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Having a fascination with time is like having a fascination with death or a monster who dresses as the
innocent.

A fascination with time is like being caught in a trap of intoxicated mortality.

The idea of the endless having an end

And the decay of a whittled stump, bewilders the mind.

A problem so complex no man could solve it and yet so simple an infant could understand it.
W
hether it be engrossed by the ticks of a clock or fending off the demons of age.

Time gets you all the same.

She’s like a ghost forever haunting and forever taking.

She’s like a generous friend who gifts love and care.

Enraptured by her beauty and betrayed by her destruction

A fascination with time will get you nowhere.

And yet here we are, watching the minutes flittering by

Waiting for the next deadline
For the next hug
For the next kiss
For the next love
For the next friend

We are all fascinated by time all the same.

Stumbling around after an uncomfortable sleep,
to the closet I meander to get dressed for the day.
I finger each outfit, carefully… pondering what to wear.
The weather has turned chilly,
and I realize that suddenly, it is November.
All of the previous conversations
that I had with myself in the spring,
came flooding back to me as I came across the dress.
The dress that I promised myself to lose a few pounds before wearing,
so that we could go dancing again like we did last summer.
Oh, I lost them, alright, then gained them back times two.
You see, it was like summer never happened this year.

I began to think about all of the dresses
that didn’t get to be worn,
not just from my closet of silly excursions,
but also the important things.
My eyes grazed a black Ralph Lauren
that had been hanging there a year.
I should be preparing to wear that little raven dress
on stage for Christmas, as I did last year.
Alas… there will be no concert this winter.
I thought of all of the black dresses, then the men’s tuxedos,
the formal gowns that will not be worn in celebration or symphonies.

The thought of the tuxedo sparked the missed
moments that should have happened, my brother’s wedding, to
name one. I was so looking forward to the pomp and circumstance,
the festivities of watching my younger sibling get hitched.
Yet another moment put on hold.
The black dress also made me realize that there were funerals
I most likely would have attended, had things been “normal,”
had things been the way that they were “supposed” to be.
Moments that will never come again.

My children are growing so rapidly, and seemingly,
faster than ever this year.
I think of the uniforms that weren’t worn because the older two
didn’t get the chance to work their first summer jobs.
I think of the dances they didn’t get to dress up for,
or the sports teams they missed out on.
I think of the swimsuits that lay dry and unworn, and the pale
skin we all now wear.
Halloween costumes, not even taken from boxes,
or decorations for that matter, as we weren’t about to take any chances.
I can only pray that winter will go quickly,
that the pandemic will leave as abruptly as it came.
I can only hope that next summer, we can take full advantage
of our closets.
I can only hope, that we will still be around to be able to.

Some of us won’t.
Some of us will be emptying out closets of loved ones,
the dresses they will never wear again.
Some of us will never have the chance to watch our children grow up,
or watch loved ones get married, or hear them sing in a choir.

I haven’t stayed in this entire time out of fear, just so you are aware.
I stayed in because of love.
I stayed in because I wanted to keep my children safe, my husband safe…
I stayed in because it helped to keep you safe.

As for now, I don’t mind the dresses hanging in the closet…
because I have a future to look forward to.
I can only hope that it remains to be so in the coming months.

Is all of this inconvenient? Is it sad?
A little, but I would rather be a little bit sad and a tad
inconvenienced than to be mourning the loss of the people I love,
just because I wanted to wear that dress.

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

From within it stirs
Barely moving, barely awake
Its breath misting, steaming, warming;
Slowly it stretches
Reaching out
Its tentative touch
As fragile as floss spun glass
Crystalline, beautiful and alive.

Sentience claims it now;
Aflood with rainbow strands
Splashes of love
Chromatic, chaotic, clarity unconfined;
A symphony of angelic chorus
Innocent and perfect in its purity.
Its fractalline beauty unrivalled in grace.

Heart thrumming
No longer pulsing alone
It has twinned, paired –
Alone nevermore.
Touch as soft as a cloud’s caress.
Gentle, calming, soothing, safe.
It is all of this and so much more.

Performed by Val Cole

come clouds
now that we are ready
eclipse our too planned joy
tomorrow we will plan again

today’s already gone
along with childhood
back into the vaults
of would be might and when
grey clouds
blue clouds
peach sky
willow tree and rain

tomorrow we will plan again.

The way you sway
as the day winds away.
Cruising past old memories on the fast lane
through asphalt paved highway
with rolled down tinted windows of our silver grey 1988 Chevrolet Biscayne on this sunny Holy Sunday.
I love the way you play;
explore my carcass, be my x-ray.
You are the blue flame igniting my corpse on the brink of decay.

It is a shame today has came
to it’s length, for me this is the end.

Stuff me with sawdust; lower me onto an unnamed grave.
Forget me and you’ll be better off, okay?
Anyway, yesterday is far long gone, I’m afraid.
As my world becomes dim, I pray you are the last memory I feast on. Imprisoned in my brain, you’re my final prey to fade.

Forgive me, I am deranged!

I do not foresee what I may say!

Please come back, please hold me dear in your embrace. Please, ____.

Last night, I opened a door to
another room of the house. There, I
found a man.

A man that wasn’t there.

The risk, the error,

the mourning sorrow,
the horror, the terror,
the lifeless hollow.
Will I be there, to be born,
entirely, in a new morrow?
Ambiguous life, stained in an empty
memory. Hunting the shadows of my
thoughts consuming the nights and
days across.

The minute that won’t follow, the
myth ‘n the confusion of this mellow,
the unknown, the prison… my only
Gollum.

Trapped inside dreams,
I, myself, could not bear,
while digging a lost place throughout
the fragments of my space.
My soul slips away,
looking for a dream to return,
a place to belong.
Shall I ever see the light in your
eyes one day?

He is neither moving nor stagnant.
Not alive nor dead. Neither closed
nor far. Not tired nor resting. He is
timeless, and time itself.
Together, we lived many lives, and we
are also living many lives in this
life. When the stars stop shining,
and the world stops spinning. When
everything turns dead, and death
awakes us. We might then stop being
together, alone, and alone forever.
Embedded in ourselves, until life
stop screaming at us for not doing
what it is meant to be. Not living,
not see, not pursuing, not building,
not be.

“Be nothing”, I shall say! Then you
will know what ’tis to exist and not
to exist, inside me.

– By Catarina César (Portugal).
Dedicated to Zervell Chicas.

The Steaming Cup of Coffee.
Brewed with a sense of history.
served with a frothy dash of
Syllables to write a new story.

The Steaming Cup of Coffee.
Table for two. Table for Three.
With neatly carved chairs
that craft the narrative of your story.

The Steaming Cup of Coffee.
In a lane of Waukesha
Opposite the Public Library
Where words often meet poetry

Her rivers run like blood in my veins.

Her forests breathe out the air that I breathe.

I walk through her fields and sense her body beneath.

Her soil. My skin.

Her oceans. My soul.

In the changing of her seasons,

my life unfolds in cycles, spinning around the sun.

She feeds me. She nurtures me.

She gives me life.

And I have betrayed her.

Take me back to your garden. Forgive me.

Let me rest in your fields.

Let me swim in your sea.

You are my ancient memory,

before I had a name or a face.

My earliest ancestor,

my deepest connection,

my birthplace.

I am a seed of your flower,

released by your blossoming,

carried by the wind,

to rest in this sacred ground.

Returning.

Remembering.

My home. My planet.

My Mother. Myself.

We embrace our Celtic ancestry
For that same time runs nigh
And seek the mystery from the Lake of Small Stones
Of a lost, ancient tribe’s practice.
Those magical Druid Holies droned, “Beannachtaí Dé”
In their sacred, Oaken Groves
And planted low-frequency seeds in spring
That one day gloriously sprang-forth, Heaven-ward.

Then you, yourselves sang glad, summer tidings
And on Samhain, lifted grateful shouts in harvest celebration
Finally, settling into hibernation with winter’s lullaby,
While Fortkind from the mouths of poet-bards
Whispered healing words of restoration
An effort of preservation to
Slow-down aging
And retain energy and life force
In unison with dolmen, stone circles;
Linked a perfectly-honed craft
Of fractal geometry,
Dependent on the majestic spruce to harness
Compressed charge.

Even now, your sacred altar of boughs and leaves
“Raises a Sham unto the Lord”
That naturally emanates joyful reverence
And encourages grace among a fellowship of fir, evergreen and nut.

Oh, Tree of Life, ever-present around the world
Primordial life, you are the most natural form of medicine
Available to us to journey toward Creator.
Please invite us into your inner body,
To transport us higher with purest intentions and awareness
And allow us to sit beneath your canopy of protection
To enjoy the splendour of your animated foliage
Or soft, sweet needles of pine
And voice a melodic cant
Praising the beauty of yew.

You encourage the wounded with loving airs
As rings outward gather to steadfast the cedar
And dream-scape a new world; of tribesmen awakened
To the fulfillment of One-ness with all who dwell in the Garden
We stewards are called together
To encircle you with thanks; our murmured hymns
Summon the wisdom of the ancients; the purpose
To build a sanctity of inner fortitude,
Which when united, we share in melodious harmony…
Slainte Mhath go Deo!

Written by RL Read, Bandruí on a mission from God
© Aye Lighthouse Productions, April 25, 2021.