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Ailinn
Swinger
1440 Posts |
 Posted - 12/19/2004 : 19:19:33
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| My friend, I bind my soul with your flag. Tattered, but not fallen. Through the denser light of Durrow over 600 years ago you made your way along the granite quay. Nicked finger. Heart full of vows. Now you stand with your back to the campfire under ornamental stars. This celestial night at your shoulders. |
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Ailinn
Swinger
1440 Posts |
Posted - 12/20/2004 : 21:40:59
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"Old friend, old friend, you've been shelter in the wind. Thank God for one old friend. That's all I have to say."
~Mickey Newbury~ |
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Ailinn
Swinger
1440 Posts |
Posted - 12/21/2004 : 22:39:00
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| She listens when his shadow crosses the page. When his hands curve for oars or music. "Look here," he says. The compass on the counter journeying on its own. The fickle latitudes and longitudes. The scholarly sky stays ordered above his head while she reads her ancient books upside-down. She cooks with a vengence. Walks long at the edge of the glass-green sea. One set of footprints trailing. No sun to warm her December 21st. The shortest day. The knot of pain caught caged in her faulty heart. He makes the key fit perfectly. Marvels at its burnished intensity bemused by his locksmith ability. He wears it on a ring at his waist. It tinkles like wind chimes. It tolls like bells. |
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Ailinn
Swinger
1440 Posts |
Posted - 12/23/2004 : 18:56:11
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| Beautiful day in the southland. Faceted like a jewel. Santa Ana's blowing 75 degrees around all the wide-eyed children. Eucalyptus on every corner. Poinsettia. Bottle brush and holly's red and green. Church Bazaar ends tonight. Stu's in charge of Christmas trees. Wind so hot if he thumps the trunk the needles all fall off. The same every year. Santa Ana's in December. Inside is cinnamon-scented air. Homemade jams and preserves. Fudge and butterscotch brickle. Corn dolls in gingham with tender hearts of straw. Quilts with sleeping history. Crewel pillows and embroidered xxxx-stitched samplers. Tatted handkerchiefs that make you walk outside and hold them up to the sky. Make you think you've slipped into another era. Stu told funny stories and sold 21 trees tonight. Kept the senior ladies from the Society of Mary doubled-up over their embroidery hoops. "Oh, stop, you!" they say and rush to make him another fresh pot of coffee. My friend Mirella grabs my hand, "How long is Mass tomorrow?" she asks. "The same," I say. She rolls her eyes and says, "But Jesus KNOWS how busy we are! Can't we get Father to cut it any shorter?" As always... I pray for a seat and a parking place. |
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Ailinn
Swinger
1440 Posts |
Posted - 12/24/2004 : 23:15:35
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| At the ocean end of town stars are sitting glittery on the water. The Cove Bakery traditionally stays open all night. Kids on break from UCSD line up at the old anchor-supported counter where the coffee is free tonight and New Years Eve. Folks come by to pick up their orders. Chocolate chip croissants and Christmas brunch brioche flecked with red and green jalapeno peppers. Trays of mosaic Danish. Jelly donuts big as a grown mans fist. Rum cakes that need two hands to hold them. And their specialty apple/almond torte called Bethlehem's Crown. The children are spinning. Sugar and dreams. How the light shaped itself around their live red-robed choir all hugging their knees on the Altar steps singing, "...fall on your knees...oh, hear..." Dear God, bless the Porch family as we wait for the Child who comes tonight. Happy Birthday, Jesus. Merry Christmas, Mick. |
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andrew p
Firefly
USA
3930 Posts |
Posted - 12/24/2004 : 23:32:17
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M'Lady...
your words paint such vivid pictures...You make it all come alive, you make it so realistic...
it's like a movie for my mind's eye...
Thank you...andrew |
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Ailinn
Swinger
1440 Posts |
Posted - 12/25/2004 : 09:29:45
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Thank you, Andrew. I was sitting on Mick's bed at the end of August 2002. It was late afternoon coming on evening. Suddenly Mick said, "I must talk to Andrew..." It was a great effort for him to move. At that moment Laura came to use the computer. Mick gave her his message to you. His concern was so intense as she typed. He did not trust technology. He was a hand-written paper man. When he was sure the message was sent he beamed that old closed-eyed grin. Merry Christmas and love.
Roisin |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2684 Posts |
Posted - 12/25/2004 : 11:17:24
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Because of these pages, I have become friends with A Polk, D Lang, Ailinn, J Ziemer and many others that I can't imagine going forward without... Thank God for this lovely place under the whispering pines with the iced tea on the table... Thanks for letting an old drunk stop by once in awhile.... Hank
http://members.tripod.com/buckmaniac/index.htm |
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Ailinn
Swinger
1440 Posts |
Posted - 12/25/2004 : 11:44:40
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| Welcome Home, Hank! |
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Doug L
Firefly
Canada
5390 Posts |
Posted - 12/25/2004 : 11:50:35
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| Ah, Hank... |
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Ailinn
Swinger
1440 Posts |
Posted - 12/25/2004 : 20:35:50
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| They lie looking up hooked on stars. Their eyes surprised everyday when the right amount of Heaven slides by. He weighs time. The desert and the sea. Trusts each one equally. The moon and the sun ruling the tide and the dunes. The aquarelle landscapes framed in the postcard rack. He keeps track of what's above and below them. The same gilded stars over Del Dios Highway. The same cedar-worn winter way. "I don't recognize my own handwriting," she says placing a stamp in the corner. He slips into the dream when she talks in her sleep. He's used to that now. The stories she tells. The pictures he's looking for. The plot in her heart God sees. |
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andrew p
Firefly
USA
3930 Posts |
Posted - 12/25/2004 : 22:18:54
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Roisin...
thank you for remembering that, and for your kind words...
I do recall Mick's concern for me, and just never knew how this all had happened...
you made me smile...thanks...
God bless you...andrew
when the chips are down...the Buffalo is empty. |
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Ailinn
Swinger
1440 Posts |
Posted - 12/26/2004 : 18:34:18
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| Bless the people of southeast Asia. Victims of the tsunami. Bless the souls who passed and the spirit of those who must go on. Bless the members of our beloved Porch family who were close but spared. |
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Ailinn
Swinger
1440 Posts |
Posted - 12/26/2004 : 18:50:38
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| ...and in New Bedford, Massachusetts where friends and loved ones don't say goodbye. They say, "I'll see you when you return." The distress call to the Coast Guard went out at 4:44 pm. The ship was listing heavily on the last drag. An emergency call followed saying the boat had capsized and was sinking. Conditions were brutal. Winds reaching 30 knots with seas up to 15 feet high. The water was 45 degrees. The vessel was 25 years old and not up to that sea. The ship was 1000 pounds short of its 18,000-pound catch limit. "When you go in there and you have weather...but you're short of the catch, you stay. If you want your paycheck, you stay." All of the crew, save one, was lost. The worst disaster since the Andrea Gail. That part of the world where Stu's family is. Where the women wail in high windows in houses off cobbled Front Street. Not a hundred years ago, but December 15, 2004. |
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Ailinn
Swinger
1440 Posts |
Posted - 12/26/2004 : 18:51:49
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"...but remember... The sea is always the sea..."
~Mickey Newbury~ |
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Ailinn
Swinger
1440 Posts |
Posted - 12/27/2004 : 20:24:44
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| "Were you lonely as a child?" he wonders day after day. In intricate detail he makes her describe the days. "Do you have pictures?" he asks, and when she says, "Yes," he says "Send them. Send them now." Her shoes are red. She runs very fast. Her feet are on fire when she reaches the Post Office. |
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Ailinn
Swinger
1440 Posts |
Posted - 12/27/2004 : 20:28:00
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Late Fragment
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
~Raymond Carver~ |
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Ailinn
Swinger
1440 Posts |
Posted - 12/27/2004 : 20:30:37
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"...dreams are the carriage that carry us... Here...there...everywhere... Close your sleepy eyes and let the sky..."
~Mickey Newbury~ |
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Ailinn
Swinger
1440 Posts |
Posted - 12/28/2004 : 19:40:05
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| That year he sleeps well. One wooden ship in the harbor rocking like a cradle. Amber glow in the galley. Back-lit clouds and Chantilly light on the water. The night sky full of promises. Oversize stars like paste earrings. A fixed Silver Moon. The cliffs crumbling but so beautiful with trumpet blossoms spilling their entwined hieroglyphic vines. All the necessary everyday miracles still orbiting in place. The tomato fields are empty. The pansies dark velvet faces rest in the shelter of his arms. The remembered future's burnished destination is punched on the tickets he holds in his open hand. |
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Ailinn
Swinger
1440 Posts |
Posted - 12/29/2004 : 17:30:48
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| At Swindlers Heart Cove the tomato fields are empty. The scarlet fields at their front door. The stakes are stacked where the coast curves to commerce a few miles down the road. A wide brown corduroy horizon from the porch step to the shore. Black clouds at the top of the sky. White clouds at the bottom. He's on his knees at the edge of the world. Bent to the earth pushing flats of flowers into the ground. Talking fast and out loud to himself. No pattern other than speed in his hasty planting. His eyes grew too used to three seasons of red. Now he's outlining the old brick pathway in Technicolor. |
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The Nightly Vigil