Bits of Yellow and Orange from a Saturday Morning

These pieces were written in a Writing Circle on Saturday, October 28 — during a 10-minute warm-up period

For inspiration, we chose color swatches from different paint companies. Some pseudonyms have been chosen.


Butter cream frosting, so good — so bad! Please do not color it blue, unless just a flower on the cake. Make it, instead, a yellow that falls between corn silk and honey-gold. That would be best. After all, I'm not marrying, it is not my birthday, and I am not being feted upon retirement. Make this frosting for a humble cake! You do not need to know that I will eat it secretly, alone in my home, while I watch guilty-pleasure TV.
    - Buttercup Buttercup


Hail a yellow cab because the group left in a car without me, for a Big Red / Big Apple event, and I'm snagged by what comforts me, the pain and loss of a woman I love. Snagged in gratitude and anger, sunshine and rage, wanting justice and healing. Intimidated by another story, the narrative of success and failure. I hold both — they seem to be at odds with each other. Power and vulnerability. Will the struggle ever end? Does it have to?
    - Cricket Stone


"Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." Orange, red, and yellow. Blood and sunshine. Dying, but not dead. Fading, but not gone. Like the passing of years for a Hollywood starlet. Moving into new life stages, transitions. Silence to talking. Talking to silence. Always changing. And the mischievous faces on Jack O'Lanterns — smiling at the darkness. Like little Buddhas, their laugh is enlightenment.
    - JLL


Autumn moon
rattling your gold like a pirate in the sky
stealing my heart from summer's love
holding me hostage to sail with you through a colder milky way
and fill a spinnaker with afterglow to drift me into winter
    - Kimberly Zajac


Now the days are becoming shorter and darker and I make an effort to focus on things I like to see and do — buying season tickets to the theatre, making apple butter, planning for Thanksgiving, raking leaves — so as not to become enveloped in a dark, cold cloud. The mist that rises from snow in winter is so different than the steam from a scented bath, or the aerated water that floats above a hot tub. In the evening I look across the city at dark shadowy hills, and riding above them like a stream of ribbons, there is yellow and cream, aqua and violet — brightened by a hidden sunset.
    - Liz Ashford


When he was away one spring break I painted my son's room — in the old house — orange. So cheerful, rich, and warmed by the afternoon sun. Will I ever have an orange room again?
    - Sheila Dean


This morning, drinking a glass of Emergen-C Super Orange, with the fizzy scent of 100 oranges traveling right up my nose, I am transported out of a chilly October day and plunked down into a long-ago August. It is city-hot and all the kids on my block are lined up at the Good Humor Truck. Somehow it happens that I end up with a Creamsicle Pop. Orange ice wrapped around vanilla ice cream. Wow. Everything changes for me on this day. I will never go back to vanilla Dixie cups. Dixie cups are for babies. I'm a big girl now. 10 years old. I can manage a Creamsicle. Long lingering licks of deliciousness. And there is a bit of danger, too. A chunk of Creamsicle can slither down my hand and wind up on the sidewalk. But that doesn't happen. No mishaps, no tears. It's a miracle.
    - Zee Zahava

5 Poems, by Heather Boob

Inspired by fragments-of-fragments of Sappho's poetry


Let me tell you this —
When your hand touches my face
a burst of electricity
is transmitted
from solar plexus
expanding upward
and out
through to my heart
like a sun dog
catching rays
behind cirrus compilation
refracting and shining
suspended diamond dust
back down to earth —
A gift to the iris of daylight.

= = =


Love shakes my heart . . .

In kindness —
from a stranger’s smile
passing on a littered street

In gratitude —
of generosity giving
with no expectation of receipt

In warmth —
from worn hands
opening to every embrace

In words —
over hot coffee
steam rising

= = =


Do you remember
the smell of summer
as autumn leaves fall?
When you were still
just a child
and the moment
was all that you had —
The feeling of innocence
when you didn’t know
what innocence was?

Do you remember
falling from your bicycle
for the first time
then getting back on
and riding further and faster
because the feeling of freedom
topped the fear of falling
a second time around?

Do your remember
when time seemed to
stand still —
when the second hand
on the turning dial
almost seemed to hesitate
and you, sitting there
willing it to stay
or wishing it to leap forward
into the future?

= = =


I confess

I do not know what to do.
At my age,
If you are squeamish
Day in, day out
Picking flowers
May be the only remedy

= = =


The most devoted of friends
Don’t ask me what to wear
A purple ribbon . . . a purple kerchief
A fish basket and oar
Together we live in
Silliness and sorrow
With
No complaint

6 Odes, by Rob Sullivan

Ode To Odes

Let us sing a song of praise
for all the kind words
the many warm memories
observations of nobility
that have been written
before we sat
and took the time
this very hour
this very day


Ode To Coffee

Most legal of drugs
most essential of jump starts
you bring about speech
overflowing with rabid rapids
cascading down roaring rivers
of thoughts that ricochet and rebound


Ode To Playtime

Thank you for time and space
to be more than myself
thank you for allowing
for whimsy, heroics, and happy endings
Thank you for the eternal chance
to re-write and pre-write history
Thank you for laughter
Thank you for wonder
Thank you for imagination
Thank you for the fun of it all


Ode To Things That Go Bump in the Night

Dear daklings
stealth and silence
inform your travels
until the sound
that cries to be ignored
at last can not be denied
and our fears of mortality
of being vulnerable and powerless
have their night
and yet somehow
we endure to dread once more


Ode To Death

Greatest appointment
written in our life planner
though we may not know when
or how or where
we do know who and why

You invented planned obsolesence
expiration dates and dead lines
you are the omega
for even the most alpha
of dogs, cats, goldfish
grandmas and movie stars
can not delay their end times


Ode To Zee

You knew where it was at
before we knew where it wasn't
you found strength in words
wonder in phrases turned
beauty in an "ah-ha" moment
humor in the voice
and girl's-eye-view
of your younger self

Love was seen wherever
cruelty, fear, and bigotry
were unwelcome guests
honor was felt whenever
people stood up for others
and their right to a heart path
all their own

Great giver of gifts
cherished champion of the shy
welcome warrior of words
all those about to write
we salute you