Sunlight dapples the creek with flakes of gold

As each small mirror-ripple rises

To catch the yellow brilliance

Spilling like melting butter

Into the narrow, winding open breach

Exposed between high walls of forest-night.

 

Here is other gold as well: fool’s gold

Pale and brittle, shafting

Brief bright arrows toward the sky,

While a softer, warmer golden hue

Flickers in the creek shallows

Lighting the underside

Where water catches images of the sun.

 

Any visitor here might be excused

For carrying away only fool’s gold

To warm and light a far

Familiar corner deep within a forest-night.

 

Another, more worldly wise

Might pilfer the riches

Hidden in the creek

To purchase furs and fires

To escape an ever present dark.

 

I would hope I would do neither

Upon finding such a golden place.

I hope, Amicoj, I would merely stay.

 

#FriendshipPoetry #NaturePoetry #ValuesandChoices

Today, as planned, two friends and I have met once again on a date wedged into our disparate lives.  We have come to share in diffidence or in-public-hushed joy the small triumphs, honors, discoveries and pleasures that have punctuated the time since we last saw one another.  Torn scraps of personal despair, as well, may be laid upon the table seeking receipt into the hoped for loving and forgiving air of this semi-private booth meant for dining.  The art of conversation—that intelligence that watches the world and finds pattern, theory or theme—this, too, fills the space we have carved from our lives to be here today.

While my friends speak of their days and argue the mathematics of their thoughts, I slip out and climb up onto the bench seat where I have been sitting apart.  I slide into the corner of this restaurant booth until I am held flat against the wall as if by centrifugal force.

Below me the faces of my friends reveal alternating emotions: shock, fear, pain, the discomfort of association with this occurrence.  They are for the moment speechless and paralyzed.  Beyond the booth’s high top, I see that a few diners have caught sight of me.  Their companions turn to view the oddity I have thrust into their lives.

My friends, finding their voices, question me and beg me to sit down.  I tell them I am really quite all right.

“I merely need to stand like this for a moment or so, and then I will return to my seat. Everything will then be just as it was before.  I only need this one moment.”  I ask them to be patient and to forgive if not understand.

They, of course, are not content with my answer.  Nor is the management.  Our server has appeared inquiring as to the problem.  Soon we will be asked to leave.  Perhaps a call to the police may be suggested as inducement to pry me down from my perch.

I assure one and all that I am not dangerous, merely exhausted by too much of normal life, of walking in shoes designed for a multitude, but not for me.  Too long have I allowed myself to be forced like the lab rat into patterns not of my own choosing.

“I just need a moment,” I tell them, “which is not like every other.  That’s all.  Just this one moment. Do not worry,” I reassure them. “I’m almost ready to sit down again.  Just a little while longer and all this excitement will be over, and no, I do not intend to ever do this again.  Once is quite enough.”  Once is quite enough,” I say again.

But, of course, none of this has occurred.

I have not left my seat at all. Only a small part of my mind has escaped to a waking dream.  Too much stress, I tell myself, as I explain away the illusion I have conjured.  Other people find themselves caught in such moments only in their dreams while asleep.  I, too, sometimes receive such messages in my sleep, though not often.

Some would say that I should rein in my thoughts; but unrealized and unspoken, they trouble no one and comfort me.  I have found that these small imaginings in themselves provide release.  So, I allow them to spill into my day, teaching me to understand the danger in my life.  Their warning is preventive. For I never ignore the lesson they would teach but take immediate action to modify my life till all danger has passed.

So today my friends will hear me speak a little about my frustrations, of the stress that has filled the days since last we met.  They will offer in response the concern of friendship and the warmth of their support.  We will eat our fill of food, thought and friendship for this one day, and make our plans to meet again.  Never will they know that for one moment I rose to slam myself against the high corner wall of this booth in which we sit.

 

#Friendship #UnspokenWords #StressRelief

Burnt umber lurks

In the alley depths,

 

In the broken places

Of tenement streets,

 

In the corners

And cracks of buildings

Long abandoned.

 

A flat death is raw umber,

 

A color for shadows,

And cold moonless nights.

 

Cut from mulched earth

Near black,

 

Burnt umber is a color

To bury joy

Or shape fear.


#ColorandEmotion #BurntUmber