Between Earth and Water (with Tess P)

Perhaps the landscape, heavy with yellow pears and wild roses, hangs down into the lake, mirrored in the still water where object and reflection are joined – halves of one real, unreal whole.

Maybe the floating world is on the path of yellow marigolds that lead into the house where the sugar skulls are on the table as sweet reminders of those who have loved you and who you will be when you are undone; and your love will be there on the lake when someone bends toward the water, in the flicker of the candle, among the flowers blown across the earth.

Ley Lines (with Tania P)

Perhaps ley lines, mapped in hindsight, presage the order of prayer, akin to intent prior to action or the path of ions aligning before lightning strikes. Nightly, how far above her dreaming body, after days of hours of calligraphy charting the path of the god of her time, pages of rows and rows of letters, steeped in infinitesimal kinship with each passage, did the abbess drift?

Maybe a thin film of dust has settled on what the abbess has shed and left: ruby earrings, embroidered skirt, a giltwood looking-glass that once held her face. Staring mutinously at the intricate pattern woven into the worn carpet, how often did she silently question her own abilities – a quest that served to flatten her face into a series of dramatic angles; exaggerate her heavy, lidded eyes and long aquiline nose into a seamlessly jagged silhouette that today we enjoy looking at – compelled as we are to reassemble her distant reality out of its shards.

Some Human Actions (with Tania P)

Perhaps some human actions trigger the animal brain, wiring the recipient to view most of a life’s peopled interactions as omens and intimations of potential danger, causing one to sift perpetually threat from love in a prolonged surging towards waking from reptilian slumber.

Maybe as you stand in the gleam of an autumn tree and watch the strangeness of the gentle world gone wrong tightening in prowling circles, a wind so worn from weathering quiets the tension in your limbs, cools the hot, thick flow of trepidation threatening to overcome your peace of mind, takes you by the hand and dries the tears that are the blue paint on the tip of your brush touching the white paper of the day and spreading out into a flower-shaped cloud, soon to rain snowflakes over the earth in a wintery hush.

Happiness (guest bloggers Kalli James and Sabina Fritz, age 12)

Perhaps happiness is a kitten, soft and sweet with big blue eyes, a wet black nose, and when you walk by it attacks your toes.

Maybe happiness is a burning in the dark. It draws us towards it, bright and alive like a friend in the cold, or a cricket chirping in the night. It sounds as through it is calling to the world.