New Writings
Tomorrow’s News-by D
Dear Reader,
Life will happen tomorrow.
Strong winds and rain persist into morning, since it is winter,
and you will walk through it to your next day.
And if you are young, you will skip into the rain,
splashing, running fast, knocking on the neighbor’s door,
hoping for a Yes when asking if your friend can play.
The pair of you will sit under an awning by a willow,
marveling without words, the wind shimmying
tiny jewels of dew on a spider web.
But if you are 13, you will sulk by the monkey bars,
ignoring your best friend with the French bun.
Don’t worry. This will be the worst year of your life.
Things get better after that. You will be released,
moving out at 18, your mother saying it cuts her to the bone.
You will walk down alleys, into the veins of the night.
If you are in your 20s, you will gather lovers,
beautiful bodies, not being able to resist
the mysteries of the other. You will ride buses,
looking out dirty windows, until a poem inside whispers,
and you rummage for pen and paper.
You bake pies for rent, study Chaucer and Beowulf.
But if in your 30s, you will wear a wedding band,
using it to embody an image for your husband.
Taking your ring off, you press it with pliers,
closing the circle while small emeralds pop out of prongs.
He slept with the neighbor who grows chocolate mint.
You swallow rage as your daughter practices ballet.
If you are in your 40s, the weather looks promising.
Other women have taught you how to hold space,
like Hestia, the gatherer, older than the Greeks,
goddess without a face, residing within the hearth fire.
Over years, you will invite circles of women to sit
together, grow in awe as their flames flash.
If you are 60ish, you will fall in love tomorrow,
meeting a man at the Latte Da Coffeehouse
wearing a jacket sprinkled with Lucy in The Skies
rhinestones, talking of poets and telling dog jokes.
After slow dancing one night, he quotes, “I did think,
let’s go about this slowly.” But you won’t.
If you are living alone, and almost 70,
and sleep late, you will wake tomorrow to clear, wide skies.
You will keep company with the whispering inside.
Stories will rise and linger,
like thin clouds close above water in the bay.
You will never be alone.
Pocket-by S
Mist curls and drifts between the dark trunks of the trees. The world is hushed; the sun has not yet risen in these morning woods.
A sound falls on the breathless silence. A single note, a bow drawn over the quivering string of a violin.
It is the thrush, swaying in the topmost branch of a sweet-scented cedar, pouring the vastness of his being into the new day.
A throat-singer, this thrush. He lifts his head, and the aching sweetness of an F-minor triad trembles through the air, echoing.
Echoing.
Deep inside me the vastness of my being quickens and leaps to join those notes of longing.
The echoes fall away. I stand breathless, waiting, but no. The sunlight has come. It touches the top of the cedar, and the singer falls silent.
It’s time to go, but I’ve lingered too long on this forest path. My lists have fallen from my pocket.
(A day begun, an empty pocket: they will not understand.)
Wait, a moment more. A breath, a heartbeat. An F-minor chord trembles on the still air, flooding ever cell.
All is well. My pocket is full.
The Gift Box-by R
Miranda sat in the window seat, bathing in the morning sun. Birds greeted the day and, she knew, her cat Bartley was out to greet the birds. She’d heard her mother fussing at him, for Mamma dearly loved the doves who gathered on her windowsill, well within the cat’s reach.
“Morning Dear.” Miranda’s mother entered the room, a shadow moving against the wall, and sat beside her daughter. Sweeping the long blonde hair away from Miranda’s face, she whispered, “Happy birthday.”
Miranda offered a small smile as the events planned for her day were recounted. “I’ll send Mary to help you get dressed,” Mamma said, kissing the top of the girl’s head as she swept from the room.
Muted light and flickering shadows defined the contours of Miranda’s world. Her pale blue eyes were nearly as translucent as her milky skin.
Dondae stood by the garden wall separating the grand house from the cobbled walk and street outside. She always stopped in the morning, watching the lovely girl sitting at her window. About the same age as herself, she guessed. At first Dondae would wave, trying to get her attention until she finally realized the girl could not see her.
Later, she watched as servants helped the pale girl into her carriage and took her arm to guide her back along the path to the house when she returned, though the girl’s footsteps did not seem to falter.
This day, Dondae saw the festivities unfolding, heard the maids talking about a great party being planned for the girl. Miranda was her name, she learned. It was an especially large celebration, for after this summer, Miranda would be sent to a school for the blind, quite some distance away.
How sad, Dondae thought, this is the only place Miranda is familiar with. Why would they send her someplace where she knows no one, knows nothing about her surroundings. Will she get to take her cat?
Dondae thought and thought. What could I give her, she has everything?
In her father’s workshop, Dondae found a box with a hinged lid. She carried it into the forest to her favorite spot by the stream. Laying the box on the ground, open, she wandered about, collecting sweet-smelling leaves of eucalyptus, fragrant cedar and pine needles. Under a willow tree, she found a fallen nest, and in it, tiny eggshells, newly abandoned, and two small blue feathers.
By the stream, fiddleheads peeked from the loamy soil, and she added one to her box. A perfectly round stone about the size of her thumb went in as well, along with a velvety cattail head.
Dondae made her way along the path towards the village, collecting things she loved, until the box would hold no more.
As she drew near the garden wall, she saw Miranda, sitting on a bench tucked away from sight of the well-wishers. Dondae wondered how the girl had found her way there alone and suspected she might climb out her window often to seek respite in the scented shadows.
Looking all around to make sure she was not seen Dondae climbed the wall and slipped the box onto the seat beside Miranda.
The girl lifted her tear-stained face and said, “Who’s there?”
“A friend,” Dondae replied. “Open the box!”
Miranda felt along the seat and lifted the wooden box to her lap. As she opened it, a multitude of scents greeted her. Gently, she lifted each item out of the box and held it first to her nose, then turned it in her hands, exploring it thoroughly. Each was set beside her until the box was empty.
Dondae crept closer and whispered, “I wish I had a nicer gift to give you.”
“What is your name?” Miranda asked.
“Dondae.”
“Dondae, you have given me the world.”
