Bookmarks
By Kathleen Finn Jordan
Inspiration piece

Bookmark the moment
Bookmark the page
Bookmark the budget
Bookmark the rage
Bookmark the war, the hunger, the pain
Bookmark the earthquake, tsunami, flood rain
Bookmark the efforts against greed and bad will
Bookmark the homeless, the graft, and the kill
Bookmark the progress, the regress, the fight
Bookmark the prayer card, the message, what’s right
Life’s full of bookmarks, as community builds
The new house on the corner, the playground, the thrills
The tutor that gives time, the coach that’s a cop
The reverend that counsels, the old man in the shop
Community of givers creates a network of friends
Significant moments, our memory’s bookends.

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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.

Jane Hulstrunk

Untitled

Response Piece

Irene Plax

Lagoon

Inspiration Piece

Water rippled outward and the mermaid’s face came to the surface first. Next her arms, long and graceful and pale green. She pushed herself onto a rock, reclined, admired the sun twinkling on her scales.

Her land-hearing was poor. She felt the vibrations when it was already too late, and turned just as the human man appeared. He snatched a handful of her hair and yanked it. Mostly it was too slick for him, but the mermaid felt a few follicles twist out. She whapped at him with her caudal fin. He staggered back, but before she could dip into the water he lunged forward and scraped at her breast with his dry, calloused hand.

She rolled toward him and hugged his legs.

Together they fell in the water. She was much stronger there, and his thrashing was no worse than the fish she ate for breakfast. When the bubbles from his face stopped, she let go of him and swam away. She didn’t bother to watch him sink.

Jane Hulstrunk

Untitled

Inspiration Piece

Irene Plax

Sunbathing

Response Piece

If she was lucky, she could get in a whole hour. The mermaid humped her body onto a low, flat rock and lay down. The water in her navel dried slowly. She stared at the exposed earth and watched the sun rays bake stone.

There was no sea-moss covering the cliffs. She murmured peacefully by the still water, then broke into a hum. Her mouth opened and her voice escaped, lifting, traveling into space. How sweet, she thought, to sing freely, without the resistance of water.

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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.

Stephanie Fogel

Inspiration Piece

I sit under the mighty tree

back against its hard trunk

feet on the earth.

My thinking tree.

I’ve come here many times throughout the years to ponder

to dream

to wrestle with impossibilities.

To rest against its strength

and watch it move with the wind.

To find nourishment from the life born up from within.

To watch the bluebirds as they soar and land lightly on the branches above

and the squirrels scurrying up and down.

With rain comes nourishment for the tree’s soul

as it seeps through the ground and up through the trunk and branches.

In snow, a new creation is formed as flakes drop gently onto twigs and

a hush falls over the land.

In Fall, the leaves burn as fire

falling away to nurture the ground.

In Spring, the fragrance overwhelms with succulence

and the birds begin their singing once more.

With sunset’s orange hues it takes on a life of its own.

Leaves dance, sharing the joy of creating and sustaining life.

Pulsing with nature’s song,

“I’m alive

I’m alive

I’m alive, hallelujah.”

Alisa Laska

Response

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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.

Jules Rolfe
On Wings, Petals, & Toes
Response

Pregnant with Joy
by KJ Hannah Greenberg
Inspiration Piece

Banners of happiness slip, iridescent nacre,
Between aureate columns, muguet de bois,
Pikaki. Our personal adytons prove more
As hearts’ private greenhouses do prevail.

Consider wooly-muzzled, wild ponies,
Brinking on iridule thresholds, sniffing
Freedom, chuffing ‘til somnambulating
Wastrels, vertigo in countenance, guffaw.

Rarely, given heliotrope, are feral letters
Assembled, strung together from outland
Sentiments, seasons beyond sun, snow, rain.
Fragrant purples bloom no haptic solutions.

Inimitable nature flowers sporadically,
‘Causing enriched adults to involve
In citreous parallels, to commit beauty,
To struggle free collecting hierophants.

Most snows fall in soft, white platelets.
After hills darken, precious few auras,
Or triptyches of the same, can continue;
Stygian industries, pulp, feathers, invade.

Regrettably, “affection” means “date,”
“Rape,” “glaciation’s Marcngo Phase,”
Some periods of peroration’s elevation,
Which aren’t magic, quiet, or restorative.

Myth’s revered places unexpectedly
Calm. Scaling sky-crowned mountains
Stays dangerous. Canines jeopardize.
Central heating will break repeatedly.

Beyond most big cities’ clinics,
Fancies create everlasting presences
Sufficient to frame providence.
Elsewise, foppish valents eke it out.

Readings, book launches, conferences,
Pledge not returning to quislings’ bounty.
Everyday word worlds maybe swell
More than transportation ought demand.

Budding apart, great truth tellers
Float grand depths on vital issues,
Lose weight, hold smart phones,
Grow no exhilaration or gravidity.

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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.

Jules Rolfe
Inspiration Piece

Patterning with Holes
By KJ Hannah Greenberg
Response

Openwork fabric, patterned with holes, like many friendships,
Adds zing, zest, notice, accent, perhaps umph to life’s daily dress.
Whereas gold oakleaf might not be necessary for all courses,
Needle plus thread, together, attach fruits, fancies, fantasies, fun.
Turned from bone, bobbin lace, that stuff of profuse detail,
Fine ground, outlined archetypes, reminds us small matters count.

Anything that keeps us tatting the knots, loops, threads of exchange
Making us join, continue on, harmonize, appreciate, employ conversation,
Potentially, arranges dissimilar filaments, while enticing, ensnaring,
Noosing us toward showy, nearly attractive ways, means, routes of union.
Consider that diaphanous, “wedding ring fine” heirloom knitting,
Fashioned from joy, embellished memories, ornate strings, fuses persons.

Sure, contemporary, chemical similitudes, when fully mechanized,
Suggest essential heritage, but linger, thereafter, bereft of solid harmony,
Original sparks, or companionship build from silk, bliss, gold, silver.
Simple fees purchase no lasting love. Synthetic decorations wind nothing.
As per whitework, recall deletions hurt, no mater the embroidery.
Routing designs through hoops, hamster wheels, yields flaws, fault, folly.

In balance, not all ribbon becomes Chantilly; some folks fall together
Without ever touching, without sharing words. They struggle hours, years,
Long since having given up mature values. Larking, instead, vague
Curios as so much jumbled pettiness, reason to fight, to enlarge distances.
Successfully fostering hearts demands accounting of fibers, twists,
Finishes. Sloppy handling best results in lovers knots; worst, loose ends.

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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.

Tora Estep, pastel on paper
Response

Paralysina
By Crossley A. Simmons
Inspiration piece

There is no allegro
in a child’s dream pirouetted accident.
Tutu discipline drowns pink
and now I am abled less than.
To be bunned and pointed
tights of freedom
we fell in company with attitude
and batterie, quick to cross avant self-conscious
behind melodies.

Pas over jargon stages
we were just leotards and glittered eyes
holding nervosas off ‘til the toes callus
bleeding starvation and the broke repetition

of crutches.

Forever seen as | | but I remain pink.
Hot pink
re-learned speech and walk to a ten-year
waited jump.
I want the pain of the dance in my spasms
migraines
hands capped by their refusal to unfold.
Bravura, hide my never.

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

Diane Mayr
Tears
Response
[Digital collage. “Woman in White” by Aristide Maillol, circa 1890-1891, courtesy The Athenaeum. Quote by Washington Irving.]

Sarah Priestman
In Remembrance: Shall We Dance?
Inspiration piece

This is the day most children fear. Here I stand, 58 years old, but on this day I am my mother’s child. This is a day most children fear because we don’t want to lose mom. Mommy. Mama. Mother. We begin needing her, then wanting her, then loving her, and then we grow up, develop our ambivalences toward her – we all do this, it’s just a part of leaving the nest — and can spend the rest of our lives balancing these: need, want, love, ambivalence, love, need, want. When we are lucky, we eventually find this balance, and all that remains is the love. I am lucky. My mom made it easy to find the love. And that’s why we’re here today: to honor and celebrate Evelyn Priestman, whose love touched us all.

My mom had it tough as a kid. She was born with crossed eyes, and endured a number of surgeries to align them, followed by many attempts to correct her vision. Maybe these months of bandaged eyes and faulty glasses were where she developed a sense of difference, of not caring what the world thought, of wanting more than the status quo. Because, by the time she met her husband shortly after the end of WW2, she had already labored in an airplane factory and translated French documents for the lend-lease program as one of the first employees in the Pentagon. She was ready for a family. Always wanted six kids, and had three. And here, I believe she would say, is where the fun really began.

My mom loved raising her kids. She and my father did not have to put the family first, it was just always the first thing. My sister, Mary, has a beautiful singing voice, and as a student was constantly performing in choirs and community theater. My mother loved to hear Mary sing, and it usually made her cry. One Saturday not long after Mary started college at the New York College of Music, my mom and I went to see The Sound of Music. I was ten. When I gaped at her crying during Climb Every Mountain, she whispered “She sounds just like Mary.” And the tears flowed.

Another thing that flowed at my mom’s house was musicals. My mother loved them all and danced to them all: Her favorites were Shall We Dance, from The King and I, when she’d position any child who was nearby to do the large sashing steps of Yul Brenner around the living room. Marry the Man Today, from Guys and Dolls, whose lyric, “You musn’t squeeze the melon till you get the melon home,” she always drawled out, the inner Adelaide coming forth. And, of course, the dialogue in Fiddler’s Do You Love Me, where she’d sing both parts, stepping from one side of the coffee table to the other.

It wasn’t just musicals. She adored all things swing: Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, The Mills Brothers. She and my dad danced to their swing era albums at the drop of a hat. Our living room was a dance floor, a stage, and a back stage for the skits that kids put on in the dining room.

Kids were always over. First, they came over to put on plays, whack the whiffle ball on our homemade diamond in the back yard or play endless games of badminton. And of course, in the winter, pile into our VW van and go sledding, my mom careening down the huge hills as fast as any of the kids. Then, as high school began, my mom told our friends they could sleep over anytime, hang out anytime, get a ride home anytime.

She was such a fan of my brother’s high school motley soccer team that she asked me, just this May, about Coach Petrilli, a name I’d forgotten long ago. I recently attended my 40th high school reunion. The memories of knowing you could always go to Mrs. Priestman’s house was one of the things people remembered, four decades later.

She’d wanted to be a reading teacher, but it wasn’t to be. Mom, don’t worry about it. You touched the lives of kids in a way that some teachers never will.

Once their three kids were out of the house, my mom and dad had an opportunity to move here, to Center Moriches. It was 1974, and my dad’s company was opening an office nearby, so they came. My dad retired soon after they moved here. My mom and dad spent the next 30 years enjoying a marriage that was already full of companionship, laughs, and wisdom – and now they had the time to truly enjoy one another. They enjoyed the beach, long walks, reading, some short trips. It was a great time.

And, she started another chapter in her life: volunteering. The new Center Moriches Library? It’s funded, in part, through the profits from bus trips to NYC that my mom organized ten times a year for 10-15 years. She also tromped through snow and bore the heat of August, delivering food through Meals on Wheels.

My parents had always wanted a grandchild, but fate had other ideas. They enjoyed the neighborhood kids and made peace with it. And then, in 1998, I told them I was heading to China to bring home a baby girl. And her name, like my mom’s, would be Evelyn.

They met Evie at Islip McArthur a few nights before Christmas in 1999. This little baby, just 16 pounds, filled their house with love. We were able to visit my folks every couple of months, so over the next five years my mom and Evie read together, drew together, danced together, walked together. They played in the ocean waves. They went crabbing and fishing. They cooked. I called them “My Evelyns,” and they rolled their eyes at me and laughed.

After my dad died, my mom where was able to visit us and go to Evie’s concerts and games. These are good memories.

Yes, there were tough times. We lost my brother, a pain no mother should ever have to endure. Money was always tight. Too tight. She was accepting when life took a wrong turn, but did not hold back her anger when she sensed life’s needless cruelty. I respect that.

My mom was honest, funny and smart. She was a good writer, a terrible cook, a talented gardener, and proud to be a lousy housekeeper. She was strong. She was loving. She was one of a kind, and she will be missed. None of us want to lose our moms, but here we are. We lose, and we remember.

Mom, I will miss you, yes. But when I hear Yul Brenner ask the world’s most important question, “Shall we dance?” I will answer as you would have – yes, yes – and will remember the joy and love and laughs you brought to everyone.

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.

Lisa Nielsen
“Unravel”
Inspiration piece

Unravel
By Uma Gowrishankar
Response

Spine
………bends
back to
touch the ground.
Sky is the face of sea.

Block of waves
between ribs of concrete
prints on my skirt

……………..as empty space.

Words crowd in the throat,
I burn them,
…………offer as sacrifice
…………the bird’s song:

the bell rings noiselessly.
When the light shifts
I see you stretched
……………..like fishing net

interlaced in
silence and absence.

Uma Gowrishankar –Slant of the Sun

Inspiration Piece

Christina Brockett- The Collector

Response Piece

The pink lady stood, her perfectly manicured cotton candy colored clapboards stretched between arms of white trim and gingerbread. The sun reflected off of the metal, standing seam roof while the salt filled wind blew the rocking chair on the lower of the porches which extended across the front.

She was empty now.

News of Bessie’s passing traveled quickly within the Key West community. Years ago she stopped cooking, preferring to eat instead at the different cafés in town. She said that eating in the cafés was like eating with family. It wasn’t just that she knew all of the owners and waiters; it was as if this was her town, and we were all guests at some grand dinner party of hers.

If you were a tourist lucky enough to eat near Bessie one morning, afternoon or evening, you would leave Key West just a little richer. See, Bessie was a true Salt Water Conch—the name given to inhabitants whose families came from Europe, to the Bahamas and then settled in Key West. And although she was ninety-five, her sharp mind could recount the history and events of the Keys in incredible detail. These stories she shared vividly with anyone close enough to listen.

Standing here, in front of the Bessie’s house brought me back to the morning when I first met her twenty years ago.

The first day, after I settled into my house on Caroline Street, I sat on my porch holding a hot mug of coffee. Across the street, I watched this sprite of a woman with white hair, flit around the impeccable garden in front of her pink house. Not even five feet tall, the thin boned woman looked incredibly frail to me, but I soon realized that Bessie was anything but.

I watched as this elderly lady carefully pruned and weeded her garden beds. I’m sure it was just my imagination, or maybe just the way the light changed with the slant of the sun that morning, but it seemed that her presence among her flowers caused the pinks, purples and yellows to explode with color.

Entranced with her flowers, I was startled when I heard this voice yelling at me from across the street.

“This isn’t some show. If you’re going to watch, you might as well come over and introduce yourself, so I know who it is I’m entertaining.”

There Bessie stood with one hand on her hip, the other shielding her eyes from the mid-morning sun. A broad smile extended across her face. A smile which turned into a belly laugh as she soon realized that she had startled me, and I was now covered in coffee and cream.

Although she was smiling, something in her tone indicated that this wasn’t a request, but rather an order. This command I obeyed as soon as I could wipe up the pool of coffee that was spreading across the white boards of my porch and dripping from my arms and down my legs.

“I’m Bessie Johnson. And son, who might you be?” She said, her steel grey eyes staring up at me.

“I’m Gregory, ma’am.”

The words tumbled from my mouth and all of my Manhattan sophistication disappeared. Suddenly I was that eleven-year-old boy in standing in front of his new headmistress in his boarding school in Upstate New York.

“Well Gregory, it’s nice to meet you. Since we’re neighbors, we might as well get to know each other. Follow me and we’ll have some iced tea.”

Again, it wasn’t a request but a command. I felt like a giant following this little woman as we wound our way through the stone path leading to her back yard.

The back yard opened up and was even more spectacular than the front. Here, the traditional house gave way to a tiled patio and a garden full of flower beds and clay pots filled with more tropical flowers. While waiting for Bessie to return, I studied the pots flanking the seating area that were filled with red and yellow blossoms.

The abundance of color found in the gardens and homes of this town was in such a sharp contrast to the coldness of the concrete and stone that permeated much of New York. Looking back, I really think that it was this warmth that drew me to relocate to Key West.

Balancing a tray between curled, arthritic fingers, Bessie had returned with our iced tea. She placed the tray down on a small table between two high-backed rattan chairs and motioned for me to take a seat.

Breaking the silence I asked, “Ms. Johnson, your gardens are beautiful, what are those flowers?”

“Well first off, it’s Bessie, just Bessie.” Leaning towards the two potted plants closest to her, she pointed first to the red one. “This one is a hibiscus, and the yellow one over here is a form a primrose.”

She paused. With her head cocked slightly to the side, I felt her eyes studying me.

“You don’t know much about gardens do you son?”

It was a statement really, not a question. Before I could answer her, she added, “Well, that’s okay. I can teach you all about the flowers and plants around here.”

And she did.

I learned not only about the flora and fauna of southern Florida, but about everything associated with the Keys, and most specifically Key West.

Over the course of the last twenty years, as I would accompany her around town, or we would have afternoon or morning tea in her garden, she recounted story upon story. She told me why most of the houses in Key West have metal roofs. She told me about Sam Filer, her grandfather, who was a lumber merchant and shipbuilder who built the historic house on Eaton Street. She showed me the conch that was left on her parent’s front porch when she was born–a tradition among the natives of Key West. She told me all about the 1935 hurricane that came through when she was just a little girl and cut Key West off from the mainland. She told me of her memories of Earnest Hemingway. She told me about living here during World War II and about losing friends to polio. She taught me about the history of cigar making and of all things Key West.

Bessie was a collector. Not of things, but of memories and history. She felt that the world was richer when people understood more than just what appears on the surface. Having come from a world where daily life moved faster than most of the country, and where people kept to themselves, this idea initially was strange to me. People I knew didn’t spend a lot of time reflecting, and they certainly didn’t make an effort to share their memories.

But Bessie did.

Bessie knew that she was one of the few true natives and one of the oldest residents of Key West.  Somewhere along the way, she turned it into her mission to make sure that these memories and stories lived on beyond her. And as any visitor or local could tell you, Bessie’s stories did—including the story of the little woman with the shock of white hair, one of the last remaining Salt Water Conchs.

And so on this day, the restaurants will all leave an empty table and chair out for Bessie and I will bid her a final goodbye.