke your hair
as we rock back and forth,
back and forth.

You press deeper against my skin,
your eyelashes fluttering shut,
your breath becoming softer.
And as you slumber I hold you close,
rocking back and forth,
back and forth,
back and forth,
until I too fall asleep.


Written by Candace Shultz