Category: Love

Autumn Chill

Photo by Monica McHenney
The dawn light has changed
to a grey gold cousin of the blue brilliance that brightened my summer. 
Max's golden lab fur blends into the tawny tall grass. 
He looks at me. “What do you want? The works? Right.” 
He pees again, strolls to the center of the meadow lawn, and squats to do his business. 

His business is to 
please. It is the thing he does best, most naturally. Despite arthritis, 
his portly, chunky body seems to yield. Face aging white, 
he's older than I am. Seventy-seven. 
At seventy-two, cranky and arthritic, I won't age gratefully or graciously.

Love Changes Everything

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Jack came in from feeding the geese. “That golden goose, she’s laying plain old eggs.”

His mother looked up from stirring the magic bean stew. “Are you sure?”

Jack produced an egg from his basket. 

“Let’s see what’s inside.” She cracked the egg against the iron stove into a bowl. The yolk was pure gold surrounded by opals. “What about the others? Did she lay more?”

Jack nodded and pulled three more eggs from the basket. “Maybe she got with the gander.”

His mother cracked them each in turn and found rubies, emeralds and pearls. “She’s one mixed up goose.”

Bring a Smile Wherever You Go

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A prince and a commoner competed to cadge a smile from a princess. The prize: marriage and half the kingdom. The prince claimed the right to go first. Noob mistake.

“Look at him. Sad excuse for a man.”

Cruel, not funny, the prince was struck dumb by his own vanity.

The commoner called his posse. All kinds, all sizes of butterflies cavorted around the princess, a cloud of color. Her aroused senses softened her lips.

The commoner entreated the winged creatures. “Best beauties, brush against her ears, her nose, titillate her love of wonder.” They did just that. She smiled.

SweePea

Photo by Yusuf u00c7elik on Pexels.com

She flounced up to the desk, leaned on it with her elbows out, her fingers leaved together, and in a honeyed voice said, “My bed is unacceptable.”

The clerk handed a new arrival keys and turned to her. “I’m so sorry ma’am.”

“I want a new room, not a sniveling apology.”

“Sorry about that, too. We’re full.”

A gentleman approached, “I overheard and I’d like to offer my room.”

“Mr. Prince,” said the clerk. “How kind.”

SweePea liked what she saw when she looked at Prince. “I’ll try the bed. No point moving otherwise.”

Prince offered his arm. “C’mon honey.”

What If It Was the Mattress and Not the Pea?

Scullery Maid by Edme Bouchardon is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

Cook observed that the less than princess would fail the test the Queen had set. The sous chef nodded.

The scullery maid said, “Only a corpse could sleep on those lumps.”

“You and your airs. Anyone but a true princess could.”

“Then I tell you, I’m a princess.”

Cook pinched the maid’s cheek. “You’re not meant to nap.”

“Not on that mattress pile. I’d rather sleep under a tree.”

Cook’s nose flared. “Tell the Queen. Maybe she’ll find you a husband.”

With a cheeky grin, the scullery girl said, “Or maybe if I complain enough I’ll win my prince.”

It Takes a Princess to be a Queen

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Poor little thing, feet bare, bedraggled dress, beleaguered, and common. The prince says to me, “I’ve found a wife.”

More like a wet kit.

I could say, “She’s a sly one.” He would never listen. He has too good a heart.

So, I tell my maid, “Find her a gown. Let her sup in the kitchen. And lastly, make up the softest bed with the hardest pebbles inside as a test.” Maid’s done this many times.

The ungrateful girl eats nothing. The satin is not fine enough, the slippers too stiff. By morning, I know she’s a princess most uncommon.

A Baby is More Than a Symbol

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Pinky cheeks, a rooting mouth against Hester’s full breast, the newborn was greedy. Driven by her wants, she took what she needed. She was utterly satisfied.

Her twin brother squirmed in their father’s arms. “He’s strong, look at those little fists.” Eric passed him to his mother.

Eric gazed at his suckling son, then at his daughter.

Hester’s eyes teared up.

“We’re ready now,” Eric said. Thirty, not the nineteen they’d been when God had spared them and took away their sin. 

The mother’s emotions were more complicated. While he had gone to war, she had made her own peace.

Into Thin Air

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“Sometimes you just have to take the leap and build your wings on the way down.” Kobi Yamada.

You took flight to a new way of being. You leapt without a thought. The results were inspirational: synchronicity and an amazing feeling of destiny fulfilled.

You’d felt an itch for months, a seven year itch that couldn’t be scratched. The journey of self discovery was a circuitous odyssey spanning time, traveling the world. You invited friends and family to witness you and your partner land in a flutter of brightly colored butterfly wings, each of you wearing your mother’s wedding dress.

Some Equinox Thoughts

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After March 21st, light outruns dark. Human beings create stories across many cultures to acknowledge, to understand, to make meaning of this phenomenon. When the darkness is finally conquered by the longer days of spring and summer, tales of heroes and villains emerge. Moses and the Pharaoh (Passover), Jesus and Pontius Pilate (Easter.) Krishna and Radha conquer doubts through divine love (Holi) and the forces of good triumph over evil (Nowruz.) Remembering ancestors and preparing to plant come together (Tomb Sweeping Day.)

In September, we’ll prepare for winter decline. For now, be fruitful, make the Earth a better place.

Last Postcard

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The last postcard I sent to my mother came back labeled, “Attempted- Not Known.” My fault. I left off all but the G in Georgetown, Texas. No zip code. Maybe it was a premonition that stopped my hand. The date of return was the day she died.

“Love you,” is all I was trying to say. Would she even have heard the aide read the two words? She hadn’t responded to my daily postcards. Maybe the message was lost to her in the haze of last days, not in the post office where someone shrugged, unable to deliver the undeliverable.