Sibylline Bard

5 Weeks

2011-01-17T23:08:00.000-08:00

I’m hiding from blood;
Clenching my thighs in protest.
How can I trust my intuition,
If it’s polluted by my dread?
Beading hope with alarm,
Bliss with worry,
Longing with surrender.
I am a doll of fate,
Gnashed about in the grip of the unknowable.
I measure my confidence in weeks.
If life is paradox,
Then must my greatest joy always,
And in equal measure,
Accompany my most ardent fear?
To celebrate is to mourn.
Yet, this duality proffers no comfort.
Shall I linger in uncertainty
Expectant of peace?
To even utter the word,
L_st
Is to give it power.
But, to trap it in a cloud of unknowing
Is, perhaps, to let it root and grow
Alongside the life
That fights to transform and persist.
Let it be concedes
To let it die.
If it is meant to be
Sits bitter and metallic on my tongue.
And so, there is but one
Meek and sincere imperative
Crying out from my stretching uterus
That vibrates every tendon, capillary, tissue
As it makes its way
To my cracked and trembling lips,
Please.
Please.
Please.

A Train at Night

2010-11-20T13:25:00.000-08:00

I like the train best at night.
I hide my face under the curtain
To foil the glare
From scattered reading lights
In an otherwise dark cabin, and
Press my cheek to the cold window.
All the world is in shadow;
The evergreen silhouettes
School the night in darkness.
I spy a planet, orange and unwavering
In the charcoal sky.
On a cloudy night, like this one,
The lighted blotches on the lid
Hint at cities nestled
In some hidden valley.
Wisps of red light fly by
At the crossings,
But there is no sign of life,
Other than the muffled snores
And creaks of a train at night.
I am a quiet voyeur
Sailing slowly by a slumbering wilderness;
Searching for searching eyes
That glimmer yellow in the moonlight.
Then, as the train pulls west around a bend,
I see it, a sparkling snake
Penetrating an abysmal horizon.
I am a wild thing
On a train at night.

Longing for the Deep

2010-08-11T10:51:00.000-07:00

He found her crouching in the ice plants on the cliffs of the sea
Her skin irredescent as the sand as it slips through your fingers
Hair, whipping wildly with the wind as it rushes up the shore
The color of the sun as it drinks the vast blue lifeblood of their small island
She did not shutter as he approaoched, though his presence was formidable.
She simply reached for the water with the longing of a drunk after wine
She pulled herself along the ground, dragging her body into submission
She sent rocks cascading down the interminable precipice before he caught her
She fought at first, but then lost her will quickly
With energy enough only to reach again for the deep
He carried her down the mule path his people had forged long ago
He clasped her white flesh with his dark, thick arms pressing her tightly to him
He inhaled her salty breath as her head fell heavy on his bare, broad shoulders
He wore only the sarong of hsi tribe and the royal band of leather and bone
He reached the warm sand, marching forward toward the breaking waves
The water seemed a fuel to her near lifeless form
Her body squirmed and writhed free of his grasp
Like a fish wriggling loose from the fatal skewer of a spear
Fighting for one last chance at freedom, though in vain
Her arms swung wildly at her side as she fought for each heavy step
Deeper and deeper she strode, with purpose and desperation
He waited on the shore, letting the water hit his knees without notice
He watched her as a terror and a longing gripped his chest
He blinked the sun back in his eyes, raising his hand to his forehead
He searched the water, but she was gone.
He leapt with fury, diving into the shallow water and propelled with earnest
Somehow his life was now bound to hers and he felt his spirit dying
She hovered just below the surface of the water, swaying with the sea's rhythm
She did not respond has he hoisted her above water, throwing her over his shoulder
She began to cough as they reached the shore and as her consciousness returned
She kicked madly, screaming in magnificent torment
She clawed, bit and scratched his tanned back, hollering for her death
As though he were her punisher and not her savior.
Then, in an instant, she was asleep, limp in his arms again.
It was like moving in a dream, gathering wood, food and shelter
This was his home, and yet it seemed so foreign to him.
How he had longed for something other, something spectacular
They all thought him foolish, but he knew it would come, she would come.
She stirred in her weary sleep, like a woman plagued by demons
She calmed as he rubbed coconut oil on her chapped lips and aloe on her pink skin
She was a mystery and yet he knew her so clearly, and himself through her.
She would need him and he would forfeit his life to save her, provide for her, love her.
She was dangerous, but he would give his heart to no one else.
Just as the sweetest oysters come from the perilous underbelly of treacherous rocks
He knew that she housed a great treasure that would whisper new promise
He would tell his people he had seen a sign from the god of the sun.
He was caught in its mirage, perhaps, but he would not faulter from his purpose
He will bestow upon her every treasure in his posession and if she will have him
He will make her his bride.

young hands

2010-06-07T14:27:00.000-07:00

why are your hands so soft?

they're old.

she pulls at her loose skin quizzically,

pondering the blotched olive crests

like toasted meringue

that fall slowly, but never completely.

then, just as slowly, her eyes fall to my hands

pink and iridescent, freckled and slender

angled and extended near hers.

now, those are young hands.

then back to her own,

funny how that happens.

i wait for something eloquent or profound

to say, or even something funny.

but, nothing could be simpler.

her hands are old.

my hands are not,

well, not to her.

funny, i thought.

my hands look so old.

the entirity of your life

2010-02-28T19:10:00.000-08:00

have you ever cocooned so deeply
that you no longer notice the weight of the laptop
or that the room has gone dark all around you?

have you ever postponed going to bathroom
until you are hungry or need to plug in your phone
so as not to waste the effort of the cold walk to the next room?

has pain and discomfort slowed time to the point
that you regret each day you have to bear, each meal you're forced to
feed the body that is perpetually betraying you?

have you ever thought you were depressed only to discover
that your life is simply depressing right now and the only peace
you find is in giving up, surrendering to the dark inevitable?

have you ever surmised the entirity of your life
by looking at the wrappers, bloody gauze, drooping flowers, unfinished books, half empty ginger ale bottles, tea cups loaded with a used yogurt spoon and tissues, pill bottles and the water glass you keep refilling
that comprise your complete lack of activity in the past week?

hot tea

2010-02-11T15:10:00.000-08:00

i always burn my lips on boiling hot tea
it's my ritual
i know it's not steeped properly
i know it's too hot
but it's worth it

the fleeting moment of perfect tea haunts me
it's the wet chase
i need to taste that blissful sip
i sacrifice
but it's worth it

any fool can negligently gulp down cold tea
mindlessly partaking
likewise, any fool could write this poem
and yet, i needed to talk about tea today
today, however, i'm drinking coffee

This Year's Valentine

2010-02-09T21:47:00.000-08:00

by Philip Appleman

They could
pump frenzy into air ducts
and rage into reservoirs,
dynamite dams
and drown cities,
cry fire in theaters
as the victims are burning,
but
I will find my way through blackened streets
and kneel down at your side.

They could
jump the median, head-on,
and obliterate the future,
fit .45's to the hands of kids
and skate them off to school,
flip live butts into tinderbox forests
and hellfire half the heavens,
but
in the rubble of smoking cottages
I will hold you in my arms.

They could
send kidnappers to kindergartens
and pedophiles to playgrounds,
wrap themselves in Old Glory
and gut the Bill of Rights,
pound the door with holy screed
and put an end to reason,
but
I will cut through their curtains of cunning
and find you somewhere in the moonlight.

Whatever they do with their anthrax or chainsaws,
however they strip-search or brainwash or blackmail,
they cannot prevent me from sending you robins,
all of them singing: I'll be there.

where is health?

2010-02-02T14:46:00.000-08:00

if my health is entangled in my soul
and the interminable list of extraordinary ailments
perpetually expands
what does this tell of my soul?

am i enduring the trials of job
not according to my sin
or under the unjust scrutiny of god
but, a reprehensible test of faith?

or is this the work of empathy
that great tug of war betwixt the bleeding hearts
and my own anxious circle of life
which manifests as pestering illness?

could it be that a life of self-neglect
lobotomized from any real body presence
has finally caught up with me
and demands to be heard through painful means?

wherefore is my body riddled with
vertigo, migraines, uterine charlie horses, tendinitis, arthritis,
tmj, inflammation, fatigue, insomnia, palpitations, deviated septum,
thyroid nodules, autoimmune malfunction and pain, so much pain?

do i really want to know the state of my soul?
are these afflictions the abject denial of my soul's true state?
do i have a soul?
where is health?

if you wonder where i am

2010-01-27T11:59:00.000-08:00

if you wonder where i am
ask the postman
he'll tell you my mail has piled up
packed and bursting into my sad copper bin
sitting in a row with all the other apartment boxes
210, 405, 108, that one's mine
"not sure where she's got off to," he'd say
"by the looks of this, she sure ain't here."
stuff, stuff, cram and shut.

if you haven't found me yet
ask the grocer
he runs the little market
next to the taco joint and the dry cleaner
he's seen me walk in with cloth bags
and walk out with wine, carrots and goat cheese.
"oh the red head with the taste for cheap red wine," he'd say,
all sure and unconcerned.
"haven't seen her in weeks."
brrrring, brrrring goes the door and the register.

if i'm still wandering about
ask the holy father
no doubt, he keeps tabs on me
he squelches my silly whims
he unveils my secrets and shouts them to the world
no dignity, nowhere to hide
"not for that sad little girl," he says.
"i'll tell you where she is, but first
love me as i love you."
for there is always a condition.

what are those faces

2010-01-20T02:32:00.000-08:00

stay in the hall, baby
no, don't you come in here
you hear me, baby girl, i mean it
shh, it's ok
just wait for mommy
i'll be right back
oh god, oh please god no
wake up, goddammit, you hear me
wake the fuck up
don't you leave me, not like this
nothing's the matter, baby
oh god
just stay in the hall like a good girl
that's right, daddy is just sleeping
hello, i have an emergency
my husband is unconscious in our living room
there's blood everywhere and, i...i
i think it's coming from his head
please send an ambulance quickly
don't tell me to calm down, i am calm
i'm sitting in a pool of blood, his blood
the fucking love of my life
so shut the hell up and get here
soon, what the hell is soon, please
no, i can't feel a pulse and he's um, i don't think he's breathing
should i start cpr, oh god, what the hell happened
who did this
what the fuck is happening
yes, i'm still here
i have a towel in the bathroom
ok, i'll put pressure on it just wait, jesus
i can't breathe
ok, ok i'm pressing it on his head where it's bleeding
i don't hear the sirens, where the hell are they
oh, don't cry sweetheart
daddy is going to be ok
the policemen and ambulance are coming to take daddy to the hospital
they can make him better there
i know, honey, i want to hug you too, but i have to be with daddy now
just listen to my voice, honey
we're going to be ok
sing for you, ok baby what should we sing
ariel, of course, help me start it sweetheart
look at this stuff isn't it neat
wouldn't you think my collections complete
wouldn't you think i'm the girl
the girl who has, oh god
it's the sirens, do you hear the sirens baby
oh thank god, oh please god hurry
he has a head wound
there's blood everywhere
i don't know how long, at least 10 minutes
is he going to be ok
come here baby
shhh, just rest your head
i know you're tired, just sleep on mommy
i'm going with you in the ambulance
please put my daughter up front with you
no there's no one, i need her with me
i'm not going anywhere baby, you're staying with me no matter what
sirens
beeps
traffic
creaks
mumbles
the dull piercing drone of a flatline
screaming
do something
cops at the er
my baby girl in my arms
my love in a mess of tubes and blood covered with fumbling emts
don't try to handle me
you don't get to ask me a damn thing until i know my husband is alright
what do you mean i can't go with him
don't ma'am me, that is my heart and soul you are taking with you
they're taking daddy to a special room where the doctors can make him better
i don't know, baby, i don't know
pacing
crying
holding
pleading
the coffee they gave me goes cold, untouched
her head is heavy in my lap, asleep
three of them come out
what are those faces, what do their faces mean
i'm sorry, mrs...
white
black
red
a nurse takes my baby
my knees give way with a snap
the grey sterile carpet tastes like snot, tears and detergent
i need to see him
now, take me to see him
i don't care
i walk into my own death
i've orphaned my daughter
how can i tell her, we were one flesh
grafted into one vine
what will be left of me for her
she will never know me as a living creature
the night is over

Cave des Oubliette, scene 2.

2009-11-02T13:56:00.000-08:00

That tight, hollow ache in her chest starting filling with strenuous palpitations. She noticed her fists were clenched. As she loosened her grip and stroked her hot clammy palms, she gave herself a little pep talk.

"You can do this, Cybol," she thought. "You were made for this moment. Don't blow it. Be yourself."

The voice of her mother and father, berating and encouraging.

She fell back into the booth, slinking into the cover of the unlighted boundary. Mindlessly, she raised her hand to her face and cupped her lower jaw, delicately dabbing her cheek. This unconscious habit always followed the sudden anxious flutter that flushed her cheeks and sent a hot chill down her arms.

He hadn't spoken again. How long had they been silent? She turned her faced to the entrance, still cradling her cheek and could just make out the corner of a window to confirm that it was still morning.

He hadn't moved. He watched her shift and relaxed at her subtle self-conscious movements. He knew women. He smiled as her pale, slender fingers passed through the amber light and reach toward her face. When she turned her head, her hair, clumsily pulled into a loose twist flashed from behind the darkness, a crimson, copper red. His dream flooded back into his memory and filled him up.

That red hair. It was loose and fell down her back. Her skin wasn't pale, but iridescent; not reflecting the light, but somehow, emanating it. Though at first her visits were ethereal and filled his mind with a voice that carried wisdom and inspiration, it wasn't long before they became sexual. It didn't take long for anything to become sexual in his life. Women were always drawn to his inner fury, an insatiable, incendiary passion that inevitably destroyed every moth to the flame.

He sat, silent, regretting his last confession. He didn't want to tell her. He watched her sip on her scotch again. He waited for her to speak.

"I hadn't thought of that. It didn't occur to me that you would be told of me as well. Do you know my name?"

"No."

He folded deeper into the memory of those vivid dreams. Had he heard a name? Sigh. He heard himself call out, "Sigh."

Her long fingers coiled around the highball glass and her left forearm stretched over the sticky brown table. With the instinct of a familiar lover, he let his right hand fall over hers, the thick expanse of it covering it completely.

"Sigh?"

She leaned forward. He followed suit. He watched her green eyes flash fiercely with betrayal.

"Only my mother calls me that, Cy. My name is Cybol. And, you're Vincent."

La Dominicana

2009-01-30T13:49:00.000-08:00

She speaks to me. Every day I hear some new aspect of her being, crying out to me. She wants to be written. She wants me to tell her story.

She was born into poverty on the sugar cane fields, the neglected third child of five. She compulsively sought out hiding places. She would sit in darkness, letting the images of her mind overtake the shadows shrouding her. She stole chalk from the schoolhouse, lipstick from her mother, anything she could find to paint her world. She drew on the adobe walls of her secret nook under the house. She drew on the stone pillars that kept it off the ground, away from the insects. She scraped faces in the sand with a stick, the faces of a happy children. She plucked flowers, staring at them in silence for hours.

It wasn't until a few years after puberty that she became aware of her beauty. Older men would touch her in the street as she ran errands for her mother. Local artists would sell their paintings at the docks. She always passed longingly, so many colors. She received her first paintbrush and bottle of tomato red paint from a man whom she let see her newly formed breasts. When she became wise to this ancient bartering system, she collected sixteen different colors, three brushes and a canvas she used over and over again. She learned that the less she gave them, the more they wanted and the more worth she accrued.

By the time she was eighteen two of her sisters had died of pneumonia, and her father was weakened beyond the ability to work. She provided for her family through the only trade and talent she knew. It wasn't prostitution, not like those dirty, diseased women on the streets cackling at passers-by. She was a companion to lonely men, unhappy men, with only their money to show for a long wasted life, which they were only too happy to shower upon her. Her mother shamed aloud her each night as she prayed to Sta. Maria over the meal that her sin procured. Though she kept little money for herself, what she did take, she spent on painting supplies.

She took her work to the docs each weekend, the only woman with the audacity to merchant her work in such a way. But, she had long since abandoned listening to the interminable whispers and snide hissing from the townspeople. Occasionally, she sold a painting to one of the tourists that had arrived on the boats from Miami to Santa Domingo. The paintings of calla lilies, fishing boats, and broad views of the cane fields with the mountains towering majestically in the background always sold better. But, she really loved painting the old women who sat on the stoops in front of their blue doors chewing sugar canes, the drunken men collapsed in front of the market still passed out the morning after, children clustered ominously around the tour buses begging for an American Dollar. These paintings never sold, but they freed her.

She knew she could never marry, women of her kind, never did. She had offers, certainly, but they were not sincere, only half-hearted musings of men desperate for her sex. She was in love once. A painter who often discussed art with her for long hours. They would make love in the cane fields and he would paint her nude. She watched hungrily at each stroke. She lost herself in her love and admiration for him, and found herself dreaming aloud of a career as an artist. Bent double in laughter, he cupped her naked breast, tickling her nipple with his extended thumb, and assured her that her only advancement in the art world would be to model her curves. "Nobody wants to see the world as it is, and certainly not through the eyes of a whore."

After her mother died, and her siblings had married off, she let an apartment in town. She never sold her body for money again. She painted until her wrists shook. She painted with the desperation of a hundred starved soldiers in a trench. She painted to atone for her sins, each stroke a lashing on her back. She painted her sexual encounters with men, the feverish ogling expression of a man watching her undress, the blissful calm of a man asleep and satisfied by her, and she painted self-portraits of each emotion that arose whenever she remembered these events. She was purging herself, lusting after salvation.

the layers of my life: a memoir in the making

2009-01-13T23:58:00.000-08:00

this is a project i began in the summer of 2002 with my grandmother, Barbara Helen Seufert. She passed the following February before she could take me to her Dominican. she did make one thing very clear, however. she wanted her memoir to be called, The Layers of My Life, and so it shall be.

i have long known that i would need to separate her into several women to give any kind of genuine representation to the degree of fullness which depicts her life. so, i intend to write a fictional biography utilizing the following characters to tell her complex, dramatic, dark, magnificent story.

i haven't named the women yet, but here they are:

only child: deceptive, controlled, fearful, constant correspondence, co-dependent
thespian: flirtatious, confident, independent, glamorous
major's wife: hostess, gossiper, resentful, gimlets, japan
mother: distant, secretary, demanding, well-meaning, jealous
dominican artist: sensual, mysterious, passionate, legendary, suicidal
nana: exuberant, humorous, community director, unwitting caretaker
cancer patient: girlfriend, distrustful, intelligent, beloved

i'm in desperate need to finish something, for the sake of knowing closure again. but, this project in particular is winsome to me. i look forward to embarking on this project with you.

Cave des Oubliette, scene 1.

2008-12-07T14:45:00.000-08:00

"I dreamt of you, wandering, deserted."

"Have we met?"

"The suffocating task of inspiration. Always striving, pulling from gutters, you scratch on walls creating a world for yourself."

"Is it you?"

She trembles, nodding. Half believing herself to still be in slumber, for so often she has seen that face whilst adrift in her sub-conscious. The hand is real that clutches hers, pulling gently.

"Come with me."

She quietly follows into a dark pub closed from the gray morning light, and slinks into an oaken booth stained in shadows. A dirty washrag draped over a black apron approaches. She doesn't look up.

"Scotch. Neat."

She nods in agreement, assertively this time. They don't speak until the wash rag returns. A bare wrist littered with wiry brown hairs and amateur tatoos faded teal with time drops a tumbler in front of her, which splashes the amber tonic on her wrist. She draws her hand to her parted lips, suckling off the drops.

"How do you know me? What have you seen?"

She looks up from her hand, slowly closes her lips and drops her fingers around the glass without losing eye contact.

"I..."

A sharp inhale whistles down her throat. Her eyes drop as she exhales. The scotch glows in the negligible wake of a tea candle set inside a dusty globe of pocked yellow glass. The light extends just to the edges of the table. Only leaning forward are their faces visible to one another. She takes a tenuous sip and revels for an instant at the sting, the woody fumes rising into her nasal cavity.

"You are lost. Forgotten. Trapped. Is this so?"

"Yes, but... yes."

A tenderness sweeps over her face, softening the furrowed brow that concealed her youth.

"I have dreamt of you. I have seen the labyrinth of your wanderings. The cement walls would be your prison unto death, but you have not ceded your sanity to the gray world. Not yet. You paint the walls with images from your childhood, both from memory and fantasy.

"I have seen your cedars, your rainbows, your faeries, your lions, your chimneys, you leather shoes, your mother. You paint your life as it was, but also as you wanted it be. Every day you create, and yet, as you turn the corner you see only more gray and forget from whence you came. You lose all the effort of your paintings, only to paint again.

"Tell me, from where does this fortitude come? Why do you persist so vociferously?"

The face disappears into shadow as the figure reclines against the tall wooden back of the booth. A large hand emerges from the abyss, wraps around the full glass of scotch opposite and lifts it until it is likewise enveloped. With little delay, the hand returns with an empty glass and as it is laid gently on the table, the face reappears.

With a sincere,handsome smile, he says, "I, also, have dreamt of you."

Fretful Reunion

2008-11-24T21:19:00.000-08:00

It took a bottle of blended Italian wine to prepare me for this meeting, and still I'm awash with turmoil and acid reflux. The aroma of roasted Romano cheese on the wings of the wind was replaced with vintage book dust and burnt espresso as I shifted my weight to swing the unexpectedly heavy door. Dizzy from an effort like that of gazing at a hungry hummingbird, I carried a forlorn cloud into the bookstore.

She's in here somewhere, I thought. But, my search has not yet ended. I browsed the window display, more out of judgmental curiosity than consumer affinity. What has she deemed worthy of display? East of Eden (predictable), Augustine's Confessions (romantic), Milton's Paradise Lost (classic), yet another book by Kooy, and several first editions by Plath, Tolstoy, and Shakespeare. I heard the echo of her voice from the back, "Pulitzer Prize, my ass."

She continued on some rant about Cormac McCarthy. I'm greeted in Italian by an uncommonly beautiful youth who can't help but tuck her coffee black silken hair behind her ears. When I ask for the lady of the store, I'm met with a knowing smile. She arrives before beckoned, clairvoyant as ever. Perhaps she smelled my musty odor. We embrace before speaking. All is right. The only thing amiss has been my absence, too long, inexcusable.

Our Zen moment is interrupted by another staff member clutching a telephone, "But, they need to know how many copies we want."

Without having to think, she replies, "What is it with Portland? Oregon brews these freakishly, fantastical authors - fascinated with the off color beauty of the grotesque." Here, I warrant a wink. "Not to say that both Palahniuk and Dunn are not geniuses, but it's weird man. Weirdly coincidental."

We embrace again. She points. I hear milk steaming. I'm guided to the crevice of the corner of the darkest moment of the store. She finds a door hidden to strangers. A wall moves. We enter a room that feels like home, only no home you've ever known: artistic, consoling, warm, dimly lighted, amber, earthy, cushioned, expectant.

Above her desk (older than her grandmother's grandmother, but just as lovely) is an embroidered tapestry which reads, "The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, and all the sweet serenity of books, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow." Her plants are thriving, her candles depreciating, her carpet worn, her tea kettle ever at the ready. She's here to stay. As am I, at last. "At last," she insists. I've come here to die. She's been here, living. We're older than our mothers, perhaps even wiser. They'd intended for us to supersede them.

She unravels a vine tangled at the root as she inquires after my journey. "Long," I say. "Liquored," I explain. "Tired," I excuse. "He's unpacking our things, of course. I had to come right over, naturally. I've missed you, desperately. We'd always intended, too long, I'm sorry, but you understand, what really mattered, we needed to, let's get a drink." Beaming, as though nothing I say went awry, "I know just the place."

Mme. Whimsy

2008-11-19T14:18:00.000-08:00

The realities of hot climate had long since made their mark on her once deliciously somber wardrobe. So the woman I knew, the woman who loved me so well all those many years ago was nearly unrecognizable in all her bare glow as she sauntered down the steep cobble stone steps. She still sauntered. Chin parallel with the ground, intentional hippy steps, brisk, but gentile, determined, but overly familiar and content with her surroundings.

Her black fedora, abandoned, and in its place flounced a wide-brimmed stone sun hat. The mountain breeze flitted her caramel hair across her naked shoulders. She was more olive. I could see the heat rolling off her acclimated skin. An indiscernible pattern in satsuma orange hugged her trim figure where once a plethora of grays would layer her look in wools, tweeds,and cashmeres. The charcoal and chocolate crocheted chenille scarf that once coiled cozily around her neck was usurped by a white pashmina draped organically around her arms. I could barely make out her delicate leather sandals, unlike the formidable tobacco boots with a respectable patina from loving overuse.

Perhaps the most incongruous aspect of my old friend were her hands. Empty hands. No water bottle. No phone. No oversized hobo bag, not even a clutch. A spontaneous gale arose as she walked under the arches of the Basilica de San Francesco and I watched as her left hand gripped her shawl and the right circled around her wide brim and stamped firmly on top of her hat. She paused. Breathed. Taking in the sea blue sky and blurs of vibrant green shrouding the vista. Then, she turned several corners of the stone labyrinth with instinctive speed and I had difficulty following her.

Just as I caught up with her, risking perhaps to call out her name at last, she tucked into a charming storefront gilded with hanging ferns, climbing ivy and a cherry red begonia sprawling happily over its indigenous habitat. A wrought iron lamp crested the store's sign. My soul smiled.

To be continued...

to writing, to writing

2008-11-19T12:47:00.000-08:00

a space dedicated exclusively to the humble pursuit of the literary voice. stay tuned...