Time time time
time
TIME
Every day an envelope arrives
to be opened only by you.
Time runs a slow and swift course
through fear and clocks.
We are calendars waiting
for good news.
Framed in our doorways.
Framed in our windows.
Waiting for the envelop to arrive
with good news.
DO NOT DISCARD
it says.
But it is empty.
Waiting itself
for us to put hope
inside.
-Copyright Kay Winter
Walking down
into the morning light
down stairs
from clouds, stars, dreams.
It’s all down here.
Waiting.
Significant.
Cardinal chimes from the brown vine.
Crabapple blossoms at the kitchen window.
Crows in flight over wires.
Sirens. Rain.
Madmen measuring death
like jacket sleeves.
Copyright Kay Winter
Lisa flipped the eggs over on her beat-up cast iron skillet. She had become accustomed to cooking meals for one since the state ordered a shelter-in-place two months ago.
She closed her eyes and inhaled as the cracked pepper emanated through her tiny kitchen.
She imagined Craig, the grocery store clerk, in the kitchen with her, making small talk. Craig was the only human face she had seen since the whole community locked themselves in their homes. She and Craig didn’t conversate or anything. Their only interaction was the hand off of a credit card as she stood behind a rope, six feet between them.
But she looked forward to his warm smile. His tired eyes. His messed up hair.
She couldn’t judge his age from six feet away but imagined he was in his 30s, easily 10 years younger than her. In normal life, it would be a weird crush.
Before the quarantine, she never really dated much. Her three cats kept her swell enough company. She was an only child and quite accustomed to living and entertaining herself alone.
She practiced social distancing long before it was mandated by the government.
She had accepted that a romantic relationship was unlikely in the cards for her.
And yet. Suddenly. In such an odd time. She couldn’t wipe this stranger, with “Craig” stenciled on his name tag, out of her mind. Craig.
She plotted how things would be different for her when this was all over. She vowed to finally put herself out there. Maybe even go to a bar. Or try online dating.
She knew it wouldn’t be Craig, specifically, but it didn’t matter. She could find her Craig.
A Craig to sit and make small talk while she cooked her eggs.
A Craig who wasn’t allergic to cats.
A Craig who, like the grocery store cashier, was brave, in whatever mundane way that might translate to normal life when this was all over.
She poured the eggs on a plate and sat down on her frail, wooden chair, shoo’ing her cat off the table. Tomorrow was Thursday.
…
Thursday morning arrived, and the sun rose through her dusty blinds. Lisa sat up, her heart pounding. She showered, a long one this morning. She applied full make up. Straightened her hair. Brushed her teeth. Extra mouthwash. Put on a dress.
It was grocery day.
She jaunted out the door, a new wave of life swelling through her.
The store was busy, but everyone kept their distance. The shelves were picked over, so she grabbed what she could from her elderly neighbor’s lists.
Craig’s line was the longest, each person six feet from the next in line. But she picked that line anyway.
Twenty minutes later, it was her turn. Her heart pounded. She felt light-headed. Her hand extended. Craig’s brown eyes locked with hers for a split second. She blushed. She smiled warmly. She took the card back.
“Thank you,” Craig said, in a soothing baritone voice.
She grabbed the groceries and pranced out of the store, one hand holding the bags, the other on her heart.
She couldn’t wait until next Thursday.
I ate the butterflies
in silence
and kept my thoughts
to myself
their gentle powdery wings
fluttered in me.
I stood looking over the bluff to the swollen river below me, the early morning sun shining in my eyes and the sounds of various birds singing throughout the wood, half a dozen young deer stepped out into the clearing beside me from beneath the oak trees and stood there.
Their gray winter coats thinning, and their ears alert they gathered together, and we stared at each other, seemingly gazing into each other’s eyes with admiration and respect.
As the dew evaporated and I watched a crow announce itself as it soared high on a rising warm draft of air I couldn’t help but to think that during this time when most folks are working from home and all the shops are closed, and the cars sit idle in driveways during the Covid-19 lock down, if this natural, wild activity is simply missed at times when everyone is running to and from, working and shopping, or if it lies dormant waiting for our activity to settle.
If this became our lives, no one driving back and forth all day, no exhaust filling the air, no busy skies filled with aircraft, the malls and factories and restaurants remain closed, how long would it take for nature to reclaim itself, to take back its natural habitat, for the animals and birds to fill the air and empty spaces once again.
Long, long ago in a land far, far away called Saint something or other, there lived a handsome, magical boy with really long fingers. One day, he generously gave away many of his dear, childhood, magical, special somethings. His particular kind of love for entertaining others and filling them with joy and wonder had imbued them with his amazing, high, youthful energy of limitless creativity, joy, hope, clarity, and humor. Focusing on the beckoning future, he freely gave his dear, childhood, magical, special somethings to the other children of the village, out of his endless Goodwill. (That’s a clue, genius.)
His fairy God-Auntie (Aunties aren’t paid much attention in America, but the boy already connected with his future, international, super-cool-vibration, and knew how to value a good thing, like, say, Aunties). His fairy God-Auntie, noticing a particularly powerfully magical item to be tossed out, secreted it away for a time when the dear, eternally young magician may be more than slightly pleased and amused, inspired even, by reuniting with one of the dear, childhood, magical, special somethings from his early self, even for a brief, time-traveling moment. Because, as you know, life is made of brief and special moments. (Not all based in time travel, of course.)
So, she made the beloved cookies (made so because they were sprinkled with Fairy Dust love, one of the strongest kinds of love, that instantly when melted on the tongue, heals hurts of any kind) in red, green, and rainbow colors. (this is totally random, but her favorite were the rainbow kind) and sent them off at a time when she hoped all the DANcing elemental energies of cookies blending together with the dear, childhood, magical, special something that belonged to the boy, would help him know, just like all his Wonderful Life family, friends, and fans, that the future is brighter than ever, and he is loved more than even he, will ever comprehend.
THE END
Fairy Dust Love to all, and to all a Good Night,
Auntie
If you gaze into a solid glass orb, you’ll notice that the whole world appears upside down. It’s disorienting, confusing, and in the palm of your hand it’s even sort of fun. But if you wake one day and everything appears to be that way, as though instead of gazing into that glass orb you are trapped inside staring out at everything you knew, only it’s all upside down, turned around and backwards. All the things you thought to be true and real are now all wrong, something changed and what once was is now no longer.
You ever feel like you go to the kitchen and everything you try and pick up spills or tips and you can’t seem to hold onto anything right. Or maybe nothing is where you normally set it, your keys aren’t on the table by the door, or on the hook in the hall but instead are in the dining room, or your shoes are in the living room and not by the door to the garage, as though you suddenly forgot where everything is?
Maybe you begin to doubt your reality, maybe everyone else’s reality seems different than yours, when did things change, how did they change? Why? The very words you use are no longer appropriate, relationships change and you feel like you must have been asleep for months or years or you woke up in some reflection of your own life accept that everything is just the opposite of what it was. It makes no sense and you can’t quite wrap your head round it, one day you knew how things worked and the next it’s like you totally forgot and all you can do is stand there like you don’t speak the language and nothing makes any sense and everyone else looks at you with different eyes, you run to the bathroom to look in the mirror to check and you see the same person you’ve seen all along.
It feels like a nightmare that never ends, it just keeps rolling on and tortures your mind, wrenches at your soul and tears at your heart, day after day, week after week, year after year and it’s no longer your keys that are missing, but it’s your children, one by one they suddenly look at you as though you’re the devil and they just disappear without a word, they walk away and you can’t seem to catch up to them as though your legs don’t work any longer and eventually you lose sight of them and they’re just gone.
Its like a scar or a tattoo in the end, one you didn’t want, and you can’t shake it because it’s always there, when you wake up, when you go to bed. When every holiday comes round, or you smell a smell that reminds you of the days when you sat on the couch with your young child propped up on your lap, and you’d lean in and close your eyes and breathe in the aroma of innocence and trust, with your lips pressed against their soft, silky hair.
It’s like the absence of light on a sunny day, it doesn’t make sense, and its always cold, a cold that’s forever there, just under the surface.
