Category: Dreams

As the Crows Fly

birds in flight at sunset

Each evening, one half hour before sunset, crows fly to roost

Copper light by strange alchemy turned silver on the black gloss of their wings

To light the moon or the night gold eyes of owls and bats

And to draw in the hapless moth for a midnight snack

 

Image by Diego PH via Unsplash

Yesterday

Dune Grass

yesterday was hot
but today the fog came
prowling
over the dunes, slipping
off the rooftops and
around corners
softening everything

we left doors and windows open
until
even the stuffy corners held the promise
of Fall

Image by Robin Anderson

Mr. Crow Takes a Walk

Take a walk they said, you’ll like it they said, something different, a new point of view they said.  So I’m walkin’ here, I’m  walkin’ there.  Always late, missin’ out on the  best food, the best views.  But ya know what, I like it.  Givin’ the wings a rest.  Takin’ my time.

Thing is, I’ve forgotten how to fly.

Image by Gio Diani via Unsplash

 

She Wants

She wants
to walk through the silver rain
into one of his pictures
and live there instead of here.

Without his light
her own life seems sadly
underexposed.

Image by Chris Anderson courtesy of the Estate of Chris Anderson

Moon

No blustery wind

To stir up achievements past

Man’s footprint remains

Point of View

I had forgotten its fullness had arrived until I came upon its reflected shimmer in a rain puddle on the street.  Colors not evidenced in its original glow swirled in the eddies remaining after the violent intrusion of car wheels.

Image by Safal Karki via Unsplash

Rhubarb (ReDux)

Heat and dust.  The little girl kicked a stone down the road.  No fair!  Sent to the store twice in one day, a quarter clutched in her small, sweaty hand.

At the corner the old woman with the sun hat still worked in her yard.  This morning she’d been clipping roses, now she was cutting rhubarb with a sharp knife.  Whack! at the ground. Whack! again at the top.  A pile of shiny red stalks at her feet, huge wilting leaves heaped on the grass.

Little Girl put her head down and walked faster.  Too late.  “Barbara Jayne!  Would you like to take some rhubarb to your mother?”  “No!  I hafta go to the store!”  She broke into a run.  “Your mother makes such lovely pies.”

Little Girl ran faster down the long hill.  She stopped at the crossing, hopped into the street as a car horn blared, raced to the curb and up the steps to the store.  Inside it was stuffy but cooler.  The fat storeman smoked at the back counter, looked up from his newspaper.  “Back again, huh?”  Little Girl laid the quarter on the counter.   “Loaf of bread, quart of milk.”  The storeman’s eyebrow shot up.  “Please!”

He fetched the milk from the icebox, the bread from the bin, took the quarter.  “You got change comin’ or do you want some candy?”  “No!”  Little Girl grabbed the groceries.  “Ma says put it on her account.”  She slammed out the door, into the blinding afternoon.

The hill was steeper now that she was walking up it.  She was thirsty, should have bought a soda.  But Sister would have seen the bottle and told on her.  Pooh.  She stopped, tried to put the loaf of bread on her head for shade.  It wouldn’t stay, dropped in the dusty road.  A car was coming!  She picked up the loaf, wiped the package clean on her dress and turned her back on the swirl of dust stirred up by the passing auto.

By the time she reached the top of the hill, Little Girl thought a drink of milk might be a good idea.  Nope.  She’d be in trouble with Sister for opening the bottle.

At the corner, Old Woman had disappeared from her yard, the rhubarb stalks were gone, too.  But the big green leaves still lay on the grass.  Little Girl looked up and down the road.  She looked at Old Woman’s house.  No one.  Setting the milk and bread at the side of the road, she picked up a rhubarb leaf, plonked it on her head.  Cool relief!

Little Girl walked toward home, remembering, in the nick of time, to turn back and fetch the bread and milk from the roadside.

“Hurry up, slow poke!  That milk will be curdled by the time you get in here.”  Sister stood on the porch.  “What do you have on your head?”  Ma stood at the kitchen window, laughing.

“Sun hat!”  Little Girl tipped her head back, stuck out her tongue.

Sister bounded off the porch, jerked the milk and bread out of Little Girl’s hands.  “Come on!  Ma’s gonna make a rhubarb pie for dinner.  You gotta go to the store for butter.”

 

 

Images designed by Hannah Fulop