Category Archives: eternal

September 28, 2020 · 5:31 pm

Mercy

Every moment of her life had been marked by her soul, waiting and restless, trying to elevate itself. Yearning. In the end, she had done what she had HAD to do… she recognized herself only from a great distance. Was she Mary Poppins? Pollyanna? A doe-eyed Disney princess? She remembered driving across Western flatlands, as fast as she could, her head out the window, her face into the sere wind.

She, an Air Force pilot’s daughter, felt bad for the poor stewardesses, who knew what was coming in a way mere passengers could not know… stoically dumping everyone’s shoes in the bathroom. Collecting all sharp things, taking people’s eye-glasses away from them. She remembered walking along the edges of the Atlantic, feeling the cool sand under her toes. Mother Universe keeps her eyes on us all.

Someone reached out to grasp her hand, solid & firm. She grasped back. She looked at the sun through the little window, a flashing brilliant light, and lightly closed her eyes. It would be quick, merciful, and good. And right now? Right now she was still alive. She was still a witness. There was no other way to get through life. Mercy was revealed, and blinded her. Everyone was waiting.

View at Medium.com

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Filed under compassion, courage, death, earth, eternal, eternity, faith, fiction, grief, hope, kindness, loss, louvre, love, marble, mortality, mourning, peace, prose poetry, sculpture, soul, spirit, spiritual, spirituality, transcendence, transitions, truth, universe

Tagged as birth, compassion, courage, death, faith, god, grief, life, loss, universe

May 15, 2020 · 2:50 pm

Liturgy, a short story

The faith grew from inside my bones, starting with incense, candles, and bells. I loved the magic of my church. First down the aisle came the Verger. Then came the majestic candles and banners, singers and acolytes, and the hypnotic clouds of incense from a swinging ball. Then came the Assisting Father, the bearer of the holy Gospels, and lastly the Celebrant Father. The sweet fog of the incense hung in the air like a cloud of God, making everything in my head holy… making me, myself, holy. Holy: as in whole, complete, well-loved.

It all helped me pray. I prayed for lots of things, on my knees, eyes closed, hands together, kneeling in the pew. I just knew someday I would live in a convent castle, and be the bride of Jesus. But at the same time I was always a tiny bit afraid I might speak out loud; what if I said a bad word? Even in elementary school, I understood this fear should be irrational and unlikely.

But it wasn’t! My little brother had once, when he was under the age of two, shouted the word “fuck” while the Congregation knelt with their heads-bowed, palms pressed, in one of the dramatic kneeling sections of the service. And my baby brother’s voice was so bright, so free, so joyous… that even the Celebrant Father couldn’t keep from laughing.

Everybody laughed. Including the Assisting Father, who was round as a ball and wore his red hair shaggy, and had round, hippie glasses. It may have been High Church Episcopalian, but it was still Fort Lauderdale in the 60s. Thank god my little brother didn’t do that when I got Confirmed by the Bishop was my only thought!

“Jesus loved children,” said the Celebrant Father, and the service flowed on without a hitch.

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Filed under bible, childhood, christian, compassion, eternal, faith, family, fiction, forgiveness, god, good, kindness, love

Tagged as faith, humor, short fiction, Short story

June 16, 2019 · 5:33 pm

Rain for Remembrance, a poem

illustration rain for remembrance II

Rain

The woman sits up all night, listening to it rain. The woman has often sat up all night waiting for one thing or another to either leave or arrive: bandaged fingers, whooping cough, her own lookalike grandchildren. When she can, she sleeps next to her dying mother in the king-sized bed; she bangs her own shins on the high rails, climbing in. Her arms and hands are able to lift the wasted body of her dying mother with amazing ease.

She watches & waters the great rack of African violets in the living room; grows wheat grass for her mother’s cat. Other times, she sits in a high-backed wooden chair, needlepointing forests in wool, chain-smoking for hours. Her mother will die very soon; then the daughter will put on her navy dress with a large, elaborate organdy collar and fail to draw a deep breath for several days. The woman’s several brothers and their children will fly in from all over the country, and flower offerings will dwarf the grave itself.

After the burial, the woman will pack all sorts of mementoes into her mother’s old cedar “hope” chest: yearbooks, diaries, photographs, diplomas, invitations, programs, baby booties, baby spoons, baby cups, even a rather grisly alligator purse, complete with the head, legs, tail & feet and sharp black claws. When she has nightmares, more often now, she sits up all night, her fluffy gray tabby queen on her lap like a hot-water bottle. The cat’s purring leads the woman away from the perilous mountain passes & rocky cliffsides inside her head and back to level ground, so she can help her mother die properly. That is what proper love looks like, she thinks.

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Filed under beauty, blood, cancer, compassion, daughter, daughters, death, development, dream, dreams, eternal, eternity, everything, faith, family, fiction, forgiveness, god, grief, heart, hope, human beings, humanity, identity, karma, kindness, life, loss, love, mama, Uncategorized

Tagged as cancer, compassion, death, duty, eternity, hope, joy, loss, love, mothers, mourning, poetry, transcendence

July 23, 2017 · 2:39 pm

The Song of Women of Jaded Time, a poem

la voix humane simone signoret

The Song of Women of Jaded Time
(for François Villon)

Talk to me this instant, or don’t ever bother
talking to me again. You think your sorrow
is like a flower, you beautiful, pitiful Italian;
but you are not a paragon, not crying like this.

Underneath my foot you shall find perfection.
You are like an echo of my own will, you shall
learn to speak of my brutality all the time,
and love it. Under this river or in your hands

I shall drown — how beautiful is too much human pain.
May you sing your own black heart forever!
Listen to what I say, but don’t hear it with your ears.
Listen with your heart, you are like a blooming flower,

you wild, beautiful fool. Your injured foot is far more
beautiful than my own. Don’t repeat me, speak only
of my brutality all the time. Under the water I will drown,
or under your hands. How beautiful is too much fever,

or human pain? May you sing your black song forever!
Or, perhaps you are like the wise, able Heloise,
and my blessed foot will kick you hardest
when you are already down. Like her dim-witted

Abelard — for love, he ceased breathing. Love,
I think you resemble the king that commands
none but the harridan. First, jettison your silly bag
of river water. Long may you sing your black heart!

You are wise, and blessed, as are all ill-fated lovers.
For love, we cease living — we all resemble royalty
in this way. I command the bitch who is my deepest
self: first throw away everything you hold dear.

May you sing with your thick blackness in my life.
The queen of white is coming to lie — she chants
regally in a serene voice. I was born of Bertha
with her grand feet, she of Beatrice, Alice,

harem dancers all, colored in the main for beauty rather than wisdom.
And we come, too, from Joanna, the beautiful Swiss girl.
The English back then were belligerent, though mainly
in Rouen. Or do I see in your sad eyes, your oldest

unforgotten queen? May you sing of your black, tight
heart until the words choke you with regret, with forgiveness.
I was once a queen, of all I surveyed.
I sang with a stilted voice. My mother,

my grandmother, my great-grandmother
were all such foolish harem dancers,
too lovely to look at and let live.
And the beautiful maid who cleaned

my rooms… I was always bitchiest
to her just before the dawn. O, your
sharp eyes went through me like a sword.
May you sing your own praises until nightfall!

O Prince, do not ask to love me except for cruelty,
do not wonder where those other ladies are, this year —
what a sad refrain your unshaven face reminds me of.
I used to know someone, he was a lot like you.

May you sing lullabies to your faithless black heart!
O my lord, do not ask me to come to you out of
kindness — do not ask where I have lived until now.
What an ancient sorrow you have reopened!

May you sing this pain into the book of all eternity.

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Filed under acceptance, anthem, anthropology, beauty, birth, black, blood, civil rights, compassion, courage, death, dream, dreams, earth, enlightenment, eternal, eternity, evolution, faith, forgiveness, friendship, good, grief, health, heart, hope, human beings, humanity, justice, karma, kindness, law, legal system, life, logic, loss, love, manifesto, maturity, mysterious, passion, peace, personal responsibility, poetry, politics, regret, relationships, science, sex, sexism, soul, spirit, spiritual, spirituality, transcendence, transitions, tribute, truth, universe, wish, world, youth

Tagged as francois vilon, french, human voice, jean cocteau, la voix humaine, poetry

May 2, 2017 · 10:07 am

Empire State Building, a poem

Manhattan Office Vacancy Rate Drops In Second Quarter

Empire State Building

Twenty years ago we finally went to see the sights,
riding the train through flashing dim green suburb,
glassy sharp-edged slum, the skin stretched
pale and tight over your fine cheekbones —

you didn’t really know how to be afraid of death,
simply of heights and under-grounds:
you wanted always to be on the surface of the earth.
Your demise was still an abstraction,

discussed in the evening while sucking cool mints —
the natural order of things. I dragged you
all the way to the city under the water from Hoboken,
then marched you up to the roof of what was the tallest

building in the whole world when you were young.
I haven’t been here since it was built, you said,
and though the blood sank to your innards in panic,
you kept walking; I kept pushing and pulling you

forward, propelling your solid weight like a cart
loaded with spring lambs. Your hand, soft
wrinkled palm, roughened fingers speckled white
around the knuckles, gripped mine, but I showed

no mercy; I was forcing you to confront the bitter
end ahead of schedule. I was being cruel
to make you go look at the thin sparkling air
of the heavens and you knew it. But later,

my love, as you lay sweating, heavy and motionless
in your bed as though carved of wood, deprived
for weeks of even the common decency of words,
weren’t you glad you went with me once more to the top?

Conceived on Valentine’s Day, a poem

In the beginning, I almost hated them for bringing me into the world…
alone as egg, one floats weightless, drifting peacefully like a helium balloon,

and as sperm, one swims in ever-widening circles with serene joy.
I never approved the union: his tiny-tailed kamikaze wriggling to oblivion,

smashing headfirst into the mammalian membrane of her egg.
But now I love my frail universe; evidence of their short, fraught marriage.

They cooked me in the kitchen, first upon a midcentury, glitter-red dinette set,
then on gleaming, spotless black & white linoleum. I remember my mother

at that exact moment, the way she arched dizzily beneath him half-clothed…
her strapless formal askew, her silk stockings awry, her feet bare

after kicking off her spike heels. Barefoot & pregnant in the kitchen, she learned
quickly to live with organized madness. A love collision, a soft accident, birthed me.

She opened her soul to my father like a flower opening to the sun & he did the same;
my hands, my feet, my face suddenly called into existence by heat & explosions.

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Filed under beauty, childbirth, daughter, daughters, dream, dreams, eternal, eternity, evolution, faith, family, father, fatherhood, fathers, heart, hope, love, mama, marriage, mortality, mother, mothers, mysterious, nature, parenting, passion, poetry, pregnancy, relationships, sex, soul, spirit, spiritual, spirituality, transcendence, tribute, truth, warmth, wish, woman, women

Tagged as conception, heart, hearts, love, poetry, romance, sex, spirit, valentine's day

January 7, 2017 · 1:33 pm

Pretty Young Women, Playing A Game, a very short story

Group of beautiful young women strolling on a beach

Pretty Young Women, Playing A Game

The stupid party game I suggested that night was called “the worst moment of your life.” A half-dozen of us were playing, sitting cross-legged in a circle on the floor. The prettiest, Kelly, resembled a long-past period of fashion, with her trembling dusty-yellow curls, her sharp little chin — her eyes were bright blue, her frame delicate. We had been up all night; the sun was close to rising, but the birds hadn’t started their relentless cheerful, spell-breaking noise.

Kelly didn’t want to play at first, but the rest of us insisted, figuring what? That not making head cheerleader was her life’s worst tragedy? That’s what happens again and again to women like her, they try to explain why they don’t want to talk about it… but no one listens.

The second prettiest one, Vicki, was pale and fleshy, moving with a clumsy, yet charming, slowness that made the rest of us wonder if it was an act… or could she really be that dumb? Across the undersides of her velvety forearms gleamed a network of thin white scars… the baby she’d left at her mother’s that night was not her husband’s. Mistakes get made; the child’s father was never heard from again.

Oh, but now Vicki wanted to get remarried so badly it made every other woman in the room flush with embarrassment just hearing her mention her latest lover’s name. We knew because of the kid that wasn’t his he would never agree to marry her; but she was so beautiful… scars, sad eyes and all… that he couldn’t say no to what she offered up nightly.

So, after being pushed & pushed & pushed & pushed & pushed into participating, Kelly narrated the worst moment of her life. Her twin sister was in the middle of a divorce. We never knew she HAD a sister. A few days before Christmas, the estranged husband called — he had lots of presents for the kids. She agreed to meet him at a gas station down the street. The only thing he gave her was three bullets — one in the spleen, one in the right lung, one in the throat.

“At least he had the decency to shoot himself too,” Kelly says sobbing. “How does marriage turn into murder?” The rest of us watched tears plop out of her eyes like clear glass pearls; we heard the birds finally, blessedly, began to chatter, bringing relentless life back into the world.

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Filed under blood, compassion, courage, criminal, criminal behavior, criminals, death, development, dreams, enlightenment, eternal, eternity, evil, faith, fiction, friendship, grief, human beings, loss, love, marriage, mortality, mourning, murder, relationships, short stories, universe

Tagged as acceptance, courage, divorce, grief, marriage, murder, sisters, suicide, tragedy, transcendence

November 20, 2016 · 9:17 am

Ruby Bridges, Civil Rights Icon

Giant Redwoods, a poem

illustration muir woods 2

Giant Redwoods

(Statements in italics taken from Ethics, by Baruch de Spinoza)

Look farther and farther toward thin blue sky, until the green feathery tops of the trees are like the northern pole on some dream planet. Put the anger back in its bottle. These trees are generous. Hatred can never be good.

Your carsickness from the ride up the mountain begins to fade, leaving behind a breathless, weepy echo not unlike your first religious fervor. Hatred is increased through return of hatred, but may be destroyed by love.

When have you not been afraid? The random can be scrutinized for meaning, the puzzle solved, when surveyed long & carefully enough. Anything may be accidentally the cause of either hope or fear.

These trees have plenty of time. As a child, you stared at Jesus’ sad face for hours, wishing you could marry him — wondering what it was that made him love you. Could you sacrifice yourself for the sins of the world, if it was that simple & necessary? Cathedrals turn us small and vulnerable again, for reasons both blessed & cursed. Devotion is love towards an object which astonishes us.

Vague, starry eyes like yours feel at home here; the air is weighty, burdensome & solemn. You’ve loved trees before; this is different. These trees have plenty of time – more time than you. If we love a thing which is like ourselves, we endeavor as much as possible to make it love us in return.

Your nerves are suddenly frozen, by the unaccustomed richness of perfect light. Your guide is tall & slender, hesitant to speak. Her mother has the tattooed forearm of a Polish Jew of a certain age. The knowledge of good and evil is nothing but an idea of joy or sorrow. Sorrow is [a hu]man’s passage from a greater to a less perfection.

These trees have plenty of time. She touches your wrist, and for a moment, you, too, want to grow taller, leaving the surface of the earth behind forever. Shyly, she picks up a tiny pinecone, smaller than a toy. You both laugh when she tells you this is their seed. Joy is [a hu]man’s passage from a less to a greater perfection.

These trees have plenty of time. And all around, their wise, fallen, hollow bodies litter the ground like the bones of saints. Childlike, you understand a wish to die here, never to leave this hush. They’re only trees – your neck bent back as far as it will go; only trees, yet wondering if the giants can hear your thoughts. Love is joy, with the accompanying idea of an external cause. Love and desire may be excessive. When the mind imagines its own weakness, it necessarily sorrows.

Is there anything we have less power over than our own tongues? These trees have plenty of time, growing wise as the Buddha, in their silence.

Notes From The Unconscious, a poem

illustration-notes-from-the-unconscious

Notes From The Unconscious

Run me languid over a rusty road,
and you behind, laughing to pursue…
Take only my smooth love chain,
kiss me softly, without injury.

I am essential and lusty…
I will drive through it for her leg diamonds,
and use him at those bare places.
To sea and gone were the sweet peach thousand.

The blood goddess is frantic…
She knows how hard loving is.
All delicate language has arms of iron, so
sing elaborate love from your tongue.

How have I dreamed sordid roses?
Rob them of a tiny pink eternity….
As bees nuzzle, so shall I dive into you,
and sniff your scent like a mama bear.

A man I used to know lives less than anyone
under wool suits. He rips up rocks
as meat, then he must finger petals.
He has no idea this is happening.

For years, I floated bitter in a black lake…
I said, please, no beating,
leave out the ugly juice,
don’t make me drink any more.

No one listened. My eyes turned
red like woman vision…
I am still weaker & falling,
after death, beauty may ache raw & blue.

He let a void crush what we incubated….
Did it in my white bed.
One milk moan from an infants’
fresh red lips, haunting me forever.
Boil away the mist with lick power.
Heave away or use an apparatus….
Near the TV, these fiddles cry for feet
to dance and obliterate pain.

Our sad summer was like a repulsive
shadow of fluff. I floated like a dandelion seed.
But winter could recall a sweet day chant
with cool water, trips to the country like lazy sun…

Did the purple smear on the wall show size?
Why can the mad beautiful boy shake?
I watch a friend produce a luscious lie.
None trudge after me, but time will swim easy…

Blow your smoky symphony,
my green cloud angel,
and put the sacred blaze against a woman,
melting her like caramel.

Dirt will come and time bring ice,
so heal your broken voice, shed the marble
surrounding you like a deep bone prison,
while I bleed champagne.

Ask your heart to squirm, remember
the ship of spring, seek air blue kisses,
pierce the morning, know the color of liquid
magic, speak in a velvet stream, and love me.

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Filed under beauty, birth, blood, buddhist, compassion, courage, development, dream, dreams, eternal, evolution, forgiveness, hope, human beings, humanity, identity, karma, kindness, life, logic, loss, love, manifesto, maturity, mitochondria, mortality, mother, mothers, mysterious, nature, passion, peace, poetry, relationships, science, soul, spirit, spiritual, spirituality, transcendence, transitions, travel, tribute, truth, universe, warmth, wish, world, youth

Tagged as beauty, compassion, death, dreams, faith, god, healing, hope, life, love, nature, peace, poetry, Relationships, sex, soul, spirit, truth, women

	Mariam Weber on Passover
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	Anna Waldherr on Liturgy, a short story
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Category Archives: eternal

Mercy

Liturgy, a short story

Rain for Remembrance, a poem

The Song of Women of Jaded Time, a poem

Empire State Building, a poem

Conceived on Valentine’s Day, a poem

Pretty Young Women, Playing A Game, a very short story

Ruby Bridges, Civil Rights Icon

Giant Redwoods, a poem

Notes From The Unconscious, a poem

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