Rusty Lynn
The Great Spirit Is Everywhere
Inspiration piece

After Accretion
By Leslie Grollman
Response                        

Little Rover beeps to himself in Middle C
Or is it a curse-word programmed to give him dissatisfaction
at the bumpy ride he can’t feel,
or is it humanness
like the time he beeped when he set down on the planet: A Minor for awe.

……………………………….***

Difficult terrain, here
Odd-sized boulders no smaller than a ten-year-old’s head
…And just as stubborn
Crevices creep up between some of them
…Like a calving glacier
The scope of scarp, so so far

Little Rover knows only to go there
The where’s are in his coding
He keeps his word
Keeps his samples secure
His photos clear.
He has no programming for the pictographs he sees
We know them by these names:

Bodies           Mountains           Turtles
Horses      Waves (or are they birds?)
……Trees (Or cornstalks begging
………………a sun)

No name for the circle in the center,
………..with four protrusions,
………one facing north, one to the south
………one east, one west

Little Rover rolls forward, backward, round and back
again, beeping all over the musical scales
Then he stops
Then he sings, a bold voice clear as a camera lens

On earth, we gape

Some think it clever of the programmer (who insisted
she didn’t) to encode him with the song he sang.

We watched him,
………………… like a birth.

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Ipek Davaz
Inspiration piece

De, UnBecoming
By Leslie Grollman
Response

De. She liked to be called ‘De’ (pronounced ‘dee’). She spoke in a language of ‘de’s.

Every word started with ‘de’. ”De-Hi, de-how de-are de-you” she would say, earnestly. That smile, you knew she meant real. She acted out as many of the words that began with ‘de’ as she could. It’s what she lived for. She jumped (well, not really; she slipped) out the window so she could say “De defenestrated”. She ran down the up escalator so she could say “De de-escalated”. She thumped her chest, faked spasms, in glee “de-look de-at de-me!” she said. Her excitement almost overwhelmed you. “De defibrillates!”.

And you just had to go along with her. Not because she was a danger; no, because she was kind.

Her room looked like right out of a Wes Anderson film, the color scheme and everything. Perfectly matching. And her clothes matched, too. When you entered through the door, it was like you had a perfectly placed middle seat in the theatre.

The school counselor told her parents her ways were not normal. Her parents said that she was happy, and learning, had friends and a dog. The counselor showed her the book called ‘Normal Behavior’; turned to page 356, second paragraph. It was about language.

The parents agreed to allow the school counselor to help De become like page 356, second paragraph.

With each session, De lost a ‘de’. Not all at once; one at a time. It started with the first word in a sentence. One day she said “Hi, de-how de-are de-you, de-Benny. Did de-you de-see de-that de-show de-last de-night?”.

It went on like this, every day a lost ‘de’. But that wasn’t the only thing that changed. The first day, you almost didn’t notice her head make a little tic at the first lost ‘de’. The second day, you couldn’t miss it, the tic was like whooshing a fly away. The next day, along with the next lost ‘de’,( second word of the sentence), she wore shoes that didn’t match the Wes Anderson color scheme. Each day, another ‘de’ lost, and another part of her life, gone. Her clothes, piece by piece stopped working together, her left eye looked like it came from someone else, she couldn’t walk without tripping. Now, everything in her room was strewn about, like in an alley, like for an audition for Cats. Her mood was grim now, all the time, her skin looked like it was crying.

I swear I could hear it, but I was her bestie, so, there was that.

We walked home from school that day. She was unable to speak any ‘de’ words at all, even without the extra ‘de’ that didn’t belong. She told me she was lighted to see me; ‘delight’ was beyond her reach. She couldn’t say her name anymore. She just stood there, when asked, opened her mouth a bit, then sighed. The first time that happened, her head came right off her neck! Like there was an invisible string holding her two parts together now!

“What shall we do?” her parents asked me, alarmed, knowing I was her bestie; I might have insights.

“How about we put her room back the way it was before the school counselor told you about page 365, second paragraph. Maybe that will work!” I hoped.

We set the stage. Wes would be proud.

 De came home that day, lifeless. She went straight to her room, her favorite cookies left alone on the plate on the counter where she always put her schoolbag.

A shocking array of sounds came emanating from her. Some sounded like balloons struck by a pin: “eeeeeeeeeee” and “wheeeeeeeeeee”; then whooshes like odes to her joy.

We ran upstairs wondering.

“Are you ok?” we chimed, a cacophony.

“De-yes! de-I de-am de-so de-happy! de-thank de-you”, she twirled and hugged us all then danced round and round with the dog.

All was back to the way it was. Accept for her left eye, and her head. Her head floated, still. These two oddities never deterred her. In fact, they helped feed her inspiration.  (She later created a rock band called “Floating Heads”. Three platinum albums!)

She was how she was always meant to be.

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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.

Heitzi Epstein
“Golden With Aqua Hair”
Inspiration piece

I Remember
By Leslie Grollman
Response

I remember there was a face in the sky and it grieved
I remember the pillow, wet as the sun rose
I remember dark chocolate like your eyes
I remember riding a pink elephant
I remember being the chain mail and the banner of heaven
I remember riding the pink elephant as it crushed your village
I remember closing the book
I remember digging the hole and burying you
…I remember drowning in its mud
I remember riding through a raincloud
I remember being the blue paint on Leonardo’s brush
I remember being the stake you burned on and the match and the one who lit it
I remember being the prayer wheel
…I remember you spinning it
I remember being the sound of the bowl
I remember the holding
I remember that cry
I remember being the way the earth spun before we came
I remember the first step
I remember the town’s pleas
I remember the way we could all fly until men with robes condemned it
I remember the pen      and the paper
I remember seeds
I remember being the mast and the moans from below
I remember blindness
I remember being the rain in the desert
…I remember being the desert
I remember being unkind
I remember being the song he sang on his fifth birthday
I remember being the wooden plank you walked
I remember being the root that took hold
I remember that taste
I remember being an aleph
I remember the door closing
…I remember being the door
I remember dimming
I remember the wildflowers on the roof of the mountain
I remember being the silence of snowfall
I remember the snowfall singing
I remember the towel dropping
I remember being the scar
…I remember scarring
I remember the wine and the words and the wonder

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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.