Tag: imagination

Thousands of Feet Above

It was not easy in such wind to fold the sail as I had been taught by my grandfather. Who is supposedly watching, despite being reduced to a small pile of charred bone and ashes and buried months ago. He was always way the hell out there, but a promise is a promise so here I am. In space in time I sit thousands of feet above the sea. Just like you wanted Grampa. 

When the eagle finally returned, there were bones in her nest. Bleached white and neatly stacked. Any meat was long gone, but there was something else. It had been many lifetimes since she had recieved an offering. 

I was drifting in and out of sleep when his laughter scared the shit out of me. But sure enough, there he was.

I told you, he said, lifting me onto his shoulders. 


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Today, Merril hosts  “Prosery: Meditation at dVerse” . We are asked to write flash fiction or other prose not exceeding 144 words. And we must use, unaltered, except for additional punctuation, the following line: 

“In space in time I sit thousands of feet above the sea”
From May Sarton, “Meditation in Sunlight”

Blinded by the Light

The hollow bones of our birds were heavy and dense in comparison. Feathered flight seemed awkward and laborious. Their ships were build of substances unknown here, though perhaps comparable to light particles. There was indeed much light. When they left and only faint memories remained, the poets recalled the strangers as haloed and winged. The people’s gaze lifted from earth and sea, toward the heavens.

And now we are lost.

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Archetypes

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The Watcher and Deep Thinker
Sat in a corner smoking a joint,
Playing cards. Each with diamonds
In their pockets, and hearts in their

Hands. They chuckled about
Everything and nothing. Keeping a
Straight face was hard. Their excellent
Minds were completely unmoored.

Just kidding.

The Watcher stood on a bed of
Bones in an abandoned eagle’s
Nest atop the highest tree. His gaze
Followed compass points precisely.

The Deep Thinker was kneeling in an
Ancient well, miles below the surface.
Knees on bedrock, notebook in one
Hand, his father’s penlight in the other.

The Watcher looked up and down and
All around. Missing almost nothing.
The Deep Thinker read fine lines in the
Fieldstone walls that surrounded him.

The Muse? She was swinging on a
Porch swing watching the sun go down
Drinking a cold beer, watching the moon
Come up. Writing it down. Smiling.

Me? I was just feeding the Muse.

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We are not broken

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One night a strange sketch emerged unlike anything I had ever drawn before. Despite the nature of it, something felt familiar about the image, and the words “we are not broken” came to mind. The thought brought me back to an incident from 2014. I went digging for a post I had written around the time about the encounter.

“There’s a slender, yellow-eyed branch at the edge of the path. I pretend not to notice though he is close enough to touch. Someday I may come upon his change and will carry feather twig and hollow bone to the water. Offer what’s left to the eagle. Cross that strange line again. But then I see a second, silver-grey shadow or ghost, wings fanned, hopping awkwardly in the understory. She says, “No. We are not broken. We are something else.”

The encounter was with a pair of Blue Herons in late fall. The one near the path had been there for days, always on the periphery. We had entered a relationship and his presence held meaning. He should not have been there. Not in the woods. Not with winter setting in. He should not have allowed me to be so close. The second heron changed any expectations or assumptions I had for the incident or its meaning.

She seemed to speak directly to my soul. The drawing did the same. Do not judge or assume that the “strange” is in some way damaged or “not right”. It is something else.

I don’t shy away from the strange and tend to welcome it, but I also make assumptions about its nature. Assumptions that create barriers and elevate the importance of my own limited view. Assumptions that can create a form of blindness and rob a moment of its raw magic. I have no idea about the purpose or meaning of the herons or the drawing that came from nowhere. But I am aware of their gifts and grateful.

The drawing inspired a series, below are couple of the images.

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