Wish (Blog Promp 4)

Speedwell Forge Lake, a favorite location for many people in Lancaster, PA, is now a mud hole. Tropical Storm Lee blustered through last year and cracked the beloved lake’s dam, making it necessary for officials to drain the water at the end of 2011. Now, many fear it will never be fixed because the state doesn’t have enough money and the once lovely boating and fishing site will be a thing of the past. Many have taken up the cause, hoping to raise funds in a campaign called “Save Speedwell.” They can be seen outside local grocery stores, asking for donations. They can be found walking down the street, their T-shirts insisting that we save the lake.

                It is the trees that wake me, though. Across the street from my house, they give a long, low wail before thundering towards the forest floor. They moan one last time (or is that a sob coming from my parents’ room?). They sigh a wooooosh as they sadly settle. Shocked, I scamper out of bed more quickly than usual and peer out my window, pressing my nose against the pane as if that will get me closer. An insect-like, orange machine lumbers slowly through the trees left standing. It pulls, pushes, lifts, crushes until only the trunks are left crisscrossing the ground like a giant game of Pick-Up Sticks. I inhale sharply. Lake? What lake? My home does not feel like home. 

                Later, I pull on jeans, open my front door, and peak outside. They are still there, these crab creatures that roar, leaving huge tire tracks in their wake. They roll down my road, dig into packed earth. I stand, arms crossed, and watch the monsters scuttle about as they take and take and take. Eyes brimming, I glance around, a scoff escaping my chest. Why not? There’s no life here anymore.

                Now, I drive down my road, towards home that has changed beyond measure. The last tree fell months ago when Dad died. The neighborhood is much brighter and hotter for it. Our protective, lush canopy is gone. Everything is brown, twisted and shrunken. I look every time I go by, and a deep sadness wells up from somewhere beyond me. Maybe from the forest that’s left. “Will they build houses?” some suggest. I hope not. No one has any better ideas, though. The land has been dormant now for months, and I want to scream for it, "How dare you?!" in all directions, to deaf ears, to shrugging shoulders, to useless arms.  They leave the trunks where they fell. We cannot even claim it as firewood, turn it into an offering. 

                The lake is a mud hole, they say. It’s a shadow of its former self, not even a shadow. A puddle. So, they fight for it. I watch. I place a few coins in a jar every once in a while. I wish that the lake would fill again from sweet rain out of spite only the earth can muster. I wish for those trees, now silent, to send out shoots of green. I hope for birds to spread their seeds so that the forest sings again when wind dances through open branches. 

I wish.

I hope my heart raw. 

What I Have Missed (place entry 4)

This morning, at 8 AM, the sky looked bruised, like it could have a good cry. Now, at almost 10 AM, it’s cheerful again, so capricious. A zephyr has coaxed the clouds into revealing a smiling sun. If I stand still for a moment, that same breeze ripples the branches and tosses the leaves coating the forest floor. To me, it says, “Be still.” I watch the sky move, and it reminds me of my father’s eyes. Something rippled beneath as if a current flowed too closely to the surface of his grey-blue gaze to be hidden for long. He had eyes like the ocean. I didn’t notice until it was too late. What could I have done anyway? 

Today, I turn my own gaze to the world around me, determined to see what I never have before. Little birds sing a lullaby. They play hopscotch among the vines and thorns. I bow my head to duck beneath the same branches, but the stickers tug on my curly hair anyway. Finally, I just crouch down; soothed by the wind and the way it makes me feel alive. Nearby, a rock peeks from below the crunchy, fallen leaves. Its cold surface is carpeted by fuzzy moss. Ahead of me, a long, thick branch beckons me with its rosy thorns. They are colorful amongst a forest of brown.

Before I know it, I have gone farther than I ever have in the past 2 months. I am surrounded by the haloed sun and the whispering winds and the knowledge that there is always something I’ve missed here. I am searching even as I hope I don’t find it: the imprint of his shoulders in the dirt, a patch of flannel torn by reaching limbs. 

I am searching for him. 

He’s not here, though. And in looking only for him, I have missed the beauty amongst the snarls. I have missed the strange little puff of grass growing inside the elbow of a tree root. I reach for it now, fingering velvety strands. Then, curiously, I pull a tuft from the earth and smell it to find that it’s actually wild onion! A tiny bulb clings to the end of one of the strands. I have missed the teeny, milky buds popping bravely through the grass in my backyard. They wave in the breeze. 

No, he is not here. I glance back at a large tree trunk, fallen among bristles, and I think of climbing on top of it, resting my head in my hands, and having a good cry. “Another day,” I decide. For now, I sit in my basement, typing this, listening to the whine of a draft moving through my chimney. For now, this will be enough.

"Hope is the Thing with Feathers..." (Blog prompt 3

                “There’s a cardinal!” I peek over Dad’s shoulder, trying to find the crimson feathers in the brilliant sunlight. “There. Do you see it?” he asks, pointing to the snow laden branches in our backyard. Finally, the little bird comes into view. He hops about, fluttering this way and that, dancing by himself. 

                Dad always noticed things like that. He knew the names of birds I couldn’t even distinguish. Through his eyes, they became precious, jewel-like to me. So, I decide to look for the Northern Cardinal this morning, hoping to catch a glimpse of color in my faded backyard. When I see them, I smile, thinking that I can feel Dad standing beside me, pointing them out, speaking softly as if we might scare them away. 

                Cardinals don’t migrate, which is why I see two of them this very moment, chasing each other up a tree in the middle of winter. They are silky, cheerful red against the tree tops, so vermillion that I imagine they are nature’s ornaments. They don’t molt, either. When I notice them among brambles and creeping vines, they simply cannot hide. I think they like it that way. All the better to show off their pompous crests. In fact, cardinals enjoy bushes and vines. They don’t nest too far from the ground, and they have no qualms with making their homes among humans. They prefer backyards and parks. For this trilling, cheeping bird, human expansion has been a blessing. 

                They are extraordinary for their plumage, but common enough. Yet, there is something about them that draws me. Yes, it is their connection to Dad, but I have discovered something about them: They are monogamous. Some say they even mate for life. So, when the male frolics about, carefully placing seeds into his female partner’s beak, he is caring for her. If she dies, he will mourn. Cardinals don’t seem like the grieving type, really. They are too bright for that. They cannot take on a mantle of midnight. They can stop singing, though. They can hide themselves for days if they choose. And then they go on, finding other mates, feeding other hatchlings. Certainly they act on instinct. I wonder, though, if these tiny singing creatures feel loss. Maybe, for a couple days, emotion fills their plump chests instead of song, overtaking what their bodies tell them they must do. Cardinals always come back, though, you know. They always find another tune, another breeze. They are hope against a stark white and brown winter world.

·         -I found info. On cardinals at the following websites: allaboutbirds.org, cardinalbird.org, and wild-bird-watching.com

Longing (place entry 3)

Really, stars are a collection of nuclear explosions. Hydrogen and helium react together, which builds heat and creates a glow that we see from unspeakable miles. The brilliant pinpoints we witness are actually so far away that the illuminations take many years to reach us. The lights are very old and very wise. 

I look up at the stars tonight, though, and don’t think about explosions and gases. I think of the Inuit people who believe stars are actually the lights around a great dance floor in Heaven. I tilt my head back to take in as much of the velvet canopy of sky as I can. Then, I imagine instead that the stars are little windows into a world we cannot really know. They reflect golden streets and some kind of brilliance so intense that we can only stand to see pieces of it down here. They are portals to Heaven, you see, and, every once in a while, Dad can peer down and watch me watching him. 

I take a deep breath of the silver night air, now, a chill pleasantly filling my chest as I settle onto the hilltop behind my house. The moon, the lesser light, plays hide and seek behind sparse tree branches. The longer I sit and watch, though, the higher it rises, an ivory balloon some child has lost his hold on. Tonight, the moon wears a halo. They say it will snow tomorrow, though, and I imagine it dons a fleecy, white cape in order to keep it warm. 

In the distance, trucks pass by on the turnpike, their lights competing with the playful moon. It’s strange to have a highway in your backyard, but, in the summer, when I open my bedroom window so that my room will cool at night, I hear these great monsters passing by with a slow, lonely howl. They are comforting for some reason. They echo my heart here. They remind me of longing. 

What is it that the moon longs for? I wonder if it wishes to rule the day as the sun does. Maybe it desires for influence, so it plays coquet as it tugs at frothy waves. Perhaps it can only wish for companions closer than stars. Or maybe it has the better deal because it can glimpse Heaven in little snippets. Is that what why the moon sneaks between the trees and peaks over mountain tops? Oh, to have the vanilla moon’s vantage point. If only I could see so clearly.