The Grace To Blossom, 2nd Hour
2nd Hour
The Grace To Blossom
He gave me another chance,
by grace, to blossom;
to breathe again.
knowing I would fall,
he held the seeds of my new birth,
and set them in a dry place.
I withered and died.
Far from Him, I tried to seek my own life,
wallowing in regrets and strife,
he waited until my eyes
grew blurry and dim unable to survive,
without Him.
Finding no pleasure in this foolish escape,
I was lost and
could not rescue my soul,
I had lost control
getting lost in unfamiliar rhythms – sporadic beats,
discord and unsung melodies,
that altered my path.
I was blinded by a world I did not recognize,
yet not caring if I lived or died…falling…lying in
my vanity.
Unguided choices threw me into a
cistern of drowning consequences,
recompense for rebellion and doubt.
Yet His love guided me and lifted me out,
righted my fall when on His name I called
and praised Him for His mercy.
I found favor as He rescued me from dried places,
in this seed were no traces
of life to stand.
Yet, by His command,
he planted me by refreshing waters,
Restored, He gave me another chance to blossom,
to breathe again.
2020 Hour 6: Perfect Day
2020 Hour 6: Perfect Day
Time-Infinite
My wrist watch, high on something sassy and chilling out
Using its hands to knit a sweater for the sky
And giving the atomic clock the finger.
Weather-Cold
Breathe in, blow out the chilled air
My bare hands ice packs that I hold to my cheeks
To remember that I’m alive.
Activity-Walking
My feet have mapped out the city
Footprints repeated through the maze of blocks
Treading each like friends who meet, hug, and depart.
Status-Solitude
Quiet is both my companion and shadow
Broached occasionally by a cacophony of my thoughts
Which walk with me arm in arm.
Hour 6 — The Alarm (Clock)
Beth A. Fleisher
Hour 6
Prompt 6: My Own. 🙂
The Alarm (Clock)
Clearly, the inventors of alarm clocks
and digital phone alarms
to start the day
had a skewed (or totally screwed up) psyche.
How else would they have devised such torture?
On a daily basis, no less!
You’re in deep REM sleep,
maybe in some lovely dream space,
and suddenly there’s this loud, discordant noise
jolting you awake,
dragging you from the dream!
Heart thumping, you look wildly around,
until gradually the blood gets back to your brain
and you realize what it is.
Reaching for your phone,
you smack the blinking X to make it stop.
Ahhhh. Blessed silence returns.
You snuggle back down in your blankets, hopeful…
…but, really, do you have any prayer of returning
to that magical, mystical dream space?
Nope. It’s Gone Forever.
Thanks a lot, stupid alarm!!
Fishing with Jimmy
Brothers on the Bow River
on a cool spring day just outside of
Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Wading up to our knees,
we feel the gentle drift of the current
and hear the swish of our flyrods.
We savor the sweet taste of cigars
and watch our smoke rings evaporate in the air.
I admire the long float of my Green Drake
as it travels hither and yon down the blue water.
Standing there wishing this would never end,
I realize it doesn’t matter if I catch a trout at all.
4. 2020
- 2020
We had such hopes. We still do. The predictions were too perfect to be true. Valentine’s on a Friday, to plan the perfect overnight date. Cinco de Mayo on Tuesday. Did we set the bar too low? Only looking to celebrate holidays that we reduced to chocolate and tacos trying to fill our bellies and not our souls.
A new decade. Despite the political turmoil we felt hopeful. New year new dreams to wash off the dust of 2019, we sought the feel of a jubilee year, perhaps hoping to finally lift off the mask of the past to see things as they are not only as we hoped.
2020 proves to be the unveiling we needed, not at all what we wanted.
Expand
Note of vetiver
Splash of amber
Hint of tobacco
Breathing in
The scent of you
My very own Proustian Moment
It lingers on my clothes
Shoved to the bottom of my laundry basket
Unable to be suppressed
Sparks play with my synapses
Linedancing to my limbic system
Engaging my emotions
Mesmerizing my memory
Electrifying the skeletal structures
Of ideas left derelict
A warm diffusion
Radiating in the hollow caverns of my chest
6 – Teenager (2) 2020
He wakes in early afternoon, washes his face, pokes around in the fridge – doesn’t eat, lumbers to the ps and sofa, yawns, starts it all up. (Summer schedule.). He is big, tall. He hasn’t caught up to himself, probably won’t for a few years.
He is quiet, shuffles through messages, invites, “streaming conditions” .Social obligations covered, he engages me, the maker of food, and bringer of stuff he needs and wants (teenager equations), “Gramma, how long have we been sheltering at home? I think I need to find some people. I need some people.”
His profound self actualization jars me, “I think I need some people, too, but it isn’t safe to be around other people yet. I’m sorry.”
“Well, let’s be more peopley with each other then. Let’s bring back game night.”
He jars me again. When exactly did game night stop…? “Yeah, let’s bring back game night. How about Friday nights?”
Yeah. Friday nights.”
He plays video games, watches anime, streams for a while… finally eats, reads part of his summer reading book assigned back in March when the world closed.
“Cam, are you ready for game night? Want a pizza? What game do you want to play?”
“I thought you said Fridays?”
“It is Friday.”
“Well, you wanna just watch me play this with my friends instead… and eat pizza?”
“Sure, Buddy. Will that be peopley enough for you?”
“Yeah, that works. We can play games next Friday.”
He plays until 2am. I sleep on the sofa next to him. We people together.
Elizabeth Fellows
6/27/2020, 8am
Nonviolence
I promote nonviolence. It is the loudest whisper in the raging storm. If you think my silence equals to violence then you are mistaken. I am silently asking for no more wars, no more fighting or asking for more conflict. I am silently waiting and watching and looking for more solutions to the problems and stop the fighting. I agree and disagree that silence in situations is violence but thinking of ways to educate and collaborate is always the best way to go against violence tyrants. Educate and collaborate and speak up against hate but don’t sled blood is the way to remove the hate. Fix the ideology but don’t forget the man, but hate the ideology that taints the man.
EVERY DAY IS PERFECT – Hour 6
EVERY DAY IS PERFECT
no curtain for the sunrise east facing window
light splashes right in my sleepy eyes
maybe an arm around my waist will buy another hour
warm cheek on a cool pillow
a hot teacup against warm hands
ticka-ticka-tacka-tacka
clicka-clicka-clacka-clacka
giggles welling up even when I’m alone
soft friendly glowing 1s and 0s
Error 404 file “alone” not found
threads connect eyes to content to eyes
strain aching stomachs and cheeks
swirling smoke vines across the afternoon light
slanting in through old blankets, cutting up the living room
light / shadow / light / shadow / light / shadow / light
rainbows splashing through a crystal
like any other weather
within / without
rain is to tears as thunder is to leaving
sun is to smiles as snow is to loneliness
misė en place like a kitchen within a heart
comfort and nostalgia wafting up to a nose,
sliding down an esophagus into a belly
the warmth and the aching of a full life
an idealized experience within each moment