Sunday Mini-Challenge--(Hopefully) Promising Prompt

Hi Toads! I sit here on the eve of Valentine’s Day contemplating what it actually means to pour those little chalky hearts out of their cloudy plastic bag, and give someone a teeny dusty purple one, red-inked, “I’m Yours.”

(Textual analysis that, as is typical, involves reading commentary, not hearts.) 

After much textual analysis, I have decided that all those candy phrases--"be mine," "I'm yours," "Cutie Pie," are promises of a sort, however delible the ink may be:  a vow to be yours, a vow to accept you as mine, a promise to think of the recipient as cute.  (For at least a day or two.)

As I write this, the mountains where I live are laden with snow. 

And it's already dark out.  

Don't worry--I don't truly live in a nest, but it may hold promise for some.

Which leads me to the prompt, so beautifully illustrated by the end of Robert Frost’s poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”: 

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”

Promises!  Given.  Exacted.  Kept.  Broken.  Slept on.  (Or through.) 

Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to write something born out of a promise. This can be a promise of yours or of someone else, or of some remembered or imagined someone else.  Or of a remembered or imagined you!  

Maybe write about the promises of vampire elephants.

Or non-vampire elephants. 

Please do not feel bound to write a Valentine’s poem, or a poem that relates to love.  You can if you wish simply write about an experience or day or object that seems particularly promising, or unpromising; a poem, if you will, about anticipation or disappointment.  

And now because Shay likes them, here's one more elephant, who has a big heart but also looks a little disappointed to me.  (Valentine's Day perhaps not great for all!)  Originally done as a print on glass-- 

Finally, I want to give a shout-out to Kerry O'Connor who's done so very much to make me, Manicddaily, a/k/a Karin Gustafson, a/k/a Outlawyer, feel welcome--and whose work and online presence have really helped me keep my own work going.  Thanks also to all of you. 

 (And lastly, for those who don't know me--the pics are mine.  Sometime I am going to post a prompt with pictures to write about--I wasn't considering any of these are particularly promising in that area, but you are certainly free to use them, with attribution.) 

Please link below.