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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
 Posted - 05/10/2017 : 20:42:43
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Air 61, water 60. Coldest May in San Diego in 64 years. Back to you, Blaine. |
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San Diego
Swinger
508 Posts |
Posted - 05/12/2017 : 22:31:01
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| There's a wall of paned windows in the background which suggest an inn or hotel. A large cat and a vase of flowers out of focus. In the picture my mother's mother is stiffly seated on an oval-back chair. She wears her hair in a braided crown. An ankle-length traveling suit and gloves. Over this, a blue ticking bib apron (the only item hand-tinted so the color may not be true), and a cloche hat in her lap. But what's most interesting are her shoes. Two pairs. Both mid-heel and ornate with ribbon. One pair she's wearing, the other rests beside her on the floor. Faded cursive says Hudson Valley. No date. I can't imagine the occasion for such a get-up. Time to sort through the family albums. Note places and dates on the back so the kids don't go crazy thinking their life was a Hitchcockian dream. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 05/23/2017 : 20:09:55
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Mythic story where nothing goes wrong for a lifetime. White flowers in the clouds. Wide shelf of bluff top before the inevitable fall to water. Trumpet vine spilling out of the sandstone. Incoming tides flushing the honeycomb caves. Iridescent fish in the white-wash. Sunburn shiver on a moonlit deck still day-warm. Mariners stars shooting into the sea.
"Here come the stars now, lady..." he said, "...nightlights the chandeliers envy." |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2017 : 23:41:03
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| They're out on the deck in the dark. He's leaning back in the rocker with the blanket over his knees. They left the old chair out so often it warped and rocks unevenly. "...where...were we...?" he says with his eyes closed. "A lush garden..." she says. "Thirty miles out to sea. Mostly Irish and English there then. Sweepstakes and Revolution. The ferry arriving with liquor and linens. Copious amounts of food. Guests with steamer trunks and too much luggage for a Summer stay. Brigid was busy all day. Fingering the Rosary beads in her pocket. Annoyed when I interrupted her prayers. No bedtime story. No graham cracker or biscuit. A tiny spark of rage blooming in me." "Preview of coming attractions..." he grins without opening his eyes. I snuck out in my nightgown. Hid in the privet hedge. All fireflies and stars around me. A misty dew settling in. No one came to find me. No one knew I was gone. I wasn't afraid. I thought...this is what grownup is." "How old were you then?" he opens his eyes. "I'm not going to tell you," she says. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 06/18/2017 : 22:37:51
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| Cracks in the sidewalk jaywalking home. Citron light caught in the cloud glow. He's telling the story. Raising the stakes. Heart-hammering manifest truth. The night sky crowding with stars. The shining edge he's grown used to. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 06/18/2017 : 22:40:15
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All the poets across the Border remember his name. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 06/23/2017 : 17:53:39
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| Sweet summer-stalled late afternoon. Wide view of the combustible horizon. Faraway mountain tops still flashing snow. A light breeze shivering the willows. Enough blue in the sky for a lifetime. Shiny splash when two coins are tossed into the Park fountain winking at each other all the way down. His walk-easy whistle past picnic tables and birthday piñatas. The new pink and blue babies asleep in their prams. "Tell me what you wished for," he says on the way home. Slow sunset. Blushing clouds. An early moon anchoring the rooftop. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 06/27/2017 12:20:20 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 06/25/2017 : 17:53:50
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| He's on deck stamping his feet. Shaking off the dust of the past. He reaches out with great care and grabs hold of her wrist. She has one foot on the shore and one foot in the ark still rocking. The pelting rain. The roiling waters. The darting minnows fitful flight. The bleached light at the edge of the horizon. (We're there others boarding on a duplicate sea in that profane History?) He's speaking of a future fervently devoted to water. Providential light in the porthole. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 10/16/2017 08:34:24 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 06/25/2017 : 18:01:16
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| Early years. Canyon life in the chilly hills off Mulholland. Mystery and magic and hazardous waste. A racket on trash day with all the barrels rolling down steep driveways. Multinational gardeners rushing to wrangle the strays. Shining neighbors tucked away in the charmed branches clouding the facts correctly. The great chaos beneath glorious stories. In the dark when that hill grew too steep to climb, a boat in the harbor to sleep on. On deck the immutable stars. "The greater the fame the smaller the universe," he said. |
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Craig
Firefly
Kyrgyzstan
3793 Posts |
Posted - 06/25/2017 : 20:06:48
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Summer storms off the gulf bring thunder throughout the night. A gentle, soothing rain accompanies.
Cleansing.
Welcomed.
Comforting.
A break from the hot sweltering heat and humidity of summer.
Conjures up memories of my youth.
Sleeping under the window fan on the screened in back porch.
Street lights eerily shine through the bottles filled with colored water. Many colored shadows.
The gentle rain starts to play rhythmically on the tin roof.
I drift back off to sleep...easily.
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Joey L.
Swinger
USA
1383 Posts |
Posted - 06/26/2017 : 11:44:17
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If it's
a heavy rain,
flashes of lightening and
cracking thunder
windshield and crop-splitting hail
you dream of,
we have it all here in South Dakota.
Plenty to spare, with an
occasional 92 mph straight line wind
(whenever we don't see the funnel).
Time to reset the clocks (again).
Inquiring minds knead da dough, y'know! cuz ... 'the Future's Not' ... |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 06/26/2017 : 16:43:24
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Craig and Joey,  . |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 06/26/2017 : 16:46:54
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| She knows the man who is sleeping. His copious notes on the bedside table. His dreaming that leans on invention. The flash of his brush in the morning. His paintings that leave smoke on the walls. In a saucer on the kitchen table... All those delicate washers and springs. History's tokens. Flint-edged and raw. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 06/26/2017 : 16:58:45
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| In the beginning all their photographs were blurred. "Counterfeit history," he said, "mystery of time and remembrance." "Well, now..." she said in the darkroom's safelight, "...there's that image of you glancing right... Red as Snow White's bright apple." "Dream logic..." he said. "A ghost singin' in the trees. Blues-moanin' wind through the eaves, baby." Outside, grass char. Sparks on the air. Palms shaking their brittle crowns soon to be wind-broken. The year-round creek turning to a trickle of dust. The rock-rooted cedar anchored to earth. Everything else flying off to OZ. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 06/27/2017 : 18:40:57
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| "Start here..." he says, "...start now." "I loved the lurch when the train pulled away. The power of acceleration. I never sat. I liked riding holding onto the pole watching the stations fly by. The melancholy tenements leaving the 125th Street platform. So close you could reach out and touch the geranium-stained window sills blossoming hope. Caffeine-fueled when I was eleven," she says. It's a smoggy evening in a sepia-colored western town where the mountains indiscriminately move. ("Don't worry. It doesn't happen that often," the counterman says.) The night avenue's neon allure is so reminiscent. "The deli's were open all night long. No clash of cultures. The cops and the working girls just trying to make a living..." she says. "The mayor sending his driver for pastrami on rye..." "Keep talkin'," he says, "I'm holding your heart out of harm's way." |
Edited by - Ailinn on 10/16/2017 08:36:58 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 07/09/2017 : 20:00:09
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| -from Signal Flags. A winter story. Faded denim sky one stormed-stained month. Down the beach the cliffs were eroding. The grotto caves hollowing out under the bluffs. The lifeguard's chairs stacked like grocery carts in the Cardiff parking lot. Slurry of clouds overhead when a king tide undercut the Coast Highway. They watched the lagoon inlet rise and breach the tracks with foam. "...the whole ocean..." he said, "...the ship-full seas...all that water out there..." |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 07/09/2017 : 20:02:32
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| The days flow of color. Celestial sometimes. Or achingly stark. How could you expect them to keep track of time when they kept a clock that chimed only the odd hours. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 07/11/2017 : 20:30:58
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| Each night he pulled the sun down from the treetops. Each morning he flung it back up again. |
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Joe Z
Windchimer
USA
1819 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2017 : 06:50:44
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Ten years ago, when my daughter turned 18, I gave her the following note. She is a registered nurse now, serving in a coronary unit in the top heart hospital in Indiana. How fitting.
On Megan Turning 18
I’m not sure where to start because we will never end. We have been and always will be a part of each other. Therefore, I know your strengths and understand your weaknesses. We are blessed and cursed with a different way of looking at the world. It will burden you and carry you.
I carried you until you started kindergarten. At malls, festivals and fairs, you would ride atop my shoulders. You would fall asleep up there, and after 3 hours, my upper body would be numb. I never wanted to put you down.
Born on my 40th birthday, you are the best present I ever received. God and your Mom delivered on time, right on schedule.
We have done our best to show you what is right and what is wrong. Along the way, we made mistakes. But we were always there. We were there when you were a princess, and should you fall from grace, we will still be there beside you.
The most important thing a parent can give a child is independence. And Megan, that is the hardest thing for a loving parent to do. We want you to be able to stand on your own, but we do not want you to ever go away.
And soon you will go away… to college and beyond. You will come to know yourself through hard work and failure and success. Pick your friends carefully. Always give them more than you take. When the world turns cold, true friends will keep you warm.
And remember… you can always come home.
Love,
Dad
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Craig
Firefly
Kyrgyzstan
3793 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2017 : 18:42:55
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quote:
Originally posted by Joe Z
Ten years ago, when my daughter turned 18, I gave her the following note. She is a registered nurse now, serving in a coronary unit in the top heart hospital in Indiana. How fitting.
On Megan Turning 18
I’m not sure where to start because we will never end. We have been and always will be a part of each other. Therefore, I know your strengths and understand your weaknesses. We are blessed and cursed with a different way of looking at the world. It will burden you and carry you.
I carried you until you started kindergarten. At malls, festivals and fairs, you would ride atop my shoulders. You would fall asleep up there, and after 3 hours, my upper body would be numb. I never wanted to put you down.
Born on my 40th birthday, you are the best present I ever received. God and your Mom delivered on time, right on schedule.
We have done our best to show you what is right and what is wrong. Along the way, we made mistakes. But we were always there. We were there when you were a princess, and should you fall from grace, we will still be there beside you.
The most important thing a parent can give a child is independence. And Megan, that is the hardest thing for a loving parent to do. We want you to be able to stand on your own, but we do not want you to ever go away.
And soon you will go away… to college and beyond. You will come to know yourself through hard work and failure and success. Pick your friends carefully. Always give them more than you take. When the world turns cold, true friends will keep you warm.
And remember… you can always come home.
Love,
Dad
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The Nightly Vigil