What I Did Today, by Courtney Schroeder

Today I did what is conventionally called nothing. I walked down the road, picking wild blackberries with my mouth for a bowl. When I'd had my fill, I came home, stripped off my clothes, and lay in the sunshine. Doing nothing set  an example for the children and they were off all day, in the hammock and their rooms, and I could hear their pleasant murmurings while I tried to do something, anything, but instead I got a sunburn. We have lived here just over a month and every day I wake shocked to be living in a dream. It is cool in the mornings and I pull a sweater over me, make porridge, lick syrup from the spoon.   By afternoon, we can walk to the river if we want, or drive down our mountain into the ocean, or almost; from here we can do anything we want. When we run out of money pretty soon, I'll have to do what people call something, which usually means get a job I don't like but I won't have to do that because I"ll like it, because I'll be full of blackberries and sunshine by then. The girls will be in school and, by some tangled grace, I'll have time to write poems in the mornings by the kitchen window,  with my tea.  Frankly, my life is a poem today, all the time, because that's what  doing nothing means--it means filling your mouth with sweetness until there is no way to get the words out.  The poem is  the thing that happens just before or just after the writing--it is loneliness and happiness at once which is what I've been waiting for all my life so now, when the dark rustles in, and the girls finally admit sleep,  I refuse to do anything except welcome loneliness--and why not?  I scrape supper scraps into the compost, rinse dishes, sponge the table off. There is no other poem, no other life than this, and after all,  I could kiss loneliness and if you were here  or close by--but nobody is--you would hear  loneliness and I laughing and clapping  one another on the back for another job well done, and you might not believe it but it would be true.

My Friend June Says Her Horses, by Courtney Schroeder

My friend June says her horses always lay down, early spring this way. It makes us both feel better about our own laying down. Maybe we don’t have to get tested for Lyme’s, the flu.  Maybe we just need to lay everything else down for awhile — but we can’t, neither of us can. There are doorknobs to fix, bills to pay, animals and children to feed, brush, love, walk through the forest. At least we have the forest. At least, we have one another, even if we hardly   have a moment to talk, I think of June anyway, and of June’s horses, who are — who must be — still laying down, even though spring is a full grown animal by now; June and I still have everything to do, so the horses at least, should lay down in long grass for as long as they want, or as long as they must, and we, for our part can notice what comes, warm rain on a hot day, steam, and we will not try to hold it, at all, any.  From where I stand on my hill, I can almost see June, later on, in June, walking the dog, through the mush of puddle mud grass, doing it because she has to, because she must, but also because what we must do is lovely or can be.  When the horses stand flicking their tails, I want to be standing too, in the summer, in the morning.  I want to be saying yes. Yes, yes.  Not, this is what I must do, alone, but this is what I do, in the middle of the world, in the middle of everyone, as my part in the great weaving.  There is no way to say it, after all, but only to move into it, to step into the buttery morning like a cat, like a deer doing what I do because I have a tongue, have legs, have today and today and today, have my friend June, down below, feeding hay to the horses, who are not laying down anymore, but should.

Eve, After the Exile, by Stacey Murphy

Now, after the exile from paradise, Eve finds herself sneaking away to write letters to Snake.

She pokes them into bottles to toss into the sea, the air, crevasses, canyons — anywhere she can imagine her words might be borne on wind or water to her friend, who she still believes meant no harm. And even if he did …. well. He was hilarious and relatable, far more entertaining than Adam.

One day, some archaeologists might come across one of the bottles. Bottle #32, let's say, and if they open it, they will find this message:

   It has been a long time without your company and though I am supposed to be ashamed, and hate you, and fear you with a depth so deep that all my daughters will carry my fear in their own bones, I admit I don't feel these things. I cannot stop wondering at the last riddle you started to tell me while Adam was having his snack on that last day. The possibility of that last half-conversation fills my days with something more interesting than hunting, finding water, moving, moving again, and the constant search for something to wear.

   Adam is such a fearful man. He took the almighty's words way more harshly than I, won't even watch me undress at night. I mean, he didn't notice I was naked at all before, except when we touched, but now he only notices for the sake of not noticing. God has let me know, dear friend, that I am in the right on this matter. The shame is all something Adam's taken on, his own construct, his own Hell. I'd gladly give it up and prance around without my fig leaves, again. The great I Am would be fine with it, I know this — but even mentioning it upsets Adam far too much. God is concerned that Adam's insecurities have become far too strong to even feel his light any longer, to even remember who or what he is praying to each night.

   Oh my slithering friend. I wish I could shed skins and magically rejuvenate like you. At least hearing the end of your last riddle would be a nice way to fill an afternoon. So if you ever get this and find a way . . . I would love to hear from you.

   Your pal, Eve

I’d Walk a Mile…., by Peggy Adams

Camel cigarettes. My uncle Bill smoked them. He had been a sailor in the war, or actually, a Seabee. Seabees were sailors who built things, and Uncle Bill built airstrips in the South Pacific, on the island of Guam. When my aunts explained what he did in the war, using words like “airstrips” and “island of Guam,” I still had no idea. Airstrips, think about it, strips of air? Seabees, strips of air — Guam, like gum but not really. 

On Guam Uncle Bill lived in a Quonset Hut — hula girls lived in huts, I thought, maybe Uncle Bill knew hula girls. It was all a mystery. From the war, Uncle Bill brought back a coconut with monkeys drawn on it. My cousin Kathy and I shook that coconut, then took a hammer to it. We banged at each of the coconut’s three little holes, but no go, never mind. Maybe the hula girls in their grass skirts drew those coconut monkeys.

Uncle Bill laughed a lot, his eyes crinkling at me and Kathy. He showed us his muscles like Popeye, he tickled us just enough — he called me Poogie. He was a lot happier than my dad, who had come back home from the war with his brown leather pilot cap and bomber jacket, no coconuts. My mother loved to wear my dad’s big jacket. It was lined with sheep’s wool and that made her sing the Air Force song, “We are poor little lambs who have gone astray —gentleman flyers off on a spree, doomed from here to eternity —baa, baa, baa.” A very sad song.

Not like my uncle Bill and his coconut, his jokey ways, his beers at the kitchen table, his Camels. I liked the cigarette pack with its pale yellow and brownish design, a camel in front, palm trees and pyramids — one big, one little — behind. He’d open the pack carefully, pulling on the little tape like a zipper so the cellophane top would fall away. Then Uncle Bill would pull open half the silver foil on top of the pack.  The tops of the cigarettes were brown circles — he would fish one out, bounce the end on the enamel tabletop, and put the cigarette in his mouth. Then he’d take a big kitchen match, and light it with his thumbnail. Snap, the sulfur smell, the flame — his lit cigarette smelled good, not as strong and bitter as Grandpa Tom’s cigar, not as powdery as my dad’s Philip Morris. Uncle Bill would puff smoke out and say, “Ah, I’d walk a mile for a Camel.”

No wonder my cousin Kathy and I wanted to grow up as fast as we could and smoke Camels. We’d beg for candy cigarettes, the ones that came in the red cardboard pack, two rows of fused white candy cylinders with one end tipped in red. We had to be very careful as we broke them apart to get the prize, one whole candy cigarette. We practiced flaunting it between our finger tips, waving it around, sipping at its end, pretending to inhale and blow smoke rings. We wanted to walk a mile for a Camel, too.

Seventeen Little Bits of Silence, by Carla DeMello

drip

anticipation of release is not as fun as it sounds

drip

secrets grow

crab grass chokes the last lit places

time to weed my garden

one thousand notes' exultant end

silence

one thousand hands applauding

dream conversations

such brilliant insight 

but never audible

;

I'm never quite sure 

when to use you in a sentence

profound absence of sound

ear buds still in

though my playlist has ended

crushing me with glacial silence

making me pay for saying

No More

murky fog 

obscuring the unknown path

I'll go the back the way I came

yesterday 

I longed for one quiet moment

today — too much silence

everything else 

falling out of focus 

painting blooms into being

white

absence of color

you are generally too quiet for my taste

silence that I'm

too preoccupied to appreciate

is now gone

jock planets huddle

ninety pound Pluto kicked out

refuses to leave

passing feet shape kitty's shed fur 

into delicate balls 

on the stairs

ice cream rivulets 

sliding down my son's arm

sweet surprise for later

100 newly thrown bowls 

dry quietly

waiting their turn for feet 

monarch

gently tossed by a breeze 

I would not otherwise have noticed

Sovereign of Silence, by Yvette Rubio

My father sits in his chair.

He is the Sovereign of Silence.

Señor Silencio, we tease him.

I see here his noble profile

Against the sliding glass door.

He sits tall, his deaf ear towards the room

Where the rest of us sit

Playing gin rummy around the table.

Raucous, Tinny Teenagers

Smelly, Course, Unfiltered.

(My mother speaks over the din confirming her existence.)

He sits tall, his hearing ear towards the garden,

Listens with his good ear:

Lush, Southern Tropics

An ecstatic air

  Angel’s Trumpets, Elephant Ears,

    Fire Cracker Vines.

      Cicadas praying sheltered in the cemetery ferns,

        Mosquito hawks’ whirring wings

      Hovering above the mockingbirds

    Singing inside the fading shade of the crepe myrtle,

  Stripping with abandon its voluptuous blossoms:

Beguiling bamboula.

He listens to his childhood

In the Land of the Eternal Spring. 

Is it Bigger than a Juice Box?, by Peggy Adams

Cardboard Box

My first memory of a cardboard box goes back to when I could sit in one.  I remember climbing in and sitting with my feet straight out in front of me, my arms resting on the sides, my back snug up against the inside of the box.  I fit perfectly.  The box could make a little boat, but I couldn’t both push it across the rug and be in it.  Too bad.  I was stranded in the hall of the Old House, and no one was looking at me.

They were making a phone call.  My Aunt Jane held the stick part of the telephone to her mouth and the round part to her ear.  My mother and Aunt Margaret stood behind her.  Jane said to the operator “Thomas Lee.  Manila.  In the Philippines.”  I knew all that— they were calling my Uncle Tom, their brother.  I had never seen him; he was around the world on an island.  They heard him.  “Oh, Tommy,” Jane said.  They took turns listening to him talk, and then their three minutes were up.  They looked at me in my box.  They had been laughing, but now they were all crying.

Crayon Box

First there were only eight, big and chunky.  Mrs. Penman said we could break them in half, but I didn’t want to.  Red yellow blue green purple black white brown.

Later, sixteen.  I had learned to call “squirrel brown,” Burnt Sienna.  There was also Prussian Blue.

Last there were so many that they lined up in a long box.  Burnt umber silver gold bronze magenta.

Shoe Box

When my friend June went into the convent after our high school graduation, she was allowed to bring from home only what she could fit in a shoe box.  I have spent the last fifty years imagining what she put in that box.

Jack-in-the-box

“All around the cobbler’s bench/ The monkey chased the weasel / The monkey thought ‘twas all in fun/ POP! goes the weasel.”  Grinning clowns on every side of the box — bad clowns, those fearful, loud, startling, not-funny impersonators.  Wait/wait for a scary surprise!

I learned later that the song had to do with pawnshops, that the cobbler was so poor that he had to pop the weasel, which meant to pawn part of his equipment, but I still see a mad chase around his bench, a much better story.

Lunch Box

My third grade lunch box was pale green with a little rust on the edges.  It smelled all right going, but terrible coming back home —old apples, sour milk, bitter edges of crusts with peanut butter.

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chicken and rice soup in my thermos.  When we had no peanut butter, maybe a brown sugar sandwich on buttered white bread.  Baloney on buttered white bread, potato chips in a wax paper bag, an apple I’d carry right back home.  Oreos in a wax paper bag.  Tomato soup in my thermos.  A Velveeta cheese sandwich on buttered white bread.  I liked looking at the layers in that one — white bread/yellow butter/orange cheese/white bread.

One day on the walk to school, I dropped my lunch box.  When I took my thermos up to Mrs. Millay so she could hear how it sounded all glittery inside, she said, “I don’t think you should eat that soup, do you?”  That made me wonder whether even the very best grownups, like Mrs. Millay, had any sense at all.

Cracker Jack Box

Cracker Jack—was that the name of the blurry little sailor dressed in red, white and blue on the waxed paper cover of the box?  Inside, the popped corn was stale, the vague molasses coating never sweet enough.  And the peanuts were too few and bitter besides—but maybe the prize would be good.  An inch long rubber baby, pink or brown, would be very good.  Usually, though, it was an inch long plastic magnifying glass.

Another Kind of Box Altogether

“Do you think you can just put me back in the box now?”  I asked her.  “Just how small will I have to get?”

Fuse Box

Once when my dryer died, I called County Wide Appliance.  “Help,” I said.  The repairman came to the house, went to the fuse box and tightened a fuse.  He said, “Probably all the cars going by loosened it up.”  He charged me seventy dollars.  There’s a lesson in there somewhere.

Juice Box

I am too old.  I have never bought, stored, nor sipped from a juice box.  But I do like the very sound of it.  Juice box.

Juice box.  Juice box.

2 Green Pieces, by Sara Robbins

Green was my mother's color. I didn't embrace it until she died. And then — there it was, everywhere. New sheets, new checkbook and checks, new pillows, T-shirts, underpants, even socks. When I could choose, I chose green. And so many greens: hunter green, forrest green, moss green, kelly green, lime green, green ochre. One of my favorites is a lively blend of moss and ochre, a color found in nature on the bark of old trees, in the spring after a rain. And then of course, the green of new leaves in spring — that is perfection — at least until summer comes on and the green deepens, and goes right into my heart. I keep my mother with me.

Eat your greens. Kale, collards, spinach, mustard and turnip greens. Even broccoli raab, swiss chard or beet greens. Cook them Southern style with bacon or fatback; Italian style with olive oil and garlic; or steam them and eat them righteously, plain and naked. Make a salad with raw kale. Chop them, or roll a green leaf and fill it with pilaf or cheese. Put them in a soup, add them to a stew. Or even juice them and drink your greens. Eat them every day and you will thrive.

Uncle Billy's Room, by Sophia Hiller

A few weeks ago I sent a request to a number of young writers and asked them to write descriptions of their rooms. This piece is by Sophia Hiller, who is about to turn 12. It was written while she was visiting her grandmother's horse camp in Foster, Rhode Island.

Uncle Billy’s Room . . . that I sleep in when I go to horse camp at Grandma Ginny’s house with my cousin Thokozarai (or just Thoko)

I sleep on the top bunk. Thoko sleeps on the bottom. I have light blue sheets. She has dark blue sheets. She has clothes in our room. I have clothes in the “red room.” (There is a door into the “red room,” where Rachel and Kathleen sleep. The other girls are from Maryland.)

Thoko is dark skinned with tightly curled dark brown hair. I am light skinned with dirty blond hair. Thoko is picky about how she looks. I am not picky about how I look. Thoko is a junior counselor. I am not a junior counselor.

Our room has ribbons on the wall from Uncle Billy. We have tan wallpaper and brown blankets. Our wallpaper has flowers in a diamond pattern. Some flowers are orange, some yellow, some purple, and some blue. It has diagonal lines of blue and purple, and diagonal lines of orange and yellow. In the other direction, diagonal lines of blue and yellow, and purple and orange.

There is a closet, a bookshelf, and a bedstand with books on it. On the wall is a mirror, and behind the mirror there is a peacock feather. There is a wardrobe full of show shirts next to the bookshelf.

Here is how the room is laid out: Walk in the door. To your left is the bookshelf (hidden by the door) and next to that is the wardrobe. Then there is a laundry basket shaped like a corner and full of bed stuff. Above the basket is a row of ribbons, and there is a hole in the wall about an inch in diameter. Next is the door to the “red room,” and then a corner. The entrance door is next to a corner, too, so the door only opens up to a right angle. Next to the corner is the bedstand with horse books on it, and more horse books on the floor on the side near the “red room” door. There is also a clock shaped like a bubble-letter “O,” cut in half. Directly next to the bedstand is the bed, in a corner, a short length from the bedstand to the wall. Next is the closet, at the end of the longways side of the bed. Then another corner, then a window with hooks and the place where we put our laundry bags. Next is the dresser, with the mirror hanging on the wall above it, and then you’re back to the door. Hanging on all the walls are ribbons.

  

Enchanted Garden, by Sue Norvell

An enchanted garden is what I really want. I want the vest pocket garden one glimpses from the sidewalk, tucked in a side or back yard.

In spring, daffodils, narcissus, cobalt blue grape hyacinth and then forget-me-nots crowd the fence. But it’s the last day of July, so daylilies — apricot ones — peek between the tidy white pickets. Russian sage, that tall feathery sweep of soft lavender blue flowers and grey green foliage, will be the backdrop.

Droning bees investigate the sage; their whispery humming is summer music. White coneflowers are tucked around the corner of the house, mostly unseen from the street. They, and the bright yellow raggedy-petaled coreopsis, lure butterflies: Monarchs, now that we’re tipping into August. Crocosmia, with narrow, strappy, bright green leaves, sport long-stemmed sprays of delicate, brilliant red flowers which sway lightly in the breeze. These flowers beckon hummingbirds. Two males, flashing their ruby gorgets squeak noisily in a furious, tiny battle over the flowers in their territory.

The crocosmia will be my secret, visible from my kitchen window, but not the street. The scarlet flowers dance over deep green parsley and chartreuse basil, those luscious, delicious greens. These greens do look a bit bedraggled. Planting them at the front of the bed means they’re reachable. Parsley makes tabouli sing — and what dish doesn’t benefit from basil? These plants are snipped, pinched and enjoyed, but they look as if they’ve had a haircut by a gleeful four year old.

As the afternoon wears on, the cicadas start their chorus — sparse sounds at first, reaching a crescendo at dusk in the warm moist evening. “Katy-dids,” my grandmother called them. “Six more weeks ‘til school,” she'd say.