Small Signs
Something told the wild geese it was time to go. I hear it in the premonition of rain, a threat of thunder, sunshine no longer crisping us like salty chips.
Somehow nerves see past the smile on my mother’s face. I listen to her words and know, ‘I have to go’, means the weather is changing for us both.
Somewhere in my heart I sense something about death. And I celebrate the seasons that make wild geese fly, nerve endings tingle and our lives fill with love.
Terri Seddon
My Natural Flair For … Squalor
It’s not much appreciated by others but it comes so easily I think “Why fight it?” So I revel in its sights and smells and sounds. The packet fell to the floor last week. It looked so dainty lying at my feet that I left it there. I admire the way a few crisps peek shyly from the opening. The scattered ones make a delightful soundtrack for my treks to other rooms. Those crisps have fed me and now the remaining few are serenading my soul.
Ruth Patching
Desert Thoughts
I wish they would stop. All the thoughts. Swirling words in my mind.
I understand it when there is so much to do.
Though it doesn’t help. But here I am
In the open Red desert. Silence.
All around me. Nothing to do.
But being in the presence . In the silence.
The noise in my head seems louder
But then, for a brief nanosecond
thought is banished.
The deep silence grows loud, grows louder
Deafening
Like the heaviest downpour of rain
My brain is humming. I can hear it.
Amazing. My body is an electrical machine.
Oops. There it goes again.
Could I have done better?
Where did it all go wrong?
Did I check the wheel nuts this morning?
This dance between silence and noise
Is this what it is to be human?
Tony Wright
Living Water
The rain enters the dream as snow. Something tangible falls into my world. Facts and foibles interact with dreams and imaginings. And the melting, melding and oozing wet reappears as other stories.
The blue path never curves. Coming after rain becoming snow, water transforms into delicate lace crystals. The crystals freeze into continuing cycles of living. And the whispering wetness reveals other words and worlds previously unknown.
‘Walk like an Indian,’ my dad says. Pointing out silent paths through glistening structures Curving creeks are taking shape. And the watery worlds of my own stories surge and splash into view.
Terri Seddon
Tomatoes
I was nine years old. Mum sent me to the green grocers to buy four firm tomatoes for the salad she was making. At the shop I looked at the tomatoes with confusion. “How do I know if a tomato is firm or not?” I didn’t want to take the wrong ones home and disappoint mum. The owner asked me what I needed. After I explained my dilemma, she picked up a tomato, pressed it and said “if there’s no dent in it when you remove your fingers, it means it’s firm”. That shop isn’t there anymore but what remains with me is the kindness of the lesson.
Cheryl