Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Rose

Her name was rose and she was ever as sweat. In the mid summer sun she would sweat deep and hard. Her pale skin would tan eventually but between the time her names sake bore it’s first leaves and it’s last blossoms, she would burn deep and red. It wasn’t until late in the year that and the sun had seen it’s final equinox of the year that she could stand under its great intensity all the day long and not feel its warmth still radiating from her flesh come night fall.

Of course her redden flesh and it’s propensity to burn, flake, and form layers of solar resistance spoke nothing of her skills with a wrench or a spatula. If a tool could fit within the palm of her hand, she could wield it with a skillful mastery. All the village stone masons would come to her for apprenticeship in wall construction. The same was said of the bakers. Those who wished to form baguette with both a chewy crust with an acceptable amount of air holes would seek her assistance. And she would teach all who came to her, for her heart was large and her desires were to spread her knowledge all around.

Though she could mix cement, wield a wrench like no other, bake bread with the best of them and had one numerous county fair awards for her pies, cakes and even doughnuts… she had no sense of rhythm.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

The Witch of (insert something fun)

Once upon a time, a witch lived in our town. She wasn’t a bad witch but she wasn’t a good witch either. She wasn’t young as my parents were. But she wasn’t old like the folk who had to sit in the front of mass to hear the preacher man and definitely not as old as those who couldn’t even walk down to the front before getting to winded and taking a seat towards the back. She didn’t live in town per say and nether did she live in the woods amounts the huntsmen shacks. Yes, she lived between everything.

She was of the age to have seen her fair share of births and was essentially the town midwife. Of course there were a few families who would go to the city for the finial duration of pregnancy. Either they had extended family there or thought that having a witch at the birth would be bad for one reason or another. She didn’t seem to mind the glaring eyes that some of the towns folk would give her. But when called upon for her midwifing skills, she would dutifully respond.

She had a great many pouches which hung from a sturdy cord she tied around her waist. She kept everything thing in those bags. Herbs, roots, smalls stones, animal bones, and even coins of pure sliver and gold. These last ones were said to be rumor but I can attest that they were real. Who knows how she kept track of what was in each pouch? I’d never once, in all the time I knew her, did I see her shuffle through the tangle of bags and search for something she was looking for. If she needed and herb or a charm, she would simply pluck the bag from its neighbors, some times without even looking, and have exactly what she was looking for. This was either a skill mastered or a blessing from the god’s. And it came in handy while women were in labor. One-dose bottles of powerful Black Cohosh tincture could be quickly retrieved and given to women in the throws of labor pain. Or if the she began to bleed too much, similar bottles of Sheppard’s Purse or Cranesbill would be applied and given within a moments notice. Often she would untie a bag from her belt filled with Motherwort to ease post-labor pain and give it to the new mother.

Now when I say that she was witch I mean to say she was called this by many of the people in town and she even called herself it once or twice. I asked her about it once when I was real young and this is what she told me.

“Boy, now you listen here,” she said arching up from a garden and stabbed her trowel in the black dirt, “Sum il say I’s a witch. And I’s suppose that’s be the truth. But at the end of der day when your belly is full and dat sun falls beyond yonder hills, I’s just a women like yo mama, yo aunties, and yo grand mama.”

And that’s the last I ever asked her about it. I was eleven at the time and I knew a thing or two about the world I lived in. I were to go to church on Sunday, say my prayers every night and when the preacher man asked me or my brothers or sister if we danced in the kitchen with our pa or sang outside at night with our mama we were to say we didn’t and that we were good boys and girls. Those these last two were lies but they didn’t feel like the bad kind that got people in to real trouble. We liked dancing as pa played his fiddle and we liked singing the old songs ma said her ma and pa sung with her. And we knew others did the same things. Though it didn’t make no sense why the preacher man wouldn’t like people singing or dancing or caring on like that, I knew better that to go telling every last person about our families personal business. I also knew that some didn’t care for the witch very much but didn’t know exact reasons.

Once, when I was twelve this time, she was caught me eating her raspberries and blackberries. She had come up behind me like some silent specter and in a boom voice barked, “Boy what you be doin’ in my sugar canes!”

I damn near jump right out of my skin. She grabbed my tanned arm and whipped me around so fast I dropped the plump berry on to the dust ground. My face was speckled with

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Vignettes 6-22-2011

1. The girl was born with a lion’s tail. At first the midwife and overseeing doctors thought it was a duplicate and misplaced umbilical cord. But closer inspection revealed that it was actually a tail; a lion’s tail. The whole delivery room was in an up roar of conversation. The midwife stared at the babe and wondered if anything else on the child appeared to be feline in nature. The doctor inspected the child. Wiping, poking and prodding the thing till the mother demanded the child back. She took to the breast without any fuss and the room soon quite. Everyone watched the two of the, as natural and as perfect as any birth. There composers reflected this but some faces and many eyes hinted at unrest. The girl’s tail lay limp against her mother’s belly. It would twitch and curly ever so slightly every now and again. When this happened, any talk would stop and all eyes would return the child.

2. My mother was the most beautiful women I ever would meet. She was also a coal miner. She would make and pack lunch for my sister and I, grab her white hard hat, and disappear through the front door with the quick and utterly sincerer “I Love You.” She would return every night, tired, worn and covered dirt and the fine coal dust. Out father would drive us to school and pick us up. He would make us an after school snack and return to his writing. He was a free lance writer for the local the local paper but would also attempt to publish short stories in various literary magazines. He would cook dinner and we would set the table just as she would come back through the door that led to the garage. It was as if had been caught in a revolving door that took a whole day to make its cycle. She would appear as bright as she had in the morning but covered in dust and grime in the evening. Would come to learn years later that this cheeriness was a façade, a mask, a lie. But her beauty never was.

3. Beneath an oak tree I had seen grow from a sapling she fed me green summer grapes. I would in turn feed her strawberries in late spring, raspberries in summer and cubes of crisp apples in the fall. It was my tree and in time it became our tree. I loved her so deeply. She was the strong silent type. At first she didn’t care if I made fresh bread on the weekend or fabricated pies and tarts from scratch. But these, among many other things, grew on her. Even though she said that store bought pies, breads, pickles, eggs and even the occasional cheese would be just fine, I knew inside she preferred the homemade items. Of all the gifts and things we shared I was the afghan I crochet for our anniversary. It was one of only a handful of times where her staunch demeanor fell and she express great joy on her face. Holding the woven fibers tightly in her one hand, she embraced me with a grip that could crack the oak boughs that grew above us. Later, I would give her a hard time about the few tears the came to the surface in that moment. She would half-heartily deny it of course.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Summer Solstice Haiku

Morning Fire Rise
To Early to be up now
Blessed Be this day

Yellow Iris Leaf
Salt, Sweet Honey, Frankincense
Mashed, Mixed, Cured and Burned

First Celebration
The sunrise was cool and claim
It rained all day long

Got Up Way to Early
Had to take a nap at noon
Lovers Don’t want to sleep

Three O’Clock, So Tired
Need Sleep to Dance Tonight
Drums beating all the time

Hammock’s swing by Breezes
Held by friends form school and oaks
A nap with love ones

Wild Mountain Thyme
Hard Apple Cider, Beer, Wine
Drinks with Gods and Men

Festival Fir Fire
Furious Fairies Fly Far
Finding Frey and Freya
(Fray and Freya are the Norse god and goddess of the earth)

We Danced to the Drums
The beat in our on-fire-hearts
Turning with the Sun

Celebrate Life, dear
Be From Sun Rise to Sun Set
Reverence on this day

Sunday, June 19, 2011

A Watery Rebirth

I am from the explosion of a thousand stars
The iron from their irritable bellies
cast across time and space
Coalescing in a coursing river of veins and arteries
A product of universal orgasms.

I am from a fiery pink linage
This mystery that weaves though
our history.
We’ve created, healed, and empowered
We were thrown amongst the logs
Not good enough for stakes.
A phoenix with rainbow feathers.

I am from a circle of sisters,
Whose father left a wake of broken hearts
From the muddy banks of a lake called Marrion.
Their laughter and cries carried them through life.
A chores of strings vibrates in my throat.

I am from the edge of a city
with dreams of a family.
Whose hand crafted wood and
raised children from the ground up.
His arms embraced us and learned to love.
A love of expanded definitions has evolved.

I am from Suburbia: Land of The Linear Process
I am from Gitchi Gummi, she nurtured my education.
I am from an angry river valley, land of my forbearers.
She tears me down, and builds me back up.
The waters recede, exposing more than was there before.
A phoenix who cries holy love.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

June Heat

Today is so hot that just standing in the sun will make one sweat. Now imagine raking several 100 by 3 foot beds of dry and clotted dirt. Sweat was a down pour for sure. My arms glisten red-brown ---sun screen will need to be reapplied today. The sweat beads on my arm hair like dew on grass.

A river runs down my back; my cotton shirt, bisected by its banks. It flows down the ridge of my back but creates the pattern of up an up-stream flow. The sweat forms a fan like shape, a delta, at my shoulder blade. The lake of head waters of this imaginable river is nonexistent but it's true source, the sweats source, is from all over and trickles downward.

I swim this river… or a least I want to. Raking the remains of a rivers flood I sail the stream on my back up-wards. The delta flows into the ocean of ideas that is my head. In this sweat filled head space, I dream of sweet things, chilled things, and things of ice. I want to dump my water bottle on my head or fill up a big plastic tub and dive in. Chilled white wine or sweet syrupy Popsicles, these are things that my dry mouth wants. I dream of the grapes from my grandmother’s freezer: tart, sweet and cold. A gentle breeze cools my arms, back and neck briefly but I want Antarctica.