Enter within
the brass bell jingles announcing.
Old heads full of
memories
faces whiskered
turn like an orgy of owls.
“Who?”
they cry in unison.
Around the sentinel they sit
on wooden benches, edges
worn smooth by hands worn rough and
warmed by the ancient wood stove.
Dusty shelves, dusty memories,
faded longing, yearning for bygone times.
One jokes, another laughs,
and hazy eyes dream.
Come, says the writer,
look into my world.
See and hear,
touch and taste.
Watch the leaves flutter on high
on distant branches.
Smell the breeze
and listen as lovers talk
lying on an old quilt
by rolling waters.
Do so eagerly.
Do so lovingly.
Fall into my world and
into theirs.
Watch as they laugh and love
and yes, as one dies,
leaving the other to either suffer
or move on.
Sometimes it’s now
difficult.
Sometimes the branches seem naked,
bare, mistakes easily seen in other works,
and it could be difficult
to enjoy
if I were to allow it.
I had not heard of the ‘young’ man.
An amazing man and an amazing story …
From the Growing Bolder FB page:
The sea oats brushed against her bare shoulder, tanned, lithe, and she stepped out onto the beach, the sand hot against the soles of her feet. She dropped her sandals and slid them on and looked at him.
“You’re going to need your shoes soon.”
He walked faster. “I’ll be okay.”
“I warned you.”
The sun was a singular point of magnified warmth in the sky. Waves of heat rose from the long stretches of sand on either side of them as they hurried to the water.
He stopped and sat on the cooler, holding his feet above the sand.
“I told you you’d need your shoes.”
He stared up at her. Her sunglasses reflected his expression and her floppy hat shaded her face. “What can I say,” he said. “You were right.”
“Aren’t I always?”
“No one is always right.”
“But I’ve got a good record, you’d agree.”
He got up from the cooler, ready to make a run for it. “Yes. I’ll admit that. Let’s go.”
He took about five more steps, stopped again and got on the cooler and fanned his feet, their soles almost as red as the steamed crab they ate last night.
“Geez,” he said. “I should have worn my shoes.”
She smiled down at him from under the hat. “Where have I heard that before?”
He glanced up, a half-smile at the corners of his mouth. “You know how much I love you, don’t you?”
She shook her head. “Yes, but I’m not giving up my sandals.”
“You won’t even consider it? Not for just a few steps until I can get my feet in the water?”
“You like my feet,” she said. “Do you want to see them looking like yours?”
He thought for a moment. “You’re right. When we go to dinner later, I’d like to see you wearing those sexy high heels you bought this morning without your feet looking like they had been microwaved.”
“I thought you’d see it my way.”
He got up and started off again, faster this time, his multicolored swim shorts swishing about his legs, but he soon stopped and jumped back onto the cooler. He considered putting his feet inside but didn’t care to dirty their ice.
“You could wrap your feet in the towels,” she said.
“I don’t want to get them dirty. We’re going to lie on them in a few minutes.”
“Okay. It was just a suggestion, Mr. lobster feet.”
He glanced up at her and smiled.
She felt sorry for him, but she wasn’t about to give up her shoes.
A few moments later, they were off again, running toward the waves, each with a hand on a cooler handle and each hopping on one sandal a piece.
Isn’t love grand, whether standing, sitting, or running together toward the warm, wet sand?
a single silky warm raindrop
clings to her nose.
brown eyes see through me
clear, luxuriant.
lashes blink.
moist lips
oh to taste.
all this and more
twenty-one years
or twenty-one hundred.
she listens
she supports
she understands
trust runs rampant
as does respect.
are there differences?
of course
but what is life
and a relationship
marriage
friendship
without spice.
Chris, you have worded my feelings concerning the art of writing, especially in my own life, exactly as I would have. We are rarely understood by family and friends. I see that as musician, too. I feel it. Some don’t. Sometimes during a certain song, my emotions hang in my throat, and I love that it can do that to me. It’s the same with writing–exactly the same.
Many friends just do not understand; they make those that do even that much more precious.
Having recently finished a novel, a first revision, and homing in on the end of a second revision, I plan to seek an agent soon. I laugh when I write that because my passion and the results of it will truly “hit the fan”. Yes, I may be knocked down, but I’m ready to get back up swinging. If there’s one thing I have learned from delving into my passions, it’s that I have to believe in myself.
Great read, Chris. And thanks.
“It ain’t about how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. It’s about how much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.’
-Rocky Balboa.
It seems as though every single writer at some point in their life attempts to describe their process through the analogy of boxing. I’m a fighter they say. I’ve been knocked to the ground and picked myself back up again just to get where I am! Oftentimes their stories are inspiring and can in some way be loosely tied into the boxing metaphor, but after a while they can all start to gel together and fall into a state of forget-ability. It’s a great analogy; don’t get me wrong. But ultimately it’s a terrible cliché that we creative folk have forever tarnished. Even as I wrote out the epigraph at the top of…
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hate forms on the tongue
colors, signs, screams of unknowing
cups filled to oveflowing
droplets of conversation
truth
what is and isn’t
streaming away
wasted.
communication isn’t screams
isn’t signs
isn’t pointing fingertip daggers of hate
on any side.
language: words, love, caring, understanding …
empathizing in all things
slips into rapids drowning
muddied puddles of filth
ears, hearts, eyes, all clogged
hands that could reach
makes fists
frozen hearts stabbed clear through
with icicle knives of misunderstanding
that might
that could
melt
harden.
where does the compass needle aim
to which direction
to which emotion
to which might it lead?
alas, too many have none
but the clamoring voices of those running
on hatred fueled engines.
who should fear
who should care
and why.
not a soul, wisps of what once was and
what once could have been are racing toward more
and more hate.
whose eyes will open
whose ears will hear
whose hands will reach in kinship
to each of us
together not
separate
joined not
split asunder
listening not
ignoring
and considering what
each of us …
has to say.
the automatic knee jerk of hate
broken clean and cast
healing
fresh bone knitting
new cells forming
it is time to renew
it is time to care
it is time to wish each other … well.
j willis sanders 