End of Month Reminder

Hi All,

This is just a quick reminder that the end of the month is here. If you had time to write anything, we would love to read it.

-Becky

A Stranger’s Acquaintance With Spring in the North Country

January 25^th

We are deep in winter though the Chinooks came through today and it is 45 degrees out. Next week will be -15 again. The almanac says I should be sharpening my hoes and pruning shears. I suppose it is just for something to do, but the winds bring warmth that awaken and tease me, taunting me with a feeling that winter should be ending soon. This wind is an imp, welcome, relieving, and falsehearted.

February 20^th

Still winter. It is 5 degrees outside. Tonight it is supposed to warm up. I think about color. I look up and drink in the blue of the sky. This must be color enough for now. Birds in the trees still sing for me a song, though it be hushed. I am glad they are here to share the colds days with me. I pray for them during the starkly cold nights. I suppose they likewise pray for me, knowing I am a stranger here.

March 19^th

The almanac tells me to go outside and clear the flower beds. I do it with delight. Today is warm. We’ve all - the baby, dog, cats, and I - have tip toed outside to see and to breath. Windows are opened and doors are cracked. Tomorrow will be chilled again. There should be snow by the end of the week. The first day of Spring comes soon, but Winter only shares the stage. It does not leave it. No curtain call yet. The lilacs have falsely believed this week’s warm spell and the buds are swelling. Silly little flowers. Wait your turn. The sun is still low. There is cold left for us to bear.

April 23^th

The days are longer. Some early budding trees are wearing pale green buttons on their branches. Others swell with ideas, but most still wear the grey camouflage of winter. I look for the Spring bulbs that will soon paint our grey and brown gardens. Geese walk in pairs and with young ones soon. It is cold today, but the ground is not frozen any longer. The almanac says it time to prune the fruit trees. The smell of moistened soil fills the basement where I have sown a few seeds in anticipation. May the seeds smell my anticipation and grow.

May 9^th

Might I till and tend the soil yet? Might I plant peas and chard, parsnips and parsley, carrots and beets? May the apple and cherry trees in bloom keep their bud, and the lilacs, that are bursting, spill out of their wintery shells in safety? I am ready. My neighbor, the cotton tailed bunny, whose tracks I have seen all the long winter, she is ready. The birds who have weathered outside my bedroom window, they are ready. Spring, be kind and let the smell of green linger. Blossoms are tender, but more so, am I.

May 29^nd

Warm today. Possibly some rain late tomorrow. Lilacs have passed with hard frost. I am hardening my starts and will transplant over the weekend. Peas are up, along with peaking carrot tops, beets, and pretty little rows of miniature greens. Tulips are like rainbows in the front flower beds. Dandelions are golden dew drops, and quite as plentiful. The trees wear green, though the leaves are still small. All is Color – even the cherries on my cheeks.

June 10^th

Heavy snow. Spring can be fickle.

June 25^th

It is Summer hot out and the lawns needs mowing. How inconsistent, how subtle, and restrained - how sure is Spring. Adieu, then, until next year. Perhaps then I’ll get to know you better.

Allegory

I have never written an allegory, so this one is probably not the best. But it was something that I could relate to at this moment. So input is more than welcome. So here it is.

The Sweetest Gift Ever

She had always dreamed of this day, today was the day she would be getting the sweetest gift ever! Her daddy had promised her that one day she would receive this wonderful gift. It was a doll, a perfect little doll that really laughed and cried. But he had warned her over and over again what a big responsibility it was to have such a gift. She had been waiting so long to have him say she was ready. She was excited, she was finally old enough and she was prepared.
“Well,” she thought, “am I prepared?” She began to doubt herself. Was she prepared for such a big gift? What if she wasn’t good at taking care of her doll? She tried to imagine herself with her perfect new doll. She would hold it, and rock it, and feed it. And if it cried she would sing to it.
“I’ve seen many people with their dolls,” she said to herself. “I have seen people take their dolls to the store, I have seen them take their dolls to the park to play with them. I have watched the older girls give the dolls baths, and change their clothes, and brush their hair, and put them in cradles for naps. I have seen big dolls and little dolls. I have even been allowed to hold the dolls! I have helped feed the dolls, and I have helped older girls watch the dolls while they went to do other important things.”
She had not realized that she was being prepared for so long, by so many people. She knew that the older girls were teaching her to be good and to stand up straight, and to act like a lady. But she had never realized that the older girls were also showing her how to love and nurture and protect, all at the same time.
How had the older girls learned these things and known that they were important to teach to other girls like her, little ones that didn’t even have dolls yet? They must have learned from older girls when they were little too!
Her fears were starting to subside now, and she was gaining her confidence back. Just then there was a knock at her bedroom door. It was her daddy, and as he entered she could see he was holding a tiny little ball in his hands. It was gold, perfectly round, and seemed to be glowing.
“Sit down with me,” he said with a gentle smile. “I have something to give you, but first I must give you some instructions for its care.” She sat down next to him near the open window that looked out of her room onto the world all around her. “I am going to tell you something very important. See this tiny little ball? It is the doll I promised you. It doesn’t look like it now does it?” She shook her head in confusion, and looked into his face to see if he was playing a game. But he just continued in his gentle, knowing way.
“Your doll is inside the ball. It is not quite a doll yet, so you must be patient and do what I say, or the doll cannot come out to play with you.” She was still confused, but tried very hard to listen to the things he was telling her. “I am going to tell you what you must do to get your doll out of the ball now. First, you must carry the ball with you everywhere you go. You can never leave it alone, and no one else can hold it for you right now. It is your responsibility. You must learn to love it. Second, you must eat all of your vegetables! You must eat everything that is put on your plate. It is hard work taking care of a doll, so you have to be prepared, this means you must eat healthy foods to give you energy while you take care of your doll. Third, you must report to me often how you are feeling about the doll. You must tell me when you are scared, and when you need help, and any time you have a question about your doll. You see, I made your doll special just for you, so I know exactly how to take care of your doll. I want to help you, but you have to ask.”
“How long do I have to wait, and do all of these things before I can actually hold my doll?” She was feeling anxious about all of these new responsibilities.
“I will let you know when the time is right, and then I will help you know how to open the ball to get the doll out.” He smiled at her, hugged her tiny body, and left the room.
She looked down and stared at the ball. Is this how every little girl got their doll?
In the next little while she worked very hard to do exactly what her daddy had said. She carried the ball everywhere with her. She took it to school, she took it to bed, she even took it with her when it was bath time! And each day it seemed like the ball grew a little. She loved that little ball.
She ate all of her vegetables, she cleaned her plate every meal, and even ate snacks in between meals. Her daddy was right, it did take a lot of energy to get ready for her doll. And every day the ball got a little bigger!
And she tried very hard to remember to talk to her daddy about the doll every day. She would go to him and ask him what she would need to do when she first got it. And how she would know what to do when it cried and cried and she got scared. And with every fear he would simply smile and say, “I know you can do this. You are my little girl and I will be here for you always, but this is part of your adventure!”
One day the ball began to move! She ran to her daddy and asked what was going on. He hugged her very tight and said, “it is time for you to see your doll.” Then he held her on his lap and watched as she worked and worked on opening the ball. She worked hard and long on the ball with her little hands. Her finger hurt and she felt like it was too hard for her to do all by herself. She would turn to him with tears and ask him to help her for a second, and his reply was always the same, “I am.”
Finally, after hours of frustration the ball suddenly popped open! She picked up the doll and held it to her chest. She turned to her daddy and smile. “Thank you, thank you so much!”
“Now your adventure begins,” he said. He was smiling, but he had tears running down his cheeks. “I have prepared you for this. Now you must believe that you are ready. I love you, and I know you will love this doll I have made for you.”

She smiled. She was ready.

Free Verse: an ode to William Carlos Williams

I have always loved the poem from William Carlos Williams called "This is just to say" were it is a simple verse about eating the plums "which you were probably saving for breakfast. Forgive me, they were so sweet and so cold." I thought I would allude to that verse.


An Allusion to William Carlos Williams

I wanted to write a poem
about eating plums for
breakfast that were not for me,
but my husband
doesn’t like plums,
nor would he eat them for breakfast.
So...
sorry Dear, I drank the last
of the milk.

Free form Poetry

The rocker softly squeaks a protest as
she sinks into its soft embrace.
As she skims
the surface of sleep,
she bares her breast
for this babe
created in her image.
She hums a familiar lullabye
in harmony with the
rocker's own hymn,
gentle creaks not voiced
when mother was daughter.
Echoes of tenderness
reaching back
generations
heard by all mothers once daughters.

Ballad

I'm following suit and posting something that's not newly written. This probably only has appeal to desert lovers.

Song of the Desert Bard

In the frozen wastes of a western state

Starts an oft-repeated story

Of a singer who knows of life-long foes--

Every player, feathered or hoary.

And the tale begins when the southwest winds

Breathe a promise of days to come

When the snows are gone and the days are long

And the migrant stray flies home.

With a flash of wings the yellow bard sings

As a traveler flies the last leg

Of a journey from afar guided by a star

And the Great Horned settles on eggs.

In a land dispute an eagle stoops

On an interloping falcon

While in a bed of sticks three Raven chicks

In egg-shell blue are hidden

The lark with horns anxiously scorns

A base of tufted grass

‘Till the watcher’s glance moves by chance

The eggs are warm at last.

Then the chorus swells ‘neath the vernal spell

The Thrasher’s trill incites

A battle cry from a black bow tied

Defending sparrow sprite.

A wary hare without a prayer

Of moving undetected

Defies the gods and beats the odds

For a nip of morning nectar.

The queen of the air watches with care

A pure white ball of down

Soaring high with piercing eye

She patrols the distant ground.

The season turns as thunderheads churn

The heavens into butter

The Claret blossom turns deep plum

And the ground owl takes a lover.

Crop circles form ‘round a ravaging swarm

Of hymenopteran farmers

A formic feast for a horny beast

Deliberately scaled and armored.

A thorny spike to a hoarding shrike

Is a Big Sage Frigidaire

And the cicada’s drone of raspy tone

Marks a viper’s lair.

The summer moon, a helium balloon

Seems tethered by a feather-light rock

A scorpion tail fluorescent pale

Lies on the butcher block.

Spinning in his skin with a hissing grin

The badger turns the battle

Now wary feet beat a wise retreat

To the Storyteller's tattle.

Lupine orbs form curling cords

A gift for a Painted Lady.
The Indian grass parts to pass

A gangling Curlew baby.

The days are long and the heady song

Of the storyteller croons

To a Black-tailed jack kicking back

To beat the heat of June.

The season’s done as one by one

Grown-up wings take flight

The horizon fades through crimson shades

That wink and turn to night.

Free-form Poetry

A Collection of Short Stories by I-15

Reading at 80

seeing the pages of a short-story collection flipping past as if a giant,

asphalt thumb

were bending, then releasing, the page corners.

Lethargic miles and miles of sage, undulating fences, and baked

cheat grass

zip fast forward at the edges of my vision.

Yet,

there,

at the edge of the blacktop,

among the paper and plastic,

a loose collection of

ubiquitous and out-of-place leavings

prods my nodding consciousness to mark

the winking of a baker’s dozen

abandoned stories.

A pacifier on a frayed pink ribbon

hanging

from the branches of a Black Sage…

A trail of black rubber ribbons, starting small and ending

with a weighty cork-screw of tread and

two deep, half-moon gouges

slashing across three lanes of gray tarmac…

A pair of cat-eye sunglasses with rhinestones and

only one earpiece;

a fleeting moment later,

a single length of torn fishnet hose

snagged

by a

jagged barb

on a

sagging fence…

One half of a king-sized, pillow-top mattress

slumped against a fence post

branded in the middle

with the squiggly edges

of long-dried, overlapping puddles….

The bloating carcass of a raccoon,

punctuated

2 seconds later by one small, barely recognizable

coon-colored mound

and then another

and another…

A 4-foot length

of splintered, peeling plank

with a C-clamp clinging

resolutely to a ragged edge

kept company by two bent and rusted 10-penny nails…

Just one,

size 10 or larger,

spit-shined Mary-Jane with a

hole in the sole

and a pink rose for a strap button...

A lopsided, delaminating cardboard box

the size and shape of a casket

with the “This Side Up” arrow

pointing down…

A book with a corner chewed off,

the spine broken,

and the pages open and wafting

with the car’s passing.

This one deserved, and got, an anguished look back…

A black, lacy strap

spilling from the mouth

of a wrinkled, brown-paper wine bag…

With an endless,

treeless horizon on every side,

a weighty broken limb

from a Ponderosa Pine,

flying a yellow “CAUTION” pennant

from the splintered end,

the needles still green…

A pocked, aluminum, round-bottom

cooking pot,

mouth to the ground,

turned-wood handle trailing,

looking for all the world

like a naked,

Fess Parker

coon-skin cap…

A green marble 1940’s cosmetic suitcase,

nearly buried,

upside-down and tilted on one corner,

one hinge and the plastic handle broken,

trailing a mouse path leading into the alfalfa field on the far

side of the fence…

The miles vaporize in the vortex behind me,

while the mental snapshots swirl and coalesce.

Stories emerge and evolve and evaporate

on this eternal stretch of I-15...

I am both

constrained and entertained.