On The Bright Side

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(Photo by Anton Darius on Unsplash)

 

The party rocked. Music thrummed through her soles and the edges of her vision blurred.

I’m buzzed, she thought. Tipsy. Perhaps even drunk.

It did not matter that there was no alcohol in the bowl.

The cheer was what intoxicated her.

The brightly colored joy.

So much better than last week’s funeral, she thought. That energy had depleted her. Dark. Gray. Thirsting.

For another sip.

She smiled to let the pavonine life-liquor of the child’s birthday party pour right into her. 

 

 

 

 

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: pavonine in 81 words

 

The Light On

Photo: Sue-Z

 

They left the corner light on at night.

A habit.

A ritual.

An understanding.

The stone path had been there before they bought the property, and the remains of a lantern post. It was right where they’d wanted a vegetable garden, and so at first the plan was to plow the area clear and remove the slabs and pebbles.

But then the hoe broke.

And then the belt on the mower.

And then there was the matter of their daughter’s bellowing every time they tried to work on that part of the yard.

She was barely two at the time. Not quite talking. And yet she managed to throw “No! No!” tantrums and pull at their clothing and plop herself in utter-toddler-dejection right onto where they aimed to work.

“You best give up,” their neighbor nodded her warty chin, sage eyes not unkind in understanding.

It was the Fair Ones, she explained. They had their own paths. Their own energy highways.

“The ancients had marked it. To hold space and to deter the mischief. It is easier. And the young ones can still see.”

They left the light on.

Repaired the path.

Moved the vegetable garden.

Life was better calm.

 

 

 

For Sunday Photo Fiction

 

 

Her Heart Be Known

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Photo: alexandra lammerink on Unsplash

 

She did not know how

To have her heart

Be known,

Other than to

Let her spirit

Be flush with

Hope,

And to allow her

Soul to

Blush bright

With the

Intent,

Even if

Her words paused,

Timid,

From the moment

She’d left

Home.

 

 

For the dVerse quadrille poetry challenge: flush

 

 

Restarting Time

On the go

Photo: S. Levenberg

 

When oomph sags some

And bounce in steps

Lacks uphill charm,

When sparkle dims

And feels ho hum,

It may signal

Restarting

Time.

 

 

For The Daily Post

A Hope To Quicken

energy

 

There’s a quickening of energies around the world.

Like all currencies, energy itself is neutral–it is what’s attached to it and how it is used that qualifies it into positive or not so, into what builds or what destroys, what mends or inflicts more wounding.

The Earth itself still rotates in the same general blinding speed it had for millennia too numerous to grasp. It hurtles through dark space with indescribable abandon, tethered by invisible forces to the star that keeps us all alive.

The overall mechanics of life and gravity hasn’t changed. Our awareness of it may have. Should.

With energies accelerated, we feel the rushed pulse of days, sometimes of mere moments. We sense the rotation of possibility, the immense power that can be harnessed, the twirl of time.

All is moving, quickened by both ignorance and understanding.

What we do with it–with the potential–is up to us.

Do we let slip down the slippery slopes of power-hunger, fear, and divisiveness … or do we harness good to raise our mutual consciousness, our moral compass, our social empathy to the reality that we are and always have been, One?

Do we take the historically familiar roads of vilifying those we do not care to get to know, of quantifying suffering of others as less painful and less necessary to end … Or do we truly recognize that hunger is still hunger, pain is pain, sorrow is more sorrow, that hate and violence beget only more of same? Do we resolve to do differently, not ‘again’ but in new ways?

Life has quickened. Bits of information spin around the globe in speeds now faster than the Earth itself. We are no longer separated by illusion.

Open eyes see clearly now.

We can, should, understand:

All. Is. One.

 

 

For The Daily Post