He was scrupulously unsuperstitious, but the smell gave him away, acrid brain curling reek.
I followed him to the bathroom. Startled, Grandpa dropped burning paper into the toilet.
“Ssh. Tell no one. The witch will know.”
After he died, I continued his tradition.
Burn all clippings, hair to toe nails.
Becky Kjelstrom
The dream began as a once-a-nighter, but soon recurred many times night and day. Dreams of holes, large, small, deep, shallow, growing, shrinking. Waking in a cold sweat, skin burning through a thousand itchy pores. Holes consuming organs, bones and blood till nothing remained but endless dark of the universe.
In the high mountains, the air is clear, the sun shines hot. When the wind blows, it rages. Thunder deafens and lightening blinds with obliterating brightness, erasing all shadows.
She sees across a vast expanse. To Eternity? Further? All because the air is thin.
Now, if only she could breathe.
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looking down
into the koi pond
I see a rainbow reflected
from the sky above
If I look up
will I see
koi swimming
in the clouds?
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This beach, in summer, is full of life; Bright human life, pushing all other bits of consciousness aside.
A family group, mostly males, flying dangerously large kites to the squealing encouragement of the females. Elders, walking slowly and frowning at their mates, but mostly perturbed by the shenanigans of youngsters. Volleyballers, runners, sitters, sunbathers, readers. Solitary walkers with bumptious dogs. And a boy who named himself “Siegfried the Dog”. A single child at sunset, bent in contemplation of a seashell as the tide slips quietly out.
Oh for the cold, sandblasted landscape of winter, when we others will have space.
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“Hope” is the thing with feathers. Emily Dickinson
In the kitchen on a warm afternoon, the breeze blowing in an open door. An unexpected movement near the window. That’s not right.
A flutter and chirp. Distress. Small bird inside the house.
The family dog sleeps in the next room so I rise quietly. A black-capped chickadee stares up at me from the sill. Crooning in the face of terror, I try to catch it. Frantic fluttering and shed feathers. Still not right.
Softly, I open two windows, stand back and hope.
YES! It flies out into its world. That is right.
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riptide winds
stir the pine trees
scent of spring
yellow azalea
childhood memories
at sunset
a single star
awaits night
Image by Robin Anderson
civil twilight
turquoise sky
and bats.
nautical twilight
sapphire sky
more bats.
astronomical twilight
onyx sky
(certain they’re there but cannot see)
the bats.
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virga-veiled sunset gleams greenly
Spring, too full of life
paints the sky.
bloated apricot clouds hang
in aqueous air
almost midnight.
Solstice light now for coven
witchy word women huddle
and prepare one of their own.
tell stories of bayous thunderstorms snakes
pirates and pigs
Strange romance.
funny things these heart
Strings
begin but never end.
later, mist shrouded moon
Speeds my flight home
godspeed yours.
to parched, foreign place
you will make it bloom
with your words.
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We should have known. All the signs were there. The slow drift of feathers across the yard. The crow in the leafless tree, feasting upon the body of a songbird. The relentless cold, even as the calendar advanced to days when the soft edge of spring should have cut into winter.
We ignored the dire portents.
Then a phone call.
Now it seems so odd to take out the garbage, bring in the mail, walk the dog, all while knowing you are not here.
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