Lying quietly in my bed, night is spread across my blankets, cool, and airy. My window frames are frosted, and the huge pines laden with snow. I am trying to find within myself an image of peace to focus on. My mind wanders, and I am thinking of all the things I love, listing them, and stopping when I come to trees. In a tree I find a picture of "peace". I see a girl as a tree. Her feet become the roots, resting deep in the dark, damp soil. I think of how I love touching wetted soil, how it seems so fresh and dirty at once.
Her body is the bark of the tree, smooth and dark brown, like chocalate. The leaves, various shades of red and orange are her hair, strands and strands of leaves so long they almost touch the grassy landscape. Her eyes are knots in the bark, brown like the tree itself. She has no mouth, she is silent, forever watching, mute. I imagine her arms are the branches, reaching upward, to the sky. She stands, rooted in deep into the ground, happy to be feeling the earth, being part of the earth.
What are these images, why are they special, something we remember?
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Places
We drive by St. Mary's football field, and Hoskin Meyers floral shop. A little brown house sits on the opposite curb. My mom points to it, "That is one of the places I grew up." She says she remembers the breezeway and backyard. And the house behind theirs, the "castle," she calls it.
My grandma talks about her old house as if it were a castle. It stood tall on a hill, she says. And you could look outside through these huge windows and see al the city lights. And her brother and sisters and herself would roll and do cartwheels down the hill in their backyard. She loved that house.
And then there is me. I think it is the church bells, ringing every morning, and the train, roaring by every night that I love. And the trees, tall pines, looming beside the red fence, now turning a mossy green, with the sun shining through their branches in the early morning. They shelter us in the winter snow, and are an airy tunnel in the summer months. Beside the pines is an apple tree, blooming every spring, and giving us big red apples for homeade applebars come fall. Lastly is our weeping willow tree, solitary in our front yard. It is dying. But still their.
The arches in our basement and little "boxcar" room, hidden underneath the staircase, I like them. Our red-pink, lime green, purple, lavendar, light blue, and yellow-orange walls are crazy, but fun and beautiful, like life.
I know I love my house, and my mom and grandma, they loved theirs.
So us people, we can love places and colors and sounds. We live to explore, but call one place home. This place brings back memories, and those to come. And that is where I am. In my house, or hiding among our trees. That is where you will find me.
My grandma talks about her old house as if it were a castle. It stood tall on a hill, she says. And you could look outside through these huge windows and see al the city lights. And her brother and sisters and herself would roll and do cartwheels down the hill in their backyard. She loved that house.
And then there is me. I think it is the church bells, ringing every morning, and the train, roaring by every night that I love. And the trees, tall pines, looming beside the red fence, now turning a mossy green, with the sun shining through their branches in the early morning. They shelter us in the winter snow, and are an airy tunnel in the summer months. Beside the pines is an apple tree, blooming every spring, and giving us big red apples for homeade applebars come fall. Lastly is our weeping willow tree, solitary in our front yard. It is dying. But still their.
The arches in our basement and little "boxcar" room, hidden underneath the staircase, I like them. Our red-pink, lime green, purple, lavendar, light blue, and yellow-orange walls are crazy, but fun and beautiful, like life.
I know I love my house, and my mom and grandma, they loved theirs.
So us people, we can love places and colors and sounds. We live to explore, but call one place home. This place brings back memories, and those to come. And that is where I am. In my house, or hiding among our trees. That is where you will find me.
Land
Do we love this land?
Do we, really?
Not because of oil deposits and room for more houses, new and big. But do we look at it, and are we glad we landed here?
I never have. I've thought, "it's pretty," and enjoyed its sunsets, but I never really saw it. Then, an image made me realize its full potential beauty.
Pivture driving out in the countryside on a mild december night. The sky a slate gray color, and stars bright. Our winter sun had set. The tall grasses were laden with snow, and caressed by a light wind. Black plateaus and hills rolled across the land in an endless stretch, rythmically moving with the grasses. The only light cast from our own headlights.
Later, as we climbed a hill I looked down, and saw the twinkling light s of our city. A few shrubslined the black road. the land seemed to breath with me. Its heart beat with mine. It was alive. And I felt it too.
Do we, really?
Not because of oil deposits and room for more houses, new and big. But do we look at it, and are we glad we landed here?
I never have. I've thought, "it's pretty," and enjoyed its sunsets, but I never really saw it. Then, an image made me realize its full potential beauty.
Pivture driving out in the countryside on a mild december night. The sky a slate gray color, and stars bright. Our winter sun had set. The tall grasses were laden with snow, and caressed by a light wind. Black plateaus and hills rolled across the land in an endless stretch, rythmically moving with the grasses. The only light cast from our own headlights.
Later, as we climbed a hill I looked down, and saw the twinkling light s of our city. A few shrubslined the black road. the land seemed to breath with me. Its heart beat with mine. It was alive. And I felt it too.
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