Finding a Community

Finding a Community

 

She thought she was the only one. Who else cries when

they look up at the night sky? Who else lies on the ground in wonder?

She tried to write poems about the stars, to capture them on film, to scribble them

on a canvas. Friends oooed and awwed. She knew her attempts were feeble imitations.

She drove to a State Park, known for its darkness, its lack of ambient

light, to see the glow, the glimmer, the magic of a sky filled with stars,

connect with the universe.

And there they were, a field of people, staring silently upward, crying.

They had their notebooks, and cameras, and sketchbooks but they knew

they would never capture the soul of the moment. She had finally found

her place in the world with people who understood. That’s when she knew,

the Starpainters are taking over now.

 

 

Changing Seasons

Changing Seasons

 

The geese don’t protest the summer’s end, complain about the

flight ahead. They trust the seasons .

Yet we decry each age and stage of our lives, wishing to be other

than ourselves. And in our protestation, our lamentations,

miss the loveliness of now

 

Quadrille #354: I Protest

Buried in Lies

Buried in Lies

 

She tried not to lie, but the words tumbled so easily from her lips. She made promises she knew she would never keep. And she was sure no one would ever know.

It began when she was three, all three-year-olds lie, don’t they? It was just a little lie about a cookie. She really wanted that cookie, and everyone thought she was just so cute.

The lies got bigger as she got older, money missing from her mother’s purse, homework “lost” on the bus, her best friend’s misplaced earrings.

Now she would tell the biggest lie of all when she tells herself that those lies never hurt anyone. Here, lying in a satin lined coffin, with no one to mourn her death or shed a tear, alone with only a lifetime of lies for company, she whispered, “Bury me with the lies I told.”

 

Dverse Prosery Monday — Bury Me

These Times

These Times

 

I roll my eyes and clench my fists –

watch the news until I can endure no more.

Truth has abandoned society and

left us with madness.

It is the worst of times.

Then the hoot of a barred owl in the woods

calls me to leave it all behind, to

sit outside, to bathe in moonbeams

and breath deeply.

It is the best of times.