For Paul Brookes’ challenge, this poem is inspired by all three images, which you can see here, and read all the contributions.

Beneath the dome of the sky

It’s the same for us all the dream,
the heavenly blue,
the great ipomoea in the sky,
dome of beauty, cupped like gentle hands.

The celebrity yachting Seychelles
and poolside cocktails crowd,
imbued with the glitter of sun
on water, on glass reflecting
in diamond drops on tanned skin,

chitter-chatter, bright tinkling laughter,
brittle as thin ice on winter puddles,
and the dream shatters
into boredom and futility.

You dream beneath the sky of warm days,
children left behind somewhere,
yourself perhaps in chubby-fingered loss,
deep-holed, as unsoundable
as the futile shallows of chitter-chatter,

but in the eyes of your dog,
you see the sky and beyond,
the cupped hands of beauty.