Rachel Morton
Inspiration piece

Headlong into Oblivion
(reflections on the earthquake in Haiti, Hurricane Katrina and the tsunami in Indonesia)
By Kathy Doran
Response

The deaf man didn’t hear Vesuvius roar

The blind boy ran but couldn’t find the door

Earthquakes, volcanoes and floods all plunder

Human beings, farmland and buildings, plowed under

Cracked and shaking ground or liquid rock scalds the earth

Sending  souls back to the source of their birth

Frozen in time, a lasting impression

Frozen by fear, an engraved expression

Where we come from we do not know

One thing is certain, back there we’ll go.

…….

——————————————————
Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Cara Mayo
Inspiration piece

First Memory
By DiAna Hart Smith
Response

Light appears around the edges of the dark beginning of a new summer day. I’m standing in my crib in my long blue cotton Cinderella summer nightgown . . . the one with a sash that ties in the back. I’m three years-old and keep telling everyone that I want a big princess bed. My older brother is asleep and so are Mom and Dad.

I slip over the slatted crib rail, slide into my red sandals and just let the straps flap against the metal buckles. At present, buckles are beyond me. I flap, flap, flap out of my bedroom and down the stairs, but I don’t wake anyone. I go through the small living room, dining room and kitchen and out the back door of our tiny row house on the corner of Ruby Street in West Philadelphia.

Now in the backyard, I unlatch the gate. First, I stop and look down the narrow alley at the backs of the endless row houses on each side. The possibilities are overwhelming, but I think I’ll visit the Murrays today. I walk in their back door into their kitchen, stand still, and listen. The house is silent. On tip-toe, I softly flap, flap, flap into their living room. Cassie Murray is eleven, so she has the best toys.

I’m “oh, so busy” loading Cassie’s doll carriage with all of her dolls, when I hear a faint noise upstairs, then another. I go over to the stairs and look up the stairwell to see Mrs. Murray bending down over the top step, peering down the fourteen steep steps at me. I yell, “Hi, Mrs. Murray.” Mrs. Murray rapidly grabs each of the pink – (Rachel pink Mom calls that color) – lapels of her chenille robe in one hand, while a Blessed Mother blue rosary is wrapped around her other hand, clutching the banister.

Mrs. Murray flies down the steps toward me. . .faster than even I can ride down a stair railing and I’m fast. Mrs. Murray gets eye to eye with me. She must be glad to see me. “May the saints preserve us, DiAna,” she says in her Irish brogue. “Didn’t your mother tell you not to be visiting neighbors when they’re asleep? I didn’t know who was down here — whether to pray the rosary or call the police!” Police, she must not be glad to see me.

I stand like a statue in the living room. Mrs. Murray goes to the kitchen phone and tsks as she dials, “Emma guess who’s here visiting and nearly scared the bejesus out of me? It’s a blue nightie; they’re red sandals with Mickey Mouse on the tops. She looks fine, Emma. Okey Dokey.”

“DiAna,” Mrs. Murray calls from the kitchen, “Your mother will soon be here. I am going to put Mr. Murray’s coffee on to perk. Sit in that big chair – the one with the flowers on it and don’t move.” My mother is coming for me…I am in BIG trouble, but I don’t know why.

Mom arrives and says, “Becky, I’m so sorry. I don’t know where DiAna gets her nomad blood.” Mom looks like Mom always looks. Her house dress – today it’s the brown cotton with white pique trim – is starched and without one wrinkle. Her sling-back wedgies are polished. Her seams are straight in her hose. Mom takes me by the hand. We walk home the long way – out Mrs. Murray’s front door, down the street, around two corners past the big mailbox, and in our front door. No short cut through the alley for Mom.

Mom talks all the way home. I know it’s best to not say anything when grownups are upset. She’s talking about Magdalena Marconi again. “Why can’t you be a good daughter like Magdalena and just play on our porch?” she says. “Magdalena would never leave her mother.” I think how much I would never want to be Magdalena. Magdalena would be too scared to step off the Marconi’s porch.

In a short while a huge bright yellow truck pulls up in front of our house and blocks our small side street. Men jump out and quickly begin putting our furniture in the back of the truck. Mom must really be mad this time. She says we’re moving to another house.

I run and look for my little piano that Mom hid because I was playing and singing Jesus Loves Me too often and too loud. I find my piano in the pantry behind a packed carton. I know most of Mom’s hiding places. I clutch the piano to my chest and run to the living room and begin pulling my bright red rocking horse by its wooden ear toward the front door. I don’t want to leave Trigger behind. Mom says, “DiAna, wait! The moving men will collect everything. You wouldn’t leave without me would you?” Is Mom kidding with me this time?

I don’t yet know that our relationship will stay this way – Mom will be perpetually upset with me and I’ll never understand why. I don’t yet know that for the next 45 years, Mom will still sing her “Good daughters don’t leave their mothers” refrain. . . when eight and I leave her for a few days to go to the Jersey shore with my friends’ families; when 17 and I leave her for college; or when 27 and I leave her and Pennsylvania permanently — only to return for short visits.

I don’t yet know that Mom’s prediction about Magdalena is true. For 49 years, and until her mother’s death at 68, Magdalena does not leave her mother. Only after her mother’s death does Magdalena find and eventually move in with a significant other.

I don’t yet, at three years old, know that by high school Magdealena – Lena – and I will become the best of friends for the rest of our lives. . .even though Lena never ventures further than 8 miles from West Philadelphia and I move 800 miles away. Lena leads a calm, uneventful life. I take huge risks, that stop Lena’s heart, being one of the first females serving on forest fire lines, instructing law enforcement officers, and moving across country twice to enhance my career.

It’s only now while I am thinking back to other memories that I suddenly remember early morning calls from my Georgia neighbors reporting that my own young son is once again visiting in his Superman pajamas. I almost tip my scalding cup of tea onto my lap! I then remember dressing in a flash and walking to neighbor’s houses in our cul de sac to fetch him. How could I be completely blind-sided by this significant connector?

I search my memories further and find comfort in the fact that I never trilled the “Good sons never leave their mothers” refrain. My son has taken risks that have stopped my heart. Now, he lives a life full-to-bursting with his wife and two daughters. They just happen to live eight miles from me. I am over-the-moon with joy.
.

.

Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Brian MacDonald
Inspiration piece

Untitled
By Mel Berning
Response

The bartender laid the napkin squares before my drink coaster. “I thought you’d like these.” I retrieved my pen from my slacks pocket; wrote a few words feigning a muse in my mind. The bartender looked satisfied, or teasing; I have trouble distinguishing the switch.

I stared at a wall. Who is she, or was she? How dare he step between and my one good eye and the brick wall seconds from powder under a salt-licked ice shaving melting on my tongue.

My jaw surrendered to lime. Maybe it was his tone. I questioned shadow. First glance, I noticed the philtrum, the slight smirk grin.

Maybe the neck. I dared not kiss the unchecked apple. I dared not look back. He wasn’t looking at me.

I kept tabs on my drinks, and thoughts, napkins bleeding together, and standing aside, dry. I dabbed my chilling lips, moist on the upper-lip fuzz. The crescent lime between my forefinger-thumb support, I thought better of the squeeze.

I remember the relief biting into the lime pulp without grimace, without missing my swallow, without the intoxicated chin drip. Without thinking, I smiled. I reached for the miniature pretzel sticks. I reached for a fresh napkin. I wondered whether the chance pretzel stick stack was intentional, or I-Ching-ish. I laughed.

Another lime wedge pair appeared on my napkin. I looked at the bartender. I looked at the hanging glasses, the liquor bottles and carafes and swizzle sticks transparent and umbrella, and I looked at the miniature rainbow cellophane pom-poms. I smiled. I might’ve laughed.

I thought I heard a “hello.” I looked into the liquor glass mosaic behind the bar. A woman was standing behind me, looking into the same mosaic mirror section, precisely, I thought, at me. I looked at the napkin — a lime wedge less. I laughed. “There I go, again, thinking a pretty woman might speak, passing though.” I blinked. I looked at the brick wall in the bar mirror. No one was there.

“Whew,” I scribbled, “not caught looking.”

I heard a laugh, on the frequency of a whisper. “Hello,” she said, “I’d like to read the poem you wrote.”

.

.

Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Mel Berning
Response

Lloyd’s Ball
By Brian Eugenio Herrera
Inspiration piece

The ride to get here had been awful. The kind of ride that makes you doubt the trip to begin with. The heat of the high desert sun beat through every surface. I thought sure the sun would bend the glass of the rear window, turning it just concave or convex enough to make it a magnifying glass which would cause the pile of file folders on the seat next to me – cause them to spontaneously combust. Which wouldn’t be a bad thing, actually. One window in the backseat wouldn’t roll down at all. Something about it falling of its runner. The other window rested about two-thirds open, treacherously angled. A jagged edge, ready to stab. The wind, such that it was, wandered daintily over the edge, as if it too was afraid to be cut. Every third minute or so, my roasting face sought the solace of a breeze from it. But this was that dry West Texas air, the kind that feels more like sandpaper than a cool cloth. But every few minutes, there I would go again. Hoping that it might be cooler this time. What’s that definition of insanity? And each blast of scratchy air seemed to bring with it that smell.  Part dust, part old cigarette butts. A sturdy loitering smell, the kind of stink that just won’t leave. I could feel my mouth clenching, tightening my lips taut. It was bad enough a smell. I didn’t think I could stomach the taste.

Stomach. God. I can’t believe how hungry I still am. Skipping lunch yesterday seemed like a sensible enough idea at the time. I had no idea yesterday morning’s ham and cheese croissant – so flaky, buttery, fluffy, chewy, gummy and crusty all at once – I had no idea it would be the last thing I would have to eat for what is it now thirty seven hours. I figured I’d have some chance to eat something between Providence and East Armpit, New Mexico but at every opportunity nope. Something decided I needed not to eat. Fuckers. And now I’m sitting here. The only place open in this six-building town waiting for the kid’s ex-step-abuela to show and maybe clue me in. The only place open is a bar called Lloyd’s Eight Ball. Lloyd tells me they used to have a cook but nobody wanted to eat so when the stove broke they fired the cook and now what we got is some Lay’s peanuts on that rack over by the candy machine and some pickled eggs. I look to the lonely oval suspended in liquid on the shelf behind Lloyd’s giant ear as he tells me this. The egg seems lost in another time. Like a creature inside it might yet be born, if only some intrepid traveler might transport it carefully to a planet able to sustain its particular form of life. But I’m not going to eat the egg. Nor am I going to risk the peanuts. I can see a film of dust on the lumpy cigar shaped packages from here. No it is best that I content myself to choking down the syrupy coke that Lloyd was presently pouring for me. I could tell whatever carbonation had once passed through that gun was a distant, effervescent memory. A cold flat soda with a tap water chaser sounded pretty good when I ordered it, though Lloyd clearly thought my order final proof of whatever he was already thinking about me.

My hands shook as I took the glasses from Lloyd and made my way to a dark wooden booth toward the back of the bar. Was I that hungry? Or was I nervous about finally meeting the kid? Or was it Lloyd’s egg? I gulped the water in one thoughtless chug, choosing not to notice how much the water tasted. Of old pennies.

.

.

Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Jane Hulstrunk
Inspiration piece

Divinity
By Urmilla Khanna
Response

Divinity is a patchwork of squares and hexagons. It is yellow and blue and indigo and purple. It is paisley woven into stripes and stars.

It is a cool copper coin that I hold in the palm of my hand. When I toss the coin and it lands on heads, I smile. It is going to be a good day, I say. When it rolls on its edge a while, then gently rests as tails, I shudder to think what lies ahead.

Divinity however, is all the same, the cool copper coin in the palm of my hand. It knows no difference between the imprint of the heads nor that of the tails.

I traverse this circle of life as the cool copper coin, experiencing my samskaras, the deep impressions printed on my brain from experiences of long, long ago. I perceive them as heads or I perceive them as tails. They are nothing but impartial prints on my brain. Some I can see, others I merely feel, like the warmth of the womb or the cool breeze that sweeps over the burning coals of a cremation pyre.

I live through them all just the same.

I reflect on the significance of the sixteen hallmarks of my life selected by the priest. He calls them the sixteen sacred samskaras. These events break up my life’s journey into segments so I could stop, reflect and improve upon the old. Each is a celebration of my life. What are these sacred samskaras, I ask the priest.

The first, he explains is Garbhdana: The day I was conceived in my mother’s womb.

Then he chants a host of others that I must weave through in the journey of my life. I review here, just a few.

Jatakarna: The day I was born. Mother fed me ghee and honey before initiating breast-feeding.

Namakarana: The day I was given a name by which I will be identified in this life’s journey.

Annaprashana: I was introduced to solid food.

Vidyarambha: My first introduction to alphabets.

Upanayana: Sacred Thread Ceremony, only if I am a male child, he explains.

Vedarambha: Introduction to Higher education.

Vivah: My Marriage.

Antym Samskar: My last rites on this earth. Divinity within me departs, he concludes, to start another journey, another unknown circle of life.

I remain the cool copper coin in the palm of your hand.

.

.

Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Christina Brockett
Inspiration piece

Time’s Cruel Sands
By Carl Rauscher
Response

“Looks like scratches to me”

I grabbed the magnifying glass from Tank’s hand and dragged him closer to the light in the hallway. “Come over here where the light is better.”

He took the black handled lens back and peered closely at the pocket watch I’d picked up at a nearby pawn shop. Tank said he still couldn’t see any treasure map, making me scowl and demand he give the watch back.

“I never said there was a map,” I snapped, “but some letters along the rim. Greek, perhaps.”

“Greek?”

“Or Phoenician, but who in the world would write in Phoenician on the case of a watch?” My roommate turned the timepiece this way and that, trying to gain a better view through the glass. “Let me borrow that ancient languages textbook of yours from last semester. With any luck, I can decipher this and be on my way before Mandy stops by.”

Amanda McIntyre was a gorgeous sophomore he’d been tutoring for close to a month and definitely worth some alone-time, if you know what I mean. Dorm rooms were far too tiny for much: two beds, a table, lamp, and fold-up chair I brought from home, as well as a banged up mini fridge where leftover pizza went to die. Hell, we were freshmen living on campus and couldn’t afford much else.

“Yeah, sure. Secret writing on a crappy old watch. Kind of like last week, when you found that rare first edition comic?”

I winced, remembering how crushed I was when the dealer at the mall told me how much my ‘find’ was worth. “So can I use the book or not?” I shot back.

Tank dug around in his closet and extracted a thick textbook, which he dropped into my outstretched hand. I immediately flipped through the pages to identify the writing I’d seen.

“Am I interrupting something,”

Tank and I spun around to see Amanda standing in the doorway, holding her World History books provocatively across her chest.

“Umm…sorry, Tank. I need to get going.” I said, grabbing the book along with some paper and a pen. “If you need me, I’ll be down at the break area studying.”

Tank looked at Amanda, who shrugged as if to say ‘humor the dope’ and he whispered to me as I edged past, “Take your time, Rick.”

I settled into an empty chair where the light was brightest and used the magnifying glass to sketch the tiny letters. They were Greek according to the textbook, from the classical period about a hundred years before Christ, and a chart in the back of the text made translation easy. It read:

……………… / A device out of time lost at sea for ages /

……………… / marks a message well hid in a sea of pages /

……………… / Trust only the holder of time’s cruel sands /

……………… / and unlock with the key from Zimmerman’s hands. /

“What is that supposed to mean?” said Tank, when I showed him my work. In the background, I could see Amanda sitting on his bed looking quite annoyed at the interruption.

“Think about it,” I said. “A ‘sea of pages’. Where can somebody find lots of pages? At the library, of course.” Tank shrugged and pushed me away to close the door. “Why don’t you go and check out the library?”

Hours later, I finally admitted to myself that the library was a dead end. I found some interesting books on ancient Greece, even a mention of some encrusted gears found that seemed too advanced for their age, but nothing resembling a clue. No writing on pages, inserted slips of paper, nothing.  So much for my finding the message in a sea of papers, I thought.

The reading lounge was pretty empty for a Sunday afternoon, so I sprawled out across the couch, put some tunes on my MP3 player, and nodded off. In my dreams, I was stranded with the cast of Gilligan’s Island and the Professor needed my help making a computer out of coconut shells and bamboo. We got a picture, but it was all jumbled up and no matter how hard I clicked with a poor tethered crab for a mouse, I couldn’t get the text on the screen to make sense.

I awoke with a start, realizing that what I had missed. “Wrong sea,” I said as I looked at the banks of public computers and sat down at the first one with a lit screen. Maybe the inscription wasn’t talking about pages in a book. What if it meant web pages?

“What were those gears called?  Anti…something. Here it is. Anthikythera mechanism.”

There were over 84,000 matching pages, so I tried to narrow the search to something manageable. I tried words and phrases from the inscription with either too many or too few results to help. When I added “cruel sands” to the search, one item on the results page leaped out at me. In the summary below the link was a name – H.R. Glass. Hourglass. Holder of time’s cruel sands.

I clicked on the link which led to an old publicly-edited encyclopedia that fell out of favor after Wikipedia exploded onto the internet.  The entry duplicated the same old facts I’d seen on other sites right down to the stock photograph of encrusted gears.

“Crap. Just another dead end, Ricky, old boy. So where would you hide a message on a web page?”

“In the source code,” answered a voice behind me. A pretty blonde stood there tapping something into her sequined cell phone, looking quite annoyed at its tiny screen. “Damn it, Kim. You were supposed to be here an hour ago.”

I grinned and thanked my beautiful savior. “If she doesn’t answer, I’ll give you a ride just as soon as I check on one more thing.”

She smiled, grabbed an empty spot beside mine, and introduced herself. “Gina.”

“Rick.”

It took me a couple of tries to figure out how to view the source code behind the web page, then Gina took pity on me and helped navigate the patchwork of tags and text used to display the article.

“There’s your message,” she said, scrolling the cursor over rows filled with five digit numbers that weren’t visible on the regular page. “So what is it supposed to mean?”

“It is some sort of code,” I said and briefly explained what I had found so far. “I’m betting Zimmerman could tell us how to read it if we only knew who Zimmerman was.”

I ran a quick search for ‘Zimmerman’ and ‘code’, which revealed references to a cryptic WWI telegram sent to entice Mexico into joining Germany’s side, which helped turn the U.S. against Germany. Another article described the process they used to decipher the code, and after pages of scribbled notes and crumpled attempts littered the floor, we succeeded in reconstructing the hidden message.

TO MY DAUGHTER

IT PAINS ME TO KNOW THAT I WILL NOT SEE YOU GROW INTO A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN LIKE YOUR MOTHER, BUT WE OFTEN DO NOT GET TO CHOOSE HOW LIFE UNFOLDS. DEATH WILL ROB ME OF THE CHANCE TO MEET YOU, SO I CAREFULLY SEEDED MESSAGES SUCH AS THIS ACROSS THE NETWORKS IN HOPES THAT YOU WILL FIND THEM IN TIME AND HEAR THE ECHOES OF A FATHER WHO LOVED YOU DEARLY. LET MY FATHER’S WATCH CONTINUE TO GUIDE YOU AS IT ONCE GUIDED ME.

WITH LOVE, DAD

“Do you think she knows?”

I sat back and took my glasses off, resting them near the tarnished gold watch that started everything. “I don’t know. Someone should find out, though. I guess that someone is me.”

Gina’s ride arrived and she hesitated, unsure if she should go. She placed a hand on my shoulder, then stooped to give me a kiss on the cheek. “I’m glad I met you, Rick. Call me if you want some help?”

“I will. And, Gina?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks.”

.

.

Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Christina Brockett
Response

Dockside
By Carl Rauscher
Inspiration piece

“Want to know a secret, Grandpa? There’s no fish in this river. Probably hasn’t been any here since before I was born.”

“Hush up and watch your line.”

“Who’s going to hear us? We’re sitting on this cruddy dock getting sunburnt with not another soul around.”

They sat in silence for a while, watching their brightly colored bobbers dance in the gently flowing river current. The older man liked this spot because the water was a surprisingly deep blue and free from debris choking the rest of the river.

“Can we head back soon? I’m supposed to meet up with Terry and the others online at 3…” the boy said as he started pulling his line in.

“Patience, young man. A little more time out here with me won’t kill you.” The old man dug around in the cooler at his side. “Sandwich?”

“Sure.” The boy unwrapped it and took a bite, dangling his pole off one leg.

“Your Grandma used to make me sandwiches just like these for my lunch. Those days, of course, the fish were so plentiful you could just about walk from your boat to the treeline over there to take care of business. That was before the plant moved in and messed up the river, but me and the guys always found time to sneak out and toss the ol’ pole in the water.”

The old man looked out at his bobber and tightened his line a bit with the oversized reel. “Tommy was the last to go,” he reflected. “I’d hope your dad would join me one day, but…”

“Hey, did you see that?” The boy pointed toward the water where one of the bobbers dipped below the surface and popped back up. “Oh, jeez! What do I do, Grandpa?”

The old man smiled and set down his pole to help the excited youth reel in the line, much like his grandfather had once showed him. A tiny bluegill splashed and wriggled in the air, spinning around the grinning boy’s face and at that moment, it was the greatest fish either one had ever seen.

.

.

Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Cara Mayo
Response

A Telling Time
By DiAna Hart Smith
Inspiration piece

“He won’t make it,” the doctors’ chorus cautions me. “Are you saying there is no hope; no promise of recovery?” I ask. The doctors don’t take precious time away from hooking my husband, Ewell, up to tubes, wires and monitors to discuss their stark prognosis.

Late on this Saturday night in October 2009 my son and I are fresh off the road from our ten-hour trip across unfamiliar mountains to reach Ewell in the Intensive Care Unit of a small rural hospital deep in Appalachia. My husband – my son’s father – is battered and broken, out of his drugged mind and in severe pain. He had fallen off a barn roof he was replacing and plummeted two stories to the ground on his family’s old home place.

I know somewhere in this wet sandbag of a body he resides. Somehow I will reach him…whisper in his ear. He’ll hear me. He’ll heal. I’m not ready to let go of him yet. I won’t let our two granddaughters be without this grandfather.

In each room of our snug home back in Northern Virginia, there is at least one clock blended into the décor that stoically tracks time, several even track the phases of the moon. Syncopated ticking of minutes, striking of hours and chiming of quarter hours provide a gentle foil for our lives. In Ewell’s workshop, clocks that have run out-of-time are being restored. Long shiny brass clock chimes and heavy metal clock weights hang from the rafters. Clock movements, mounted on testing stands, catch-up with time. Fine clock parts are sorted in sectioned boxes giving the illusion that time is under control. Now, for me in the Intensive Care Unit with Ewell, time is standing still.

Ewell is too fragile to wear his wedding band; I add it to the chain that holds the small gold filigree heart around my neck. And, I think of all the ways my life has already drastically changed as a result of Ewell’s one misstep.

My son and I are foreigners in this closed community of my husband’s birth. Neither of us resembles this population in speech, dress, or manner. We don’t know where anything is. We don’t know anyone. Ewell’s family deserted these remote hills over forty years ago. We don’t know how long Ewell will be in the hospital or how long we will have to stay here. A nurse makes calls identifying us as a family in distress and finds a farmhouse for us to rent while we watch and wait. The farmhouse is old; the kitchen linoleum is worn almost colorless. The shag brown carpet that covers the back room is powdered with the same dust that covers the linoleum. We stow our luggage in a corner near the two single beds that aren’t much more than pallets.

Cold murmurs as it slips in through every crevice of this creaky farmhouse. In the dark, minutes of this uncertain time tediously tick by on the luminescent face of the functional clock that sits by the window. Outside—even inside – it is darker than I’ve ever experienced. There’s not one street light or light of any kind to shine through the windows and dispel the darkness that signals that time may be running out.

How well I know that death is a part of life, but it’s impossible to wind down my mind. Death begins to flirt with me. It wants to sit beside me, get to know me, and hold me close. I’m not having any of it. I refuse to consider that my husband will die.

In early morning my son and I follow what becomes a drill of setting out for the hospital. The dark and the cold draw us up into an intense alertness that barely allows either of us to blink. Neither of us wants to be first in Ewell’s room. We each hesitate. We don’t discuss our fear…just try to wait each other out. My son and I are taking one step. . .one breath…at a time.

Out of the Intensive Care Unit window bright sunlight is shoving the dark aside and Appalachia glistens — on fire with reds and golds for miles of hills and valleys in every direction, softening and beautifying this rugged, jagged, impoverished area. This sudden stunning beauty signifies that those outside this window are living their lives in ordinary time.

I wonder how to carve out an escape route through the fall foliage back to the lives that all three of us left on the other side of these mountains. And, I am reminded that for everything there is a season. I am reassured that this time, too, will pass. For right now, I believe that I am fortunate — the world is round and I can’t see what lies ahead: two more ambulance rides with lights blaring and sirens screeching to increasingly better equipped trauma units and endless days filled with emergency surgeries and procedures.

My son and I don’t confer, all goes unsaid, but he and I do what must be done. I trudge by my son’s side – each of us terrified to break the silence for fear we’ll give death a path into our lives. We each keep one clean outfit aside in case we have to make — what is whispered to us — “arrangements.” I have signed sheaves of forms that say — bottom line — do not resuscitate if quality of life will not be improved. I have written out what to do with Ewell’s body. . .even his ashes.

Is anyone prepared when time slows way down and you can hear each minute tick by as if it will be the last? I think of how I’ll be the first widow among our group of friends our age. I think of how I will have to live on half my current retirement income. I think of how I won’t be able to turn to Ewell to ask him directions or even the day’s date. I think over our marriage; thirty-eight evaporated years aren’t enough.

My life then becomes a series of questions: Will death reveal that my priorities and principles are misaligned? Will regrets ever stop rolling over me? If death snakes Ewell away, who will change his collection of clocks to standard time? Will my life resemble his by now out-of-sync clock collection randomly bonging, ticking, and chiming in our home that feels so far away?

Twenty-five days pass. On the twenty-sixth day, Ewell is released from hospital care to home care. Gloriously, the doctors’ prognosis is disproved. Months later Ewell moves slowly from one stopped clock to the next, inserting the key, winding the clock, nudging the pendulum, setting and synchronizing the hands with the strike and the chime. Our syncopated rhythm returns.
.

.

Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Judy Zatsick
Window to Her Soul
Oil, 28 x 36 inches
Inspiration Piece

Window to Her Soul
By Laura Shovan
Response

Shadow of a blue dress moves like oil

on water.  Beyond the window,

I watch the cloud-curve of her spine press into

autumn woods, unaware of me. Her

shoulders rise up and curve, soul

stirring like a river. Her bones are made of words.

Her memories can’t be held by words.

They are slick as oil,

bent out of shape by the wind, rooting her soul

beneath the window-

less ground. Instead, her

mind sees colors. They are memory too.

The ground is on its side, to

blow its colors into the sky. Words

spin in the air. Orange, brown and beech call her,

leaves crisp with cold before they spoil

on the ground, blown against the window.

When she rakes them, it quiets her soul.

She is barefoot and the soles

of her feet press leaves flat, two

eyes underneath her — two windows

that need no words —

tell her leaf, crunch, smooth. Colors like oils

pressed from tubes she carries with her.

Why do I sit and watch her?

She’s nothing special – just another soul

kept upright by muscle, oxygen — the blood’s oil.

Should I invite her inside to

share a few words?

Should I open my window?

The leaves kick up again – it’s the wind. Oh,

I know I won’t call her.

If I spoke, the words

would break something, stop her soul’s

press into nature. Maybe I should go too,

walk in the woods, feel my feet on the soil.

Is this the window to my soul,

watching her blue dress fade into

an autumn palette of words, paper and oil?

See larger image.

Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Judy Zatsick
Celadon Spring
Oil, 8 x 6 inches
Response

The Listening of Plants
By Laura Shovan
Inspiration Piece

On the buffet where she kept her celadon dishes,
Mother placed a vase of pussy willows
hurried out of their branches.

The buds were cat toes walking up a mottled branch,
miniature koalas hanging on their eucalyptus
in a scattered line.

I snapped one off the twig and rolled the bud
on the flats of my thumb and finger,
its smoky gray coat how I imagined koala fur might feel.

I rubbed the willow bud along the bone of my jaw
wanting to know how a plant can wear animal skin.
It was too small, like touching nothing.

I splayed my hand along its curves,
felt the hairs rise in the divot of my palm.
I would have needed a sweater of willow to be satisfied.

Instead I slipped it into my ear. How did I know
a pussy willow was the right shape for the foyer of my ear,
long hall leading to the eardrum and the bones behind?

The bud rested there and I listened,
wanting to hear what it had to say
which was quiet, which was the muted listening of plants.

When I asked Mother to extract a pussy willow
from my ear, I couldn’t explain its presence
how I listened and heard its secret.

Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.