April 14th, 2014 (From first period's free write. For my family)

I remember first St. Patrick's day and the way my grandmother, smelling like the heavy perfume she always wore, would come to dinner, or make dinner, and it was always corn beef and cabbage and how the beef and cabbage and potatoes would melt in my mouth and how the broth would shine with the fat from the beef and how the meat would come off in strips and maintain its elasticity through chewing even. There were green things too, but mostly it was the greening spring grass. Then, four days later, my birthday, the first, or first full day, of spring depending on the year. And then Easter. Easter. Full of hope. Easter. All redemption, past and future, hidden in a day. When I was very little it was all frilly dresses and bonnets and maybe even kid gloves. Easter is the fanciest holiday because the color scheme is soft and lovely and it is warm enough to not wear a coat. But last Easter was cold. Last Easter was gray. Last Easter was like a funeral for everything we had lost or killed. We dressed up anyway, we dressed brightly even, and when we returned from church we ate and laughed and smiled bravely while all the ghosts came around to pull at our sleeves. We squared our shoulders and sang songs that angels sing and moment by moment the past cleared from our gaze, like a thick fog burned away by the rising sun.

April 13th, 2014

Deep seeds He said. Deep seeds which are
now pushing through ground. Breaking the
ground. This was intended long ago, but now,
now it is becoming real. Now it is pushing
through ash. Remember that image from long
 ago? You didn't know how true it was, did you.
And now you must believe because you are left
with no other option. Kelly prayed Psalm 24:4
over me. I know it is both an encouragement and
a warning, and I will treat it as such. Also, she said,
your father, your father in his redeemed existence,
he is very proud of you. And I know this is true.
Ash is good for the ground. The reduction of life
bids the tiny plants to grow. A metaphor; a miracle.


April 12th, 2014

I count off, in no particular order, the dealings of my day. Why so long away?
Why comfort, satisfaction, success, do you keep yourself from me and loll
about in the shadows of my porch, or just down the road, or drinking beers
on somebody else's porch? Why are you just beyond my reach like a dandelion
seed I have been chasing through a field for so long that now the grass beneath
me is broken by huge machines whose teeth tear and pull and still I chase, just
ahead of the destruction but just behind the soft bristles of your white hair. 
There are so many things that disappoint me about me. This impulse, for one,
of chasing things I can barely see rather than noticing an entire field is being
tilled into a modern box-house development so that now I am just running for my
life and there is no time to chain myself to the trees or the loamy dirt. I am sorry
field of neglected things below my feet. I am sorry earthworms and tiny black beetles.
I am sorry that I was chasing a dandelion seed rather than searching your depth
for four leaf clovers. I am sorry your belly is eviscerated and your children are orphans.


April 11th, 2014

Yes, I know there is one last thing to give up.
By one last thing I suppose I mean more that
there is a box of tiny things that loom hugely
in my mind; a smile, a promise, a hope, an
expectation. When Pandora opened the box
what left were the things you would want to get
rid of, and what remained was hope locked in that
gilded room. Though I do not wish my misfortune
or metastasized grief on anyone else, Lord, when
you open my heart, let those things burn off as
mist, as snow rising, and, please, I beg of you,
let hope remain. I can't wait for you to see what's 
next you say bending over me gently and brushing
the hair from my teary and tired eyes.



April 10th, 2014 (from this morning's free write prompt for first period)

I was young enough to have to go to bed while it was still light out in the height of summer. Looking back, I imagine this as the longest day of the year, but I have no way of knowing if it was. I lay in my bed feeling the most sensational pressure in my body and mind, the urge and compulsion to live and be in every moment. It made my limbs stretch towards a future I was too young to even imagine. I pressed my face against the screen window and took the summer air into my lungs. The fireflies danced. The huge rhododendron outside my window seemed to move in time to the blinking, although I knew this was impossible because its roots were too deep. I imagined my father planted the rhododendron bush, in the way that you assume the world around you has been shaped and created by the parents who shaped and created you, but now I know it was older than he was at the time and that though he tended it he wasn't its author. In the neighbor's yard a bug zapper intermittently snapped at the mosquitos that came too close. The smell of grass kept me awake, as well as the idea of all that was possible in this world, this small and also huge world whose borders were the borders or my yard. I stared hard, so hard, at the fireflies and knew that I would never, ever, forget this moment. And I never did.


April 9th, 2014

As I re-bobbypinned my hair a person I didn't see flew
through the door and into a stall. I said: are you okay?
She didn't answer at first. And then said, yes. You don't
sound it. I'm not. What is it. Would you like to talk. It's just.
It's just. My brother. He may be going away for a long time.
Finally she emerges from the stall, eyes still dripping, but a
smile near her lips. And you name? Sheba she says. Nice
to meet you. I'm Leanne. I hope things work out, but I'll
pray for your family. She smiles, laughs through tears, sniffles,
wipes her tears again. As I walked out of the bathroom another
student follows and I hold the door after me and catch a glimpse
of her face. She is a foot shorter than I am and when I look over
my shoulder and down she is looking up and she smiles
gently. And that was that.