Day four of my blog tour and today I’ll be visiting Persnickety Snark‘s blog – hope to see you there.

Thanks so much to everyone who called in yesterday and participated in the inaugural verse-off. If you missed out, and are wondering what a verse-off might be, see yesterday’s post.

The results are in – and today I’m delighted to share with you the responses to yesterday’s gorgeous photo. So, here goes:

From Dee White:

Necks bared to watching predators,

bask with apparent ambition

fearless heads point forward anticipate together

reflection

synchronised stillness

seep into slow dive

slide beneath the surface

and disappear

just in time.

An Acrostic from Fletcher Apel:

Turtles are interesting

Underwater swimming

Reptiles with shells

Terrapin a terror for pronouncing

Look cute swimming in clear water

Eating fish and shrimp

Sunning themselves.

From Kathryn Apel:

necks craned

mute

turtles gaze

at untapped depths

of blue skies

Branyon Apel wrote:

shells on a branch

above water

sunning

Janeen Brian contributed:

‘Hey Charlie,

ever wondered

why they call this place,

Turtle Point?

Sally Odgers wrote:

T is for terrapins

Climbing from water into sky

The branch their bridge

Between realities

Finn (no link or second name) said:

on the log

looking up

where am I?

Felix Apel (rounding out the whole family’s contribution) said:

A reflection

seen by others

is not as we see

Andromeda Jazmon, from A Wrung Sponge, contributed:

Exposing our necks,

content to be still

dark marks hung

between mirrors of blue.

Waiting to fully

absorb the heat of

stillness;

nothing more.

But you see double;

see an arrow,

see hope or fear or

victory.We are just

turtles on a log.

J.R. Poulter‘s response:

Seamless

Sewn with invisible stitches

Earth and sky

No entry point and nowhere

To exit

We sit

In a line

Biding our time till

Something opens up

And something else

Will merge….

And Fletcher and Kathryn Apel combined for this one:

Turtles totter on the log

step-by-step

two-by-two

Splash!

Lisa Schroeder, an old critique buddy of mine (hi Lisa) contributed:

Where you go,

I follow.

For without you,

water is just water

and a branch is just a branch.

But when I’m with you,

we swim in a sea of love

and rest on a path of understanding.

If you want to see the rhyming responses to the photo, visit Kathryn Apel’s blog. Incidentally, not only did the Apel family contribute five of the above responses, but the photo, too, was taken by the talented Felix Apel. What a creative family!

Enjoy this verse-off? Wonderful! Then why not come back next week to do it all again with a new photo? We’ll be versing off every Sunday during May – with an extra installment this Friday to celebrate the launch of Kathryn’s picture book This is the Mud.