It's not been a month for blogging, or journaling on many days. It's difficult to find time for extra writing when novel writing is already the struggle of the month. After writing 1700 words, sometimes I don't want to immediately rush into writing for myself, and even when I do, I often don't have the time to do so. And because of this, journal time gets tossed out the window, blogging gets flush down the toilet, and novel writing takes the fore.
It's a beautiful time of year. The cold of winter has arrived and it's no longer the portion of fall with brilliant colors. Fall is so short, sometimes. It comes back for a few days of Thanksgiving and for Halloween, but the interim is all winter's edge and the hunger of darkness.
Every season provides room for complaining. In winter it is too cold, too dark, or too rainy for far too long a time; in spring, the colors only arrive at the end, and really spring is winter in disguise. Spring, too, is rainy, and the snow hasn't melted off the mountains for hiking, and the allergens flourish. Summer is beautiful, but sleeping is often difficult when the sun refuses to set and the warmth lingers after dark, and the wetness of the air, and the constant sweating, cloying weather. Fall brings lovely colors, but dies too swiftly, entering eagerly into winter's deathly embrace. Fall suffers the same pains of winter, and worse knowing it has only begun and you've many months left to go.
If you want to complain, there are always points worthy of complaint in each month. And yet, you can also celebrate the differences, and there is ample opportunity for such blessings and thanksgiving. Fall is beautiful in its colors, and resplendent in its holidays: chanukah of the lights, thanksgiving with its cornucopia of colors, family, thanks, foods, and the warmth of togetherness; halloween with its candy, and the entire season full of pumpkin, apples, harvest, corn, turkey, fireplaces, cider, chai, and maple.
Winter arrives with the advent of Christmas, and what better holiday is there than that? Shortly after, you celebrate the new year, and the greens and the reds of christmas join Janus' two-faced nervousness about the impending days. There is valentine's day, the day of love and single-angst, stuck in the center of the northern-hemispheres cold, and st. patricks day celebrating green in a season of white and gray. Winter is full of snow, rain, lovely mountain peaks and early morning fogs. It is the best time for snuggling by a fireplace and reading a book, and drinking warm tea and lighting candles.
Spring is a blessing of verdancy, as the first snowdrops peak their heads out from the frost, and the deciduous trees tentatively turn out leaves, and the evergreens shake their white-fur coats from their sleeves. The animals emerge and the birds begin to return, and the fogs and lakes lie in cold beauty as the world remembers colors and light. Wildflowers come to life on the mountainsides, and the butterflies and bees remember life.
Summer is the time of life, the blooming of full flowers: lilac and lavender and rose, and the sunflower season and time where everyone is outdoors enjoying each other and the world.
Showing posts with label seasons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label seasons. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Stumbling into Fall
Early-morning frost sits heavily on the grass, and turns barbed wire into a string of stars. On a distant hill, a small square of yellow appears to be a lighted stage. At last the truth dawns on us: Fall is staggering in, right on schedule, with its baggage of chilly nights, macabre holidays, heart-stoppingly beautiful leaves.
~ Diane Ackerman - A Natural History of the Senses
Autumn batters that distant gong
This new season's song
A glorified rhyme and time
The dawn rises in pink butterfly wings
Slippering the hills - the morning sings
Notice now this summer requiem
Questions I ask the clouds
Whose cotton shrouds heaven's lantern
It's now the poets and authors and muse
Pen their lines and lyrics and truths
While gutters sputter and water spouts
Queries I pose at the shapely clouds
A rhino, an angel, a spoon
Do they know?
Where the winter sits in august's time?
How lightning lights and cracks and blinds?
When feather snow from heaven's pen
Stops us in our homes, curling
Like kittens on the mantle, purring
In that radiant glow,
reflected in our eyes and brow
Ember leaves drop - somehow
Coloring and cleaving close to earth
Cleft as the dreams and hopes
Of the loved and loving days of halcyon
Will you - Autumn dear - come near at night?
Under the falling stars of this white-robed sphere
We'll garden walk, our toes alight
On diamond-dewed grounds like fields of starlight
Whilst whistle we write and dance and smile
Through mountains, forests, the tigris, the nile
It's Autumn, telling transparent tall tales
Where copper, crimson, and umber prevails
In the honeyed, pumpkin, cider trails of time.
Cleft is an interesting word, in each of its conjugations. It is a rare word that means nearly its opposite. I cleave to my ideas, I am cleft from hope. It assumes either a separation or a uniting of pieces, a breaking and a binding. But between each element, whether in the cementing or the clipping, a thin slice remains. When a man cleaves to his wife, there is still an individuality, a preventative from an ultimate merging. The progression into the next season is such, a cleaving more than a clear-cut, a sliver between times.
Already the maple leaves assume a yellow-green, light and lovely as daylilies, and dogwoods hint at their crimson future.
So many things fall, this time of year: the leaves, the hours of sunlight, the temperatures, the clouds over the valleys, the rain (oh, the lovely rain!). It is the season of writing, when temperatures outside forbid long mountainous hikes and I begin penning, sketching, defining the flavor of the clouds floating above like mashed potatoes in a menagerie of grey, mythical shapes.
~ Diane Ackerman - A Natural History of the Senses
Autumn batters that distant gong
This new season's song
A glorified rhyme and time
The dawn rises in pink butterfly wings
Slippering the hills - the morning sings
Notice now this summer requiem
Questions I ask the clouds
Whose cotton shrouds heaven's lantern
It's now the poets and authors and muse
Pen their lines and lyrics and truths
While gutters sputter and water spouts
Queries I pose at the shapely clouds
A rhino, an angel, a spoon
Do they know?
Where the winter sits in august's time?
How lightning lights and cracks and blinds?
When feather snow from heaven's pen
Stops us in our homes, curling
Like kittens on the mantle, purring
In that radiant glow,
reflected in our eyes and brow
Ember leaves drop - somehow
Coloring and cleaving close to earth
Cleft as the dreams and hopes
Of the loved and loving days of halcyon
Will you - Autumn dear - come near at night?
Under the falling stars of this white-robed sphere
We'll garden walk, our toes alight
On diamond-dewed grounds like fields of starlight
Whilst whistle we write and dance and smile
Through mountains, forests, the tigris, the nile
It's Autumn, telling transparent tall tales
Where copper, crimson, and umber prevails
In the honeyed, pumpkin, cider trails of time.
Cleft is an interesting word, in each of its conjugations. It is a rare word that means nearly its opposite. I cleave to my ideas, I am cleft from hope. It assumes either a separation or a uniting of pieces, a breaking and a binding. But between each element, whether in the cementing or the clipping, a thin slice remains. When a man cleaves to his wife, there is still an individuality, a preventative from an ultimate merging. The progression into the next season is such, a cleaving more than a clear-cut, a sliver between times.
Already the maple leaves assume a yellow-green, light and lovely as daylilies, and dogwoods hint at their crimson future.
So many things fall, this time of year: the leaves, the hours of sunlight, the temperatures, the clouds over the valleys, the rain (oh, the lovely rain!). It is the season of writing, when temperatures outside forbid long mountainous hikes and I begin penning, sketching, defining the flavor of the clouds floating above like mashed potatoes in a menagerie of grey, mythical shapes.
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Augury of Autumn
The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air.
~- Lord of the Rings
A curtain of mist descends upon the valley, and the earth radiates redolence in reply. Not far now, not far. Summer's scorching strangle-hold over the sky is overthrown, and silver linings settle in, augury of autumn. The woods thrive on this; you can hear the whispers, and as the sun sets, somewhere behind that glaucous veil, does the sun settle down to rest? The wind howls beneath the grey wolf sky. There is no moon.
No fanfare sunset with wispy clouds like exploding pastel balloons, no dramatic denouement into dusk - this solstice strikes the world as a shooting star, flickering and brief. I saw one, last night, and wished, for what use superstitions if we cannot smile and dream?
September Sonnet
On this then, Autumn's eve
Aspen greens still leaves deceive
Mulling ciders and chimneys smoking
'neath blankets thick our hearts are warming
From summer's callous, hungry scorching
Borders clearer now, distance greater
Mountain's clouded brow, fog and rainy river
Ocean's wide and growing whisper
Faithless one, can you not believe her?
Or leave her your bleeding heart
Sacrifice - is that not your art?
Like summer sun doth love depart
And parts the seasons into mists
Fall's birthday, dear, blue eyes I've missed
Some things I've never known, cannot know. Patience I work on - need it tarry so long? Trials and tribulations bring joy, right? It is a praying night, a thoughtful night. One of those days where you wake up excited, ready for joyful adventures and friends, and discover they're all significantly busy - is it still the season of love, loveliness, and wildflowers? Silent Saturday, then, and one I've probably procrastinated too long. And church a la mañana. Be peace enough.
----------------------------------------
The shape sliding through the underbrush was unseen, though it concealed its passing not. An acrid aroma hovers ominously on the air, the smell of sacrifice or industrial waste? What town was this that assaulted the senses so? Dim lights burned in the valley, silent as stars, and atop the ridge, vertical slits watched, unblinking.
~- Lord of the Rings
A curtain of mist descends upon the valley, and the earth radiates redolence in reply. Not far now, not far. Summer's scorching strangle-hold over the sky is overthrown, and silver linings settle in, augury of autumn. The woods thrive on this; you can hear the whispers, and as the sun sets, somewhere behind that glaucous veil, does the sun settle down to rest? The wind howls beneath the grey wolf sky. There is no moon.
No fanfare sunset with wispy clouds like exploding pastel balloons, no dramatic denouement into dusk - this solstice strikes the world as a shooting star, flickering and brief. I saw one, last night, and wished, for what use superstitions if we cannot smile and dream?
September Sonnet
On this then, Autumn's eve
Aspen greens still leaves deceive
Mulling ciders and chimneys smoking
'neath blankets thick our hearts are warming
From summer's callous, hungry scorching
Borders clearer now, distance greater
Mountain's clouded brow, fog and rainy river
Ocean's wide and growing whisper
Faithless one, can you not believe her?
Or leave her your bleeding heart
Sacrifice - is that not your art?
Like summer sun doth love depart
And parts the seasons into mists
Fall's birthday, dear, blue eyes I've missed
Some things I've never known, cannot know. Patience I work on - need it tarry so long? Trials and tribulations bring joy, right? It is a praying night, a thoughtful night. One of those days where you wake up excited, ready for joyful adventures and friends, and discover they're all significantly busy - is it still the season of love, loveliness, and wildflowers? Silent Saturday, then, and one I've probably procrastinated too long. And church a la mañana. Be peace enough.
----------------------------------------
The shape sliding through the underbrush was unseen, though it concealed its passing not. An acrid aroma hovers ominously on the air, the smell of sacrifice or industrial waste? What town was this that assaulted the senses so? Dim lights burned in the valley, silent as stars, and atop the ridge, vertical slits watched, unblinking.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Seasons of Dreamings
The seasons are changing. Now, leaving my window open all-night-all-day requires an extra blanket at night, as temperatures drop below 50 at night, and mornings leave a crystalline dew that collects in lazy droplets against the screen. I even start each morning in sweats or warm-ups rather than shorts, and slipper usage on hardwood floors soon becomes a necessity.
Rain approaches, and the cinereal sky darkens the mornings, burning away in afternoons into an archipelago of popcorn-island clouds. The first leaves metamorphose. It is a season of stories approaching, myths, and my muse is blind, or deaf, or distant, or dreaming.
Last night, my dreams consisted of an apocalypse, and twin whirlwinds, spinning around like a destructive helix, approached the town. Only a tiny string of townhouses, rudely erected on the edge of the forest in which I played the piano in a log cabin, stood between me and devastation. I knew my older brother and the female goddess each slept soundly in those buildings, though I could not play loud enough over the deafening tornado winds to awaken them. I had not time to find them, for I knew not in which house they slept, but if I could only play a little louder, the apocalypse might end, and they might awaken to soothe the winds into sleeping.
That's two days in a row of oddly melancholy dreams, though only the first day I awakened in grief. This last one came with a strange expectation of hope, a belief of conclusive victory, however violent the storms and imminent their devastation.
Rain approaches, and the cinereal sky darkens the mornings, burning away in afternoons into an archipelago of popcorn-island clouds. The first leaves metamorphose. It is a season of stories approaching, myths, and my muse is blind, or deaf, or distant, or dreaming.
Last night, my dreams consisted of an apocalypse, and twin whirlwinds, spinning around like a destructive helix, approached the town. Only a tiny string of townhouses, rudely erected on the edge of the forest in which I played the piano in a log cabin, stood between me and devastation. I knew my older brother and the female goddess each slept soundly in those buildings, though I could not play loud enough over the deafening tornado winds to awaken them. I had not time to find them, for I knew not in which house they slept, but if I could only play a little louder, the apocalypse might end, and they might awaken to soothe the winds into sleeping.
That's two days in a row of oddly melancholy dreams, though only the first day I awakened in grief. This last one came with a strange expectation of hope, a belief of conclusive victory, however violent the storms and imminent their devastation.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Gunshot Robbery of Spring
Thunder exploded in the deep distance, the gunshot robbery of spring.
Only later, sometimes, can we see the faults within ourselves. From a distance, that image on the television looks real, real people living their diverse lives. It looks perfect, ideal, these perfect people walking as heroes in their worlds. Even the villains can look statuesque, as marble figures stern and cruel. But you take that step closer, and you see pixels, the atoms of digital expression, and realize these are not platonic forms. We are not the shadows of these images, nor are these images we see on the wall perfect. But sometimes, in the moment, it's easy to consider ourselves chiseled specimens of mankind when evaluating our own beliefs and arguments.
Not that we always do, oh no. Humanity bites and growls when threatened with classification. Some never build the self-esteem requisite in deeming oneself the exemplar of humanity. But the point is that often, in the heat of the moment, we believe our viewpoint valuable, more valuable, perhaps, than it warrants on later introspection. We think our theories, our philosophies, our faith and creativity and experience as the experience and it is difficult to listen. There are times when it is difficult to stop and pay attention to other's viewpoints, difficult to imagine that this wall of shadows we've set before ourselves is not all reality contains.
Even in simple examples like writing a story, I believed my piece elegant and worthy of merit. Glancing back at it now, I wished I'd put it aside longer for revision, as each paragraph is rife with cracks and flawed expression. This is how it is, isn't it? But if we make mistakes, so, too, can we learn from them. In my life, sometimes I feel like spiritual, emotional, physical seasons come and go as surely as natural seasons. I'm passing, perhaps, from spring to summer, or summer to fall, and I can hear the thunder in the distance, I can smell the storm on the wind.
And there are more important things than my issues, my conceit, my problems. I have friends whose mothers are dying; whose newborn babies cannot swallow food, and they've been in the hospital for days, trying to discover ways of feeding their child; friends running from or enduring painful relationships; friends starting new relationships; friends struggling with money and jobs and anxiety and despair and stress; friends who are lonely or tired or aimless and despairing at finding any direction to their lives. And there are friends just in transitions, frightened of the change.
It is humbling to think of these things and to consider, what have I, really, to compare to these in my life? The worst thing that happened to me this week was getting stepped on with cleats because I foolishly enjoy playing soccer without shoes. Or maybe missing friends in distant places. Humbling. Sure, I'm not certain where my life is going, or where God is taking me, but that friend is losing her mother to cancer, and that friend over there is fighting panic attacks, and that friend over there is suffering from x and y and z, and so on.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Words
Every now and again, I stumble across words whose sounds and associated meanings surprise me. Pulchritudinous is an easy favorite, but recently I stumbled across the word crepuscular again. I've used the word, myself, but in the context I saw it in, the author meant it as a beautiful palette of colors - I always imagined it when describing a shadowy, creepy setting. It sounds creepy, cavernous, like the maw of a mountain seeking to devour you whole once the sun fully crawls beneath the horizon.
I'm excited, as I suspect that these next few weeks will prove more than interesting. I've pulchritudinous paths prepared before me, if you will. How is it already mid-August? Wanderlust August.
Some difficult circumstantiae have wandered past, and some blessings. Standard fare for the inexorability of time. It is a shifting season, but the crepuscular tides of even summon me to sleep.
-- this had a point.. but I got back home about 2 hours later than I was willing to fight with it. So I truncated the ending and slapped a disclaimer on the end. Victory. --
I'm excited, as I suspect that these next few weeks will prove more than interesting. I've pulchritudinous paths prepared before me, if you will. How is it already mid-August? Wanderlust August.
Some difficult circumstantiae have wandered past, and some blessings. Standard fare for the inexorability of time. It is a shifting season, but the crepuscular tides of even summon me to sleep.
-- this had a point.. but I got back home about 2 hours later than I was willing to fight with it. So I truncated the ending and slapped a disclaimer on the end. Victory. --
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Rain
There is something satisfying in rain, in watching behind the window-screen, hands underneath my chin, as droplets plop into the grass and trees, gravel and streets. and against the eaves and tiles. And going outside into those tiny streams, drops collecting into damp sections and dampness into puddles, and puddles into tiny rivulets that pour downhill along streets towards grates or channels. The soggy grass yields beneath my feet and the puddles soak my shoes. It's easier to write in the rain, easier to think and dream and sleep and breathe, sometimes. I feel like the moisture pulls the the smells of life right into the air, and the sweetness of earth and vines, wood and pines.
I like the rain, though many may not. I love the sun as well, and snow - hail and sleet less so, though they are a novelty, sometimes. But rains at night are one of my most favorite things, a beautiful musical prelude to sleep. If only rain combined with stars, I believe I'd be in heaven's arms.
to be continued.
I like the rain, though many may not. I love the sun as well, and snow - hail and sleet less so, though they are a novelty, sometimes. But rains at night are one of my most favorite things, a beautiful musical prelude to sleep. If only rain combined with stars, I believe I'd be in heaven's arms.
to be continued.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Blackberry Season
One of my favorite times of summer is fruit season. Just outside my doors, ripe plums hang from darkly violet (plum-colored, if you will) trees; grapes dangle from vines laced around wires; pear and apple trees lining the streets and in the fields sag under the weight of their ripening loads; figs, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, each bush or tree laden with juicy antioxidants and vitamins (I mean fruit!) bundled in the sweetest of packages. And now blackberries.
Blackberries are my favorite. I think it is the competition with the brier requisite in retrieving the fruit. This morning, sunlight barely peaking over Rex Hill, I snatched the largest bowls I could find (optimistic), and wandered around town to find blackberry plants. First, I tried near the North Valley Friend's Church. Not much luck. The location I'd tried last year was mostly poisoned down (why, Newberg, why?) and after hopping my way between islands of thorny vines, I eventually find myself trapped in a prison of angry blackberries with berries tantalizingly out of grasp. And even the berries I found were dried out, or laced with angry spiders. I managed my escape with only a few handfuls of berries and some bloody ankles. Worth it. I ate most of these.
Next, I tried the river. The entire valley is fertile, but the river region is more so, for obvious reasons. These berries were by no means short on water. The best part was, a private, fenced off region with a barbed wire fence bordered some land, and the blackberries blithely climbed over the fence, allowing for a large quantity of freely given berries that did not require platemail and a broadsword to collect (which is good, because they don't make broadswords like they used to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwibf6t7Scc)
Ta-da, blackberries! I then made a cobbler, went to a wedding, and another. Now, of course, I'm ready to see A and S tomorrow, with gluten free dessert (the cobbler used magic not-flour flour).
Blackberry Poetry Section:
Sylvia Plath: (she always has a... dark side to her poetry. I appreciate it, but if I had been friends with her, I think I would have been worried. Still, it is about blackberries. You're welcome)
I cut off the last portion of the poem because Sylvia Plath got sidetracked from blackberries, and it just would not do. Next time, Plath, stay on the topic of delicious berries. Though, it is actually an interesting end to the poem. So I suggest you go read it anyway (I think here they have it: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178965)
Blackberrying
Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries,
Blackberries on either side, though on the right mainly,
A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea
Somewhere at the end of it, heaving. Blackberries
Big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes
Ebon in the hedges, fat
With blue-red juices. These they squander on my fingers.
I had not asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must love me.
They accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, flattening their sides.
Overhead go the choughs in black, cacophonous flocks—
Bits of burnt paper wheeling in a blown sky.
Theirs is the only voice, protesting, protesting.
I do not think the sea will appear at all.
The high, green meadows are glowing, as if lit from within.
I come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies,
Hanging their bluegreen bellies and their wing panes in a Chinese screen.
The honey-feast of the berries has stunned them; they believe in heaven.
One more hook, and the berries and bushes end.
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Sea Summons
For M- (not Matthew) - May you find home soon, or love. Or perhaps these are the same coin.
From beneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear into the sea; nor did all the Pacific contain such wealth as that one wee drop.
If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.
He hated fall. Autumn leaves crisped, browned, and sputtered their way to the ground like tiny fires in red, gold, and umber; summer breezes gained an edge, a chilling blade piercing to the bones, whispers of the coming cold, and the oceans frothed and grayed. He scarcely noticed this, for fall meant not the dance of leaves, not the songs of breeze, not, even, the festivities of thankfulness and harvest, but the call of loneliness, the sea summons.
His vessel sat at dock, readied for its grand venture over the deeps, a journey that lasted until mid-spring. The bay's gentle waves rocked against the harbor, and his ship gently rolled with each crest and trough. Another six months of life, wasted on the great empty expanse of brine, an emptiness propagated by his crew's industrious silence. A death of vacancy.
It was his last night in port, and he felt wrecked, as though a finality loomed overhead, and knowing its proximity, he could do nothing, brought low by its burden. His crew sweated and strained, checking the rigging and oils, lugging supplies aboard and examining for leaks. They didn't need him now; he could leave them be. And what if... what if he left and never came back? He turned, facing the harbor-town. He took a few steps towards the bar before stopping, realizing he never drank anyway - another reason he made a poor sailor - and turned towards the classical music lounge. At least there, though alcohol was still prevalent, the music would soothe his sorrowed nerves.
"Better be on time tomorrow morn, boss!" his workers called behind him.
"Or we'll drag your sorry corpse back aboard!" they catcalled, hollering and whooping.
"See ya in the morn, Cap'n! Whether ya like it er not!"
He cringed, but kept walking, pushing open the swivel doors into the music lounge. It was different here, a place where he might forget the other world, his world. Tall stools surrounded tables in the room's center, and a single, uninterrupted couch lined the wall around the room's circumference, only stopping near the bar and stage ends of the room. The room itself was oddly shaped, without any square angels, and the couch against the walls bucked and rolled like waves. It was not a pleasant metaphor.
to be continued...and edited.... and fixed....
--------roiling, spume
**Notes:
- turn away
- catcalls
- definitions and detachment
- distance a la lounge?
- lighting
- smells
(other messing around)
The trees are foreign, though perhaps everything was these days. His station wagon trundled down the winding hills, and though a town approached - he could always feel a town approaching, now - he saw nothing save the aspens and the pines. His was a nomadic life, as late, wandering from town to town, state to state, in a desperate plea for home. Each town was but a different name for heartbreak, growing about his heart like poison ivy.
Now? Now he just needed a place to weed out his brokenness. The loneliness already gnawed at his guts. As his station wagon hurtled down the hill, he knew this was his last attempt, for even if his heart was strong enough, his transportation was not. He could almost smell it: the town. There was another entrance, of that he was certain. He approached it obliquely, coy and coquettish, and the town loomed heavy upon him. As he turned a corner on the hill, he caught his first glimpse, hundreds of feet below, a new world of chimneys, greenery, vineyards, farmsteads and cottages, clustered as they neared the village center.
And then the trees regrouped, hedging out his view once more so he wondered whether it might have been but a phantom whimsy. It was beautiful, a glen of green and cozy cottages. He'd even imagined a forest distant, and a great river running through it.
From beneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear into the sea; nor did all the Pacific contain such wealth as that one wee drop.
If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.
He hated fall. Autumn leaves crisped, browned, and sputtered their way to the ground like tiny fires in red, gold, and umber; summer breezes gained an edge, a chilling blade piercing to the bones, whispers of the coming cold, and the oceans frothed and grayed. He scarcely noticed this, for fall meant not the dance of leaves, not the songs of breeze, not, even, the festivities of thankfulness and harvest, but the call of loneliness, the sea summons.
His vessel sat at dock, readied for its grand venture over the deeps, a journey that lasted until mid-spring. The bay's gentle waves rocked against the harbor, and his ship gently rolled with each crest and trough. Another six months of life, wasted on the great empty expanse of brine, an emptiness propagated by his crew's industrious silence. A death of vacancy.
It was his last night in port, and he felt wrecked, as though a finality loomed overhead, and knowing its proximity, he could do nothing, brought low by its burden. His crew sweated and strained, checking the rigging and oils, lugging supplies aboard and examining for leaks. They didn't need him now; he could leave them be. And what if... what if he left and never came back? He turned, facing the harbor-town. He took a few steps towards the bar before stopping, realizing he never drank anyway - another reason he made a poor sailor - and turned towards the classical music lounge. At least there, though alcohol was still prevalent, the music would soothe his sorrowed nerves.
"Better be on time tomorrow morn, boss!" his workers called behind him.
"Or we'll drag your sorry corpse back aboard!" they catcalled, hollering and whooping.
"See ya in the morn, Cap'n! Whether ya like it er not!"
He cringed, but kept walking, pushing open the swivel doors into the music lounge. It was different here, a place where he might forget the other world, his world. Tall stools surrounded tables in the room's center, and a single, uninterrupted couch lined the wall around the room's circumference, only stopping near the bar and stage ends of the room. The room itself was oddly shaped, without any square angels, and the couch against the walls bucked and rolled like waves. It was not a pleasant metaphor.
to be continued...and edited.... and fixed....
--------roiling, spume
**Notes:
- turn away
- catcalls
- definitions and detachment
- distance a la lounge?
- lighting
- smells
(other messing around)
The trees are foreign, though perhaps everything was these days. His station wagon trundled down the winding hills, and though a town approached - he could always feel a town approaching, now - he saw nothing save the aspens and the pines. His was a nomadic life, as late, wandering from town to town, state to state, in a desperate plea for home. Each town was but a different name for heartbreak, growing about his heart like poison ivy.
Now? Now he just needed a place to weed out his brokenness. The loneliness already gnawed at his guts. As his station wagon hurtled down the hill, he knew this was his last attempt, for even if his heart was strong enough, his transportation was not. He could almost smell it: the town. There was another entrance, of that he was certain. He approached it obliquely, coy and coquettish, and the town loomed heavy upon him. As he turned a corner on the hill, he caught his first glimpse, hundreds of feet below, a new world of chimneys, greenery, vineyards, farmsteads and cottages, clustered as they neared the village center.
And then the trees regrouped, hedging out his view once more so he wondered whether it might have been but a phantom whimsy. It was beautiful, a glen of green and cozy cottages. He'd even imagined a forest distant, and a great river running through it.
Monday, July 1, 2013
Seasons
"To absent friends, lost loves, old gods, and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the devil his due." ~ Gaiman
Once, I believed it might be nice living in Guam, or somewhere equatorial, enjoying the steady temperatures preferential for outdoor living. In places in Malaysia, mean daily temperatures often range from 75-85, year round. I've often envied the predictability of these averages. Barring tropical storms, hurricanes, a season of heavy mists, these places offer a picture of idyllic serenity, especially when enduring the upper and lower limits of temperatures in increasing latitudes. Imagine a world where every evening was beach weather, every afternoon ready with fountains and golden sunshine. I'd soon become complacent and carefree as a lizard on a stone, sunbathing ad eternity.
But then there are other days, days I could not imagine being without. My cynical comeback towards such pluperfect human resorts is, "where does all your green come from if it does not rain?" Yet, this is merely silly presumptuousness, and curmudgeonly at that. These places, for all their glorious sunshine, are frequently not dull, dry, dusty, but often filled with pines and ferns, coffee and sugarcane, butterfly brush, coconuts, agave, flowers and flora high and low. How can this be fair? For such verdant life in these parts, the weather ascribes to the "consistent rainfall" strategy. Do secret fowl fly the air at midnight in these strange lands, clasping water buckets in their talons and dripping sugar-sweet dew across the starlit shores, an ancient moon the color of yellowed paper lighting their journey across the sky? Herons and storks and albatrosses, gardeners of these moonlit shores?
If they do, tell me. I'll pack my bags. Still, there are days, I promise you, when every radiant flower blooming: lilac, tulip, crimson pirate, rhododendron and hydrangea, button flowers and wild carrots, nasturtiums, roses and daisies, trilliums and snowdrops, each flower opens agape its maw and exclaims, "spring, spring, spring!" in singing beyond words, a floral cooing of cherry-blossoms and dogwood trees. When birds tweet and nest and flutter along the eaves in the wild proclamation of winter's end. When summer's short sleeves and flowered skirts, violins, guitars, and mandolins played across the grassy hillsides while butterflies take wing - summer! When deciduous trees decide its time for changing leaves, golden, red and amber, and button-top mushrooms poke aloft, and soggy moss collects on branches. As piles of sodden leaves cluster beneath ghastly trees and pines still sing hallelujah, where the cold dry earth is replaced with coffee brown, and the clouds in every shape return.
Even winter, snuggled around the crackling fire, sweet cider and kittens across our knees, and stories of summers and springs taste sugar sweet on our memories. When every night, piles of blankets protect us from every inspecting eye, and it's only ourselves and heavenly warmth against an encroaching freezing night, clasped in God's perfect embrace of cotton and fleece - even winter is perfect in its time.
It is for these, I could not forego my seasons. Keep your perfect weather, I have mine.
Once, I believed it might be nice living in Guam, or somewhere equatorial, enjoying the steady temperatures preferential for outdoor living. In places in Malaysia, mean daily temperatures often range from 75-85, year round. I've often envied the predictability of these averages. Barring tropical storms, hurricanes, a season of heavy mists, these places offer a picture of idyllic serenity, especially when enduring the upper and lower limits of temperatures in increasing latitudes. Imagine a world where every evening was beach weather, every afternoon ready with fountains and golden sunshine. I'd soon become complacent and carefree as a lizard on a stone, sunbathing ad eternity.
But then there are other days, days I could not imagine being without. My cynical comeback towards such pluperfect human resorts is, "where does all your green come from if it does not rain?" Yet, this is merely silly presumptuousness, and curmudgeonly at that. These places, for all their glorious sunshine, are frequently not dull, dry, dusty, but often filled with pines and ferns, coffee and sugarcane, butterfly brush, coconuts, agave, flowers and flora high and low. How can this be fair? For such verdant life in these parts, the weather ascribes to the "consistent rainfall" strategy. Do secret fowl fly the air at midnight in these strange lands, clasping water buckets in their talons and dripping sugar-sweet dew across the starlit shores, an ancient moon the color of yellowed paper lighting their journey across the sky? Herons and storks and albatrosses, gardeners of these moonlit shores?
If they do, tell me. I'll pack my bags. Still, there are days, I promise you, when every radiant flower blooming: lilac, tulip, crimson pirate, rhododendron and hydrangea, button flowers and wild carrots, nasturtiums, roses and daisies, trilliums and snowdrops, each flower opens agape its maw and exclaims, "spring, spring, spring!" in singing beyond words, a floral cooing of cherry-blossoms and dogwood trees. When birds tweet and nest and flutter along the eaves in the wild proclamation of winter's end. When summer's short sleeves and flowered skirts, violins, guitars, and mandolins played across the grassy hillsides while butterflies take wing - summer! When deciduous trees decide its time for changing leaves, golden, red and amber, and button-top mushrooms poke aloft, and soggy moss collects on branches. As piles of sodden leaves cluster beneath ghastly trees and pines still sing hallelujah, where the cold dry earth is replaced with coffee brown, and the clouds in every shape return.
Even winter, snuggled around the crackling fire, sweet cider and kittens across our knees, and stories of summers and springs taste sugar sweet on our memories. When every night, piles of blankets protect us from every inspecting eye, and it's only ourselves and heavenly warmth against an encroaching freezing night, clasped in God's perfect embrace of cotton and fleece - even winter is perfect in its time.
It is for these, I could not forego my seasons. Keep your perfect weather, I have mine.
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
A Poetry of Prose
The best of narrative drunkenly stumbles along the fence of poetry and prose. Wavering, wobbling, whiskey clasped with nostalgia as, staggering along railroad ruts, the ghastly trees sift only whistles from breeze, and stanza and sentence collide in eager autumn strides. Gilded leaves from maple trees spindle around pastel dreams of August.
And Summer sings, spinning what Spring brings into sunflower smiles. Mountains and valley streams observe with nature, as butterflies decide, as fog, and snow, hail and life hide, in only plain sight. Afraid? Afraid of opening your eyes and clasping hands with the drunken man, for in dreams who cannot fly? Tarry along this precipice, behold the waterfall. Valleys stretched out beneath in scarlet flame. Luxurious?
It is the poetry of prose.
And Summer sings, spinning what Spring brings into sunflower smiles. Mountains and valley streams observe with nature, as butterflies decide, as fog, and snow, hail and life hide, in only plain sight. Afraid? Afraid of opening your eyes and clasping hands with the drunken man, for in dreams who cannot fly? Tarry along this precipice, behold the waterfall. Valleys stretched out beneath in scarlet flame. Luxurious?
It is the poetry of prose.
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