Blogiversary V, Part III

Yaaaay, another short story! This is the last one for the week, and it’s been a lovely week to have a blogiversary. We’re on spring break up here and, while I was a little sad that none of the kids in our school district had the opportunity to exercise their First Amendment rights this week, it’s been very nice to have the week off. I literally spent the entire day yesterday in a bathrobe, packing my laptop around the house with me like a baby. It’s been a good week.

I did a lot of hemming and hawing trying to decide which short to end with this week. The one I settled on isn’t as silly as the first one, nor as academic as the last one.  And unlike the other two, this one isn’t set in the real world either. And finally, it isn’t prose either- it’s a poem! Whee!

I wrote this up (with editing help from my hubby and his parents) for a writing contest and, as it’s one of my less embarrassing attempts at poetry, I give you…

 

Water

(this is obviously a working title, haha)

 

On storm-tossed coasts, a young girl lived,

Lost in misery.

It drove her to the water’s edge,

Bearing these items three:

A bud of rose, an egg of blue,

A spool of sewing thread.

She took a breath and took a step

And brine closed o’er her head.

 

The water folk, they found her fast,

Drawn by the rose’s scent.

She bartered it for passage safe,

And off her escort went.

They led her past the sandy coast,

Down where the kelp beds furl.

They took her to the castle deep

With halls of gold and pearl.

 

The gate keeper, he barred her path,

And would not let her in

For she was daughter of the drylands

And no aquatic kin.

She offered him the egg of blue,

Which thing he’d never seen

So he let her with such wonders

Within to meet the Queen.

 

The Ocean Queen with coral crown

Welcomed her to her court

But bade her leave the watery depths

Back to the humans’ port.

The girl gave her the spool of thread,

A tribute to the Queen,

But the royal mer just smiled

With kindly eyes of green.

 

“A bud of rose, an egg of blue,

A spool of sewing thread.

You offer us mementos of

The very world you’ve fled.

You won’t find what you look for here,

For all the world is bound:

Above, beneath, and in between,

Lives are built, not found.”

 

And so the girl returned again

To step upon the shore

She left her gifts within the sea

And sought for something more:

Instead of rose, a bloom of hope,

A bud’s blind reach for spring;

Instead of eggs, a new life gained,

With joy in each small thing;

 

 

Instead of thread, the ties that bind

People heart to heart.

And so she slowly learned the things

The Queen knew from the start-

The love she sought so far and wide

Was not beneath the waves

She only had to learn that one

Received just what one gave.

 

I hope you enjoyed this year’s blogiversary. We’ll get back to our normal schedule next Monday. Until then, happy writing!

A Birthday and A Poem

Well, this last week kind of kicked me in the patootie! There was my birthday, and work, and an important deadline, and a tragedy within my husband’s high school community, and a sick kiddo, and just life in general. So instead of the more thoughtful birthday blog post I had planned to share about some writing swag (hooray presents! happy birthday, me!), I’m gonna give myself a pass and simply post a terrible and unedited and kind of sappy poem that I wrote while rocking said sick child to sleep. I haven’t posted any of my writing for a while (which is maybe something of a relief?), but I’ll post this now with the promise of something a little more substantial next week.

You guys are lovely. Happy writing!

 

 

UNTITLED

 

Cheeks red with fever, hair damp with sweat,

Panting like a puppy in the sun.

I am pinned beneath you to this rocking chair,

Thinking of when you were tiny,

Thinking of when you fit in my belly,

And listening worriedly to your breaths.

You fuss and struggle and whine,

And I whisper and sing all the lullabies you liked best

When our days were tallied by diapers and feedings.

Finally, you settle with your hot cheek

Against my left breast

And you quiet and you drift to sleep.

Your ear over my heart, I wonder

If you hear it and you think

Of peace and warmth and water,

And of when you were tiny,

And of when you fit in my belly,

My pulse thrumming through the walls,

My breaths rising and falling like a tide.

How could a child stay awake

When revisiting that place

On a fevered night, like a dream?

Your breaths smooth, and your cheeks cool,

And even though I am tired, and should go to bed,

I stay with you curled close to my heart,

Knowing the spell will break like the fever,

And only I will remember this moment.