Rises every morn
spreading brightness in all lives
unbiased, the sun
Shine
Category: Unplugged
Other mother
What a mother she once was
wearing scars of child bearing
for years she nurtured them
with care that none deserved
spewing endless love across
her arms stretched, welcome
she enclosed a world within
and stood proud ever beaming
with firm grasp on the ground
a spine supporting a tall back
stood the mother many an age
though forces came her way
shaking and sucking her youth
ever unyielding, always protecting
never she’d taken any her way
for only given away all her life
until a warm, fateful day in May
kids now grown and all knowing
felled her from the roots to tip
dragging off to where she’d die
withered, weather worn, and sad
betrayed and tortured, forgotten
rested the mother awaiting a devil
the chipper that made firewood
Lakeside
Lapping with the lake
there goes a piece of my soul
At last, peace ahoy!
Photo: Autumn sunset by Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra, Australia
Silent observer
I couldn’t take my eyes off him
his long and slender back was tilted
supported by the knees slightly bent
jawbones showing, brows narrowing
he stood looking at the girl in front
who didn’t care, glanced elsewhere
unwavering he glared, his round pupils
measuring her tiny frame, flashy hair
unmoving he observed, taking in
her being and her every movement
his soul concentrated at his object
betraying not an emotion in his face
shifting only his wrists, the master
outlined her outline, his spine still
for hours he watched her, and I him
filling up my heart with so much joy
and his canvas with all that grace
I missed the sunset over my head
but he saw colour fade from the girl
and moved with alarming swiftness
he clapped. Packed. And strode off
ciao, street painter. Until tomorrow.
Photo credit: Dennis Schrader on Unsplash
The woman who knitted
“Oh, it’s just nice to get away from all the noise at home. You know?” Her eyebrows had curved up while her fingers paused in mid air. I’d nodded politely even though I couldn’t possibly fathom why someone would go to the library every day just so they can knit.
I’d just started working in the library when I met her for the first time. The curious stares never perturbed her, and neither did the incessant shuffling of feet.
People came and went. Since only a handful of them regularly spent time reading, the knitting lady soon became an icon you couldn’t miss.
In the following years, I spent occasions wondering what drove her away from home and into the library. I mean, I’d go when I wanted a book. Or to work or to attend a meeting. Theories constantly whirled my head—perhaps her neighbours were loud and rowdy, I mused turning on my cassette player at home one night. Or maybe her husband was a messy gardener leaving dirt marks all around the house to annoy her. Or perhaps, I wondered remembering my own grandparents, her grandkids were a pain in the ass and a torment to the ears.
But I never asked her.
“I should’ve,” I wrote in my diary the night after her funeral.
It wasn’t people that’d driven her way from home. It was lack there of.
The Chaos Within 