from a writer’s response prompt: The Watchers
Watchers
by Jill Hedgecock
Camouflaged on red ruinous clay
Atop a termite-mound outpost
Six pairs of beady red eyes
A gang, a mob
Of noisy chatter—
The ever-watchful dwarf mongooses
Hilltop sentry
Alert for snakes
Pythons, cobra, black mamba
Deadly enemies must
Kill or be killed
Three dutiful pointed faces
Stare ahead
Wary of the tribe of
Jackals stalking through grass
One vigilant lookout
Eyes a marabou stork to left
Too distant
To vocalize
Terrestrial predator alarm
Right sentinel
Fascinated by twitching tail
of spotted feline
Dozing leopard
Not yet a threat
Perched tawny eagle
Takes flight
Aerial predator alarm call
Silences chatter
Poof!
Twelve beady eyes
Disappear into
Red ruinous clay tunnels
About the Author
Jill Hedgecock is an award-winning and internationally-published author. She is a regular contributor to The Diablo Gazette and her freelance articles have been featured on the front cover multiple times. Her short stories, personal essays and nonfiction pieces have appeared in multiple anthologies, newspapers, and magazines. Rhino in the Room, her debut novel, received a New Apple Literary Indie Book Award. Her Doberman-inspired novels are sure to please dog lovers.
Jill served as the Program Coordinator Mount Diablo branch of the California Writers Club (CWC) for 8 years and was honored to receive the Distinguished Service Award for a second time in 2018. She has judged the Young Writer’s Contest sponsored by CWC for over ten years and for the National Scholastic Art and Writing Awards for multiple years.
You can find her at https://www.jillhedgecock.com/ or on Amazon at https://amzn.to/3EFpnB7
