I am coming home late
if you are meeting me at the gate
unintentionally, but still
at the end of a long day
I shall go my own way
and leave you to play
sweet clover for you
sweet dreams for me
lettuce savor the evening
dear Big Brown Rabbit
He is shivering
before I can hear thunder
storm vibrations with
static electricity
send Dennis seeking solace
Burrowed in the clean towels
Little students
lighten moments
with little jokes:
Why shouldn’t you give Elsa a balloon?
She’ll just Let It Go.
What do you call someone without a body or a nose?
Nobody Nose.
—oh, you kids.
edible comic relief red nose day noses. osde8info. CC BY-SA 2.0.
Here, says the student,
is my rainbow-wing dragon.
For just a moment
the dreary day fades.
On these bright, magical wings
I am transported.
In the interview
the candidate said
we don’t get credit
for all we’ve endured
on behalf of kids
in these past two years
and apologized
for the sudden tears
every one of which
surfaces from depths
immeasurable
a soul subjected
to intense pressure
somehow withstanding
high temperatures
beyond describing
the weight of the world
in every teardrop
salt-worth far beyond
the rarest diamond
culminating crown
of love resounding
courage rebounding
in five wondrous words:
“I still want to teach”
I find there is nothing that drives away dark thoughts as much as Sunday morning, especially when it follows a night of strange and troubled dreams after a week of increasing tensions at work in a school year that seems never-ending. As I wake, pondering the attrition of humanity in general with a hymn-line playing in my head, Change and decay in all around I see, unable to tell if I am feeling heartsick, soul-sick, or just plain sick, the Sunday stillness settles my spirit. My stomach, on the other hand, needs more time…not sure if I will make it to church or not. A riotous melody from the front porch works like a tonic: a finch fantasia. The mohawk-headed babies that hatched in my door wreath should have flown on by now. I am glad they linger. I need these bright notes. I wish I could interpret them and know exactly what the finches are saying to one another… if they were not here, the silence would be so loud. There is a time for silence and it is not now. It is not the same as stillness. Sunday brings stillness, the finch song brings stillness, the wall clock with whirring crystals brings stillness. I am craving prolonged stillness, I am so tired, but I make myself go.
And if I had not done so, I would have missed it.
Backing out of the garage, closing the door, turning down the driveway… there.
Across the street, lying on the grass in front of a tangled green thicket, a large white cat, so still it seemed an alabaster statue. It didn’t move as I approached. It gazed at me as if it belonged in that very spot (I have never seen it before).
Sphinx-like. Pristine. Regal. Otherworldly. Breathtaking. I think I whispered the word Amazing.
I could have stayed and stared, I think, forever.
But, without movement of any kind, the white cat reminded me that stillness isn’t an untroubling; it is, instead, a submerging, away from surface-level fear, a shaking off, a resting place, a deep abiding.
Which paradoxically involves moving on.
I feel certain it winked at me as I did so.
Curiosity drove me to look it up: Pure white cats are rare, 5% or less of the population.
It didn’t seem to mind my taking its picture.
*******
special thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the weekly Slice of Life Story Challenge
fantasia
nounMusic.
1. a composition in fanciful or irregular form or style.
2. a potpourri of well-known airs arranged with interludes and florid embellishments.—Dictionary.com
They’re still here,
the finches
with the nest
in the magnolia wreath
on my front door
four weeks after
their Easter-egg hatching
I feel certain
these babies can fly
yet they linger
every little singer
adding its glory
to each new day
how I wish
this gold
could stay
Short recording of the finch fantasia
joy
It is the season
of newness
of flowering
of fresh color
of cloudless sky
so blue it hurts
it is the season
of grass
of earth
of birth
of birds
of Eastertide hatchlings
leaving nests
to wing their way
through the world
it is the season
of contemplation
of existence
of life
of purpose
of time
not standing still
and therefore being
infinitely
piercingly
precious
Micah contemplates pink sorrel and a piece of pine straw
Late one evening
when I was a child
I rode in the car
beside my father
when he turned
onto our street
I saw, up ahead
dead in the center
a light
Look at that,
I said, a light
in the middle of the road!
Daddy chuckled
—it’s not in the road,
that’s the lamppost
in our yard.
When I see it, I know
that’s home
All these years later
I can still see it
from so far away
glowing in the dark
in the center of it all
lit bits and pieces 