Slices of Life
The Lompoc Writers Association
Published by The Lompoc Writers Association
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2005 The Lompoc Writers Association
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Table of Contents
Tammy Cravit
*** ~~~ **
Preface
If a facet of life has meaning to an individual, it can – and should – be expressed. Sometimes such expressions are awkward and clumsy, and at other times graceful and awesome. And yet, as writers, we honor and value both expressions equally.
The Lompoc Writers Association is a group of individuals united through our common love of the written word. Among our members, we count those whose nascent abilities have yet to bear fruit, as well as those whose creative visions are more fully realized. It is the express aim of the Association to provide the fertile soil in which both can grow and flourish.
If you sit a dozen painters before a bowl of fruit and ask them to paint what they see, you’ll get a dozen distinct works of art, each presenting a slice of life according to their individual rendering of shadow and light. So it is too with writers. Each of us perceives the world through the lens of our own unique and precious life experiences. In our writing, we breathe our individual souls onto the page.
We invite you to join in those visions, and to sample the unique textures, scents, and tastes of each of our members. Within the pages of this book you may be amused or amazed, saddened or cheered, angered or soothed. But we hope that no matter what, you’ll enjoy our “Slices of Life.”
— The Members of The Lompoc Writers Association Lompoc, California March, 2005
*** ~~~ **
Acknowledgements
The contributors wish to acknowledge the support of:
Jerri Thiel, Read More Books, Lompoc, CA.
C. Dennis Anderson, Lompoc Valley Chamber of Commerce
Our advance reviewers, whose feedback helped make this work what it is: Ana Banda, Joe Carlson, Melinda Cunningham, Maria Hamane, Sue Hammerich, Susan Hurst, Bob Nelson, Sara Nichols, Beverly Taylor, Heidi Townsend, Gayle Walters, Claudia Weinstein, Michelle Winters, Laura Gaboury Watson.
Our families and loved ones, those related to us by blood and the ones we’ve chosen for ourselves, who daily feed and nourish our souls. Without them, this collection could never have come to pass. With them, our creative vision was realized, and for that we are forever grateful.
*** ~~~ **
Marilyn Stankewich
Writing enables me to face the powerful forces of sorrow, fear and despair to their simplest forms and find that we are never alone; to show that our darkest hour is one minute closer to the beginning of the next dawn and that love and laughter are the true strengths of being human.
This is on a good day…on a regular day…I don’t have a clue.
TELL TALE SIGNS
“Where have you been?” said Slithering Sue to her son, Sliding Sam.
“What makes you ask?” said Sam with a grin.
“Don’t try to fool me,” said Sue ever so sternly, “I know you’ve been up to something.
“I’ve been to the swamp. It’s sunny today and I’ve been coiled on a stump, just humming and dozing all day.”
“What have you eaten?” asked Sue with a warning rattle. “Telling the truth is half of the battle.”
“Just dozing and humming, like I said,” Sam said sliding smoothly past his mom to his hole in the ground.
“You’ve been eating between meals,” said Sue with drawn hooded eyes. “I can tell you didn’t listen and that hurts me the most.”
“How can you say that?” Sam replied opening his eyes wide to look innocent. “I been sleeping and snoring, not moving a muscle. It makes me sad to come home to all this fuss and tussle.”
“That does it,” said Sue, “Go to your hole without any supper.”
Sam slinks slowly to his hole and gets stuck half way down. He can’t go in and he can’t pull out. Pushing and pulling, Sam wonders, “I wonder how she knew I had a turtle for a snack. I need to sit and digest on that.”
PRIDE
Pride gets me nowhere.
I can see it in their eyes,
When I puff up my life,
With elaborate disguise.
Only causes disdain and pain
Draws attention to my defects.
A bobbing starving baby bird,
Squawking in desperation,
Trying anything to be heard.
Only causes disdain and pain
Tired of striving for perfection.
Humble’s easier to swallow,
Efforts sliding without pretension,
Peace can’t help but follow.
Gave up pain and can’t complain
HOW THE HYENA GOT HIS LAUGH
In the days when the world was new and the animals were still changing, Scruffy was a small scruffy animal that looked like a skinny dog with a long sad face. His voice was high and squeaky and he couldn’t growl. Whenever he would try to growl, it would sound like a high humming noise and it didn’t frighten anyone and many of the animals laughed at him.
Rabbit was one of the animals that laughed the most. Rabbit was a proud animal because he loved his long ears, his huge back legs and his fine voice. He was so proud of his long powerful legs, he was always trying to get the other animals to race with him just to show off and laugh at them when he won. But, Scruffy was the animal Rabbit liked to laugh at the most because he not only looked scruffy, his voice was squeaky.
One day, Scruffy went to the stream to get drink of water and saw a huge rock by the water’s edge. He jumped up on the rock and looked up the stream and down the stream. Then he looked into the water and saw the ugly and scariest animal he had ever seen. He jumped off the rock and shook his head. Then he thought, “I wonder if Rabbit would be brave enough to look at such a scary animal?” Scruffy ran off over the hill to the meadow where Rabbit lived and found Rabbit munching on some dandelion weeds.
“Hey, Rabbit. I just saw the scariest animal in the stream, but you won’t be able to see it, because you are not brave.”
At this, Rabbit spit out a dandelion leaf and said, “I’m braver than most, especially you. If you are brave enough to look at the scariest animal in the stream, I am too. Where is it?”
“Follow me,” yipped Scruffy, over his shoulder, as he ran off down the hill to the rock in the stream. “Just stand on top of the rock and lean over and you will see the most terrifying creature.”
Rabbit hopped on top of the rock and leaned over to see what Scruffy found so frightening. But, try as he could, Rabbit couldn’t see a scary animal and only saw his own reflection. “Are you sure this is the place?” asked Rabbit, a little annoyed leaning closer to the water.
“Yes, that’s the place. You are probably too short to see it, lean over a little farther, said Scruffy.
So Rabbit leaned over farther and not to be outdone by a hyena, he leaned farther still. Just then a bumble bee flew toward Rabbit and settled on his nose. Rabbit waved him off with one paw, lost his balance and fell into the stream. Well, Rabbit liked to look at water, he liked to drink water, but he didn’t like to be in water and he began to sink. Then he remembered about his powerful legs and Rabbit kicked furiously with his back legs while he yelled. This made lots of splashes and Rabbit began to go around in circles while yelling louder than he had ever yelled before.
The hyena began to laugh. His laugh started with a smile, grew into a chuckle, gave in to a “ha,” followed by a “hee-hee,” then “ha-hee-hee-a-ha-haa-haa-haa.” Scruffy laughed so long and so loud that animals came from far and wide to find out what was so funny.
They weren’t disappointed when they saw Rabbit going around in circles yelling and they hyena laughing with such a great laugh. They all laughed too, but none of the other animals could match Scruffy’s wonderful laugh.
In fact, to this day when a hyena remembers the story of Rabbit swimming in circles, he laughs – long and loud. You can still hear him in the quiet of a night in Africa where he now lives, laughing and laughing.
And Rabbit, who yelled so loud for so long, lost his beautiful voice and hasn’t found it to this day.
LAUGHTER
Starting with a tickle,
It rises to the surface in a bubble,
Erupts with a giggle,
Exploding sorrow and trouble.
Laughter’s heart-felt exuberance that can’t be contained.
Sometimes covering feelings of shame or embarrassment,
It tickles us in a way that can’t rightly be explained,
Often from word or deed of a silly and ridiculous bent.
Those that get “hooked” on the liveliness of laughter,
Make it their life’s work to cause mirth and hilarity.
They can only think of joy today and not the hereafter,
Jokes and slapstick are their tools of playful peculiarity.
Since laughter is the best medicine for our brain,
These jokesters could be called “healers that party,”
Giving does of laughter to life’s patients in pain,
Worth more than costly drugs when gaiety is hearty.
MARY LEE, SHE SINGS
Mary Lee loved to sing by the hour.
She sang in the shower.
She sang in the shed.
She sang ‘till her family sent her to bed.
Then, while playing in the park,
She saw a notice that made her sing like a lark:
“Singing lessons - Come at Three.”
Mary Lee was happy as a girl could be.
Mary Lee sang with the class and sounded good.
She sang higher than she thought she could.
Yo her, happiness was singing on key,
Singing was all she’d hoped it would be.
Then one day, a new girl, Sue, came with a sigh.
Sue went toward Mary Lee and sat blinking her eye.
Sue squirmed and Sue wriggled,
Which made the whole class giggle.
Then, she leaned over and whispered in her ear,
With words meant only for Mary Lee to hear.
“You and I aren’t very good.”
“Our notes don’t sound quite like they should.”
Mary Lee was shocked and hurt.
She didn’t expect Sue to be so curt.
And then, when she heard Sue’s notes sounded off.
Mary Lee started singing quiet and soft.
Her teacher looked over with a worried look,
Said Sue, “And you thought you had what it took.”
Mary Lee gulped and put her head down.
She wanted to climb right into the ground.
And so it was that whole next week,
To Mary Lee’s horror, she started to squeak.
She felt low and quite diminished,
She often quit singing before the song was finished.
One day, her eyes opened wide when she walked in.
Sue was out sick and Mary Lee tried not to grin.
Mary Lee started to sing and couldn’t stop,
‘Till she felt she was spinning, spinning like a top.
Mary Lee felt so fine and she felt so free.
She soared through the notes, as she sang the melody.
She remembered how good it was to truly sing.
She remembered that singing was her best thing.
Mary Lee was feeling like a ringing bell,
She remembered she could sing and did it well.
But, after a week of cheerful glee,
Sue came back and tried to stop her harmony.
You can imagine Mary Lee’s chagrin,
When Sue joyfully sauntered in.
As Sue slid grumbling into her seat,
She sighed, “That’s not the right beat.”
Mary Lee just smiled and sang with her heart.
She sang both high and low right from the start.
She paid no attention to what Sue said.
Mary Lee didn’t feel down, but uplifted instead.
Finally Sue just had to speak.
With questions showing her mean streak.
“What makes you think you can sing now?”
“What makes you think you’ve got the know-how?”
Mary Lee turned and looked Sue in the eye.
She didn’t blink and she didn’t sigh.
“Why, it’s simple and easy you see,”
Mary Lee laughed, “I remembered me!”
HARVEST MOON
Why did you wake me, Harvest Moon?
With your encompassing blazing light.
Flooding my heart with memories,
Of long ago when we met that magical night.
I saw him standing in your radiance,
Feeling I’d known him sometime other.
We started talking with familiar ease,
No uncomfortable silences to bother.
You were our constant companion,
Our eyes drawn to your golden sphere,
On drives down winding country roads.
Believing our bright future soon to appear.
You watched us begin our lives together,
Sometimes easily happy, joyous and free.
Tho’ sometimes sad, angry and furious,
Finding we were different as two could be.
We were no match for your flawlessness,
Mesmerizing us with your wonder above.
Still you glowed and still we yearned,
To grow comfortable in our love.
We’ve come to understand our faults.
Forgave when hope turned sour,
When we couldn’t reach our dreams,
Learned acceptance in love is power.
Harvest Moons have come and gone,
So many pearls on a string,
We’ve learned to appreciate who we are,
With love more real, than moon-dreams could bring.
THE PERFECT COUPLE
The beautiful couple glides effortlessly around the dance floor; they are a study of perfection as they gaze adoringly in each other’s eyes. Her blond hair cascades with twisting curls down her back, her Gucci dress clings in all the right places, while her make-up after 3 hours in the hot sun is still reveals a flawless complexion. She has to be the most beautiful bride I’ve ever seen and the groom is talented, handsome and kind.
Then why, am I crying with a feeling of foreboding? Then it hits me, it isn’t because they are perfect and I’m jealous, but because they aren’t real. What’ll happen when the bubble breaks and one of them gets sick or they have kids? It’s inspiring and uplifting to see beautiful people enjoy themselves on their wedding day, but on this particular day I’m profoundly sad by the facade they’ve worked so hard to display. It’s so polished; I’m struck by the dishonesty of it. Does the groom know the bride drinks so much she is often oblivious of those around her? Does the bride know the groom can be lead astray by their wild friends she finds so amusing? Do they know they are at opposite desires when it comes to having kids? In fact, the bride really doesn’t care to have the children the groom wants? Or that the bride’s work is more important to her than anything, including him? What will they do when they have those kids he longs for and she has to stay at home to be with them?
The song finally ends and the bride and groom hold each other in an extended embrace. I’m glad when the next song starts fast and furious, so I can go out on the dance floor and use some of my pent up energy from feeling a pending disaster. Should I warn them that life is not always fair, that having kids you really don’t want, but have anyway to placate your new husband, is a poor reason to get pregnant? It’s none of my business, I can’t make their lives right and I know they wouldn’t listen to me, even if I could get them to sit still on such a busy day. I can only dance and smile at my own husband, who is perfectly not perfect…just like me.
SWEET PROFUSION
The sickening sweet profusion of carnations stuck the first blow,
Followed by the heady and boldly pungent violence.
Bunches of Lilies of the Valley volley spicy attacks,
And fresh daisies add their betrayal to the potpourri.
I’d never smelled so many flowers in one room,
And held my breath against those potent permeating smells.
Memories of chocking in flowery overabundance,
At my dad’s funeral, when I was eight and a half.
LOVE PRICKS
Love pricks my eyes and makes me cry,
And I recoil from a flooding memory of day never to return.
Seeing a hunched frail mother holding her daughter’s hand,
Hurts me into yearning for my own fragile and twisted mom.
Confused with rushing emotions I am a helpless victim,
I turn away and know I desperately need amnesty from my sorrow.
I retreat in dark confusion and wonder at my pain.
Why do my memories feel like a sore that won’t heal?
Waking and sleeping I am reminded of my mother’s love
Yet, her time was complete in a life well-lived and full.
I don’t wish for her to return to face more strife and turmoil,
I’m glad for her reprieve from a confused mind and failing body.
If I’m at peace about her passing, how can I be sad?
Then, I realize those love memories weren’t meant to harm my soul.
Grief is nothing but facing a lifetime of haunting recollections,
To see past the hurt and realize that unconditional love is never lost.
Love doesn’t die with the person; it’s a gift to give,
Again and again and again….
*** ~~~ **
Carolyn Red Bear
Writing is truth.
Truth that you haven’t known; truth that you have hidden or has been hidden from you; truth that you have denied or has been denied from you; truth that forever aches to be revealed.
Writing is living a truthful life.
DRAWERS
While searching
I found another life
cornered in the bottom
of a drawer
the ring
saved for the
happy ever after
that did not come.
That life is revealed
in my reflection
off the 14 carat gold
the reflection
twisted and distorted
like the life it was;
mountain peaks to conquer
and storms to ride
but I did not see
the impossibility
of that life happening.
Climbing mountains
riding storms
are what hope is made of;
as long as we had them
there was a chance for us;
without them
impossibility crept in
distanced the distance
already boundless.
A million miles
away from that life now
I replace the ring
in it's proper burial
to the corner of the drawer.
As I try
to continue my search
my hand rests upon
some other trinkets
and now
I don't remember
what I was looking for.
TO DREAM
I close my eyes
darkness envelopes the
shapes of the past
waiting for the faint light
the opening glimmer
of another life
different stage
different players
white dots
speckle the black curtain
dancing around
like miniature spotlights
before the curtain opens
but the shapings
of the darkness
stills the opening act
the thought comes
to open my eyes
but somehow
the darkness feels better.
SERENADE
He serenades me
not that anyone
can hear
when he plays our song
and puts his phone
to the speaker as he calls me
so I can hear.
He serenades me
not that anyone
can see
by the look on his face
when he walks my way
and surprises me with flowers
my favorite kind.
He serenades me
not that anyone
can tell
how he melts my heart
when we're deep into
each other's eyes
and know of nothing else.
When his hands
are on my hips
pulling me close to his warmth
as he whispers
I love you, Baby
he serenades me
not that anyone would know.
RECONCILIATION
I stand before time
like an omen
waiting to happen
inhale the wind
to blow out the sun
embrace the darkness
of the unknown
a hole in the human soul
a constant remind
you can never go back
a reconciliation
of the end of innocence
I toe the waters of time
teeter on it's
constant moving shore
in an un-constant life
Time has lost
its meaning
as I stare into
the nothingness
and realize
that I am a woman alone.
INSIDE MYSELF
There is a pattern
to your life
tattle-tale signs
of your sorry existence
that belie the mask
and the masquerade
that you parade around in
as you fall
all over yourself
trying to hold your esteem
above women as a reproach
trying to pillage
any woman that you
can bring down with you
to your ugliness
trying to gain
their monetary value
by feigning affection
which you are void of.
Your type are obvious
your eyes of disdain
precede you
You are heard
before you open
your mouth to speak
your thieving words.
I understand you
in my stomach
the same place
I despise you
and in some
ironic, stupid way
understanding you
frees my spirit
sets me free
gives me strength
to stand before you
look into all your ugliness
and know that
your existence
your own humanity
condemns you.
THIS IS WHAT I FEAR
Facial bitterness
a revelation
of long-kept anger
and cold, hard-heartedness
Controlling of
false ideas of
who you think I am
Walk through
like a tornado
destroying every bond
along the way
This is what I fear
being like her.
WHY I WRITE
To feel better...
To ease a long suffering
that has suffered too long
where Hope should have been
and dreams
even if shattered
would be lifted
and given the touch of life
by the wings of Hope.
To counteract a depression
that sides with suffering
where Faith should have been
and breath
even if spent
would be gathered
and given the breath of life
by the winds of Faith.
To heal a brokenness
that stands next to depression
where Love should have been
and spirit
even if broken
would be held onto
and given the kiss of life
by the power of Love.
*** ~~~ **
Andy Stankewich
No poet knows what thoughts or words are provocative to the reader, how or why verbal explorations trigger a response that inspires personal beneficial contemplation. Poetry is a personal world without limits. But I strive to touch your soul, sing or cry with you, to re-kindle half forgotten memories, and stimulate your mind to satisfy curiosities and fears we all share.
Without a reader I only exist within my mind, but you, the reader, give my poetry life.
A FANTASY ONE NIGHT UNFOLDED
A fantasy one night unfolded,
Of foggy white banks drifting
Rolling mist over soggy gray sand
Thrust against bleak costal rock.
And there I was,
Floating aimless above the sea.
In the depths I observed
Luminescent fish at feeding,
Vicious in voracity.
Confused,
I sought a haven,
A secure shelter to ponder
These perplexing images.
Suddenly:
I sat astounded on a desiccated twisted stump
In a yellow desert punctuated with looming barren,
Granite peaks of sterility, cesium soil at my feet And strontium to my rear.
A melancholy torrid draft sighed near,
Heavy with the effluvium of insecticides,
Pesticides and herbicides, then with a final
Dejected swirl, collapsed before my stump.
Insight then occurred to me
That I was the last dying man in a wasted land,
Wandering in dream-stuff,
Envisioning voluptuous maidens
Yet cursing naked stone
While I gaped at the remnants of man.
And before me came displayed
Scabbing by, a parade of deformed tooth filled jaws
and iron claws straining under armor plate
While overhead the rush of air hissed past
Leather wings.
So I sang a dirge to orange clouds in the
Purple sky that had no hope of sending
Rain to a nestled bud again.
Then I awoke,
And captivated by the enormity
Of the implications of ruin and destruction
I wrote what I remembered
About this dream.
OUT OF THE DARKNESS
Out of the darkness,
Out of the deep,
By increments ascending,
To light I creep.
Rising to the world,
Suspended betwixt black and white,
Led by luminescent bubbles
Emerging from the abyss of night.
Rising free,
Floating in a sea of curiosity,
My cradle of aquatic brine
Shudders against the thermocline,
The barrier of temperature
Dividing numbing frigidity
From the explosive heat of fecundity.
Penetration done,
And cast upon surreal shores of sand,
Only one grain contains an answer,
Will I ever find that one?
THE PILLARS OF PROMISES
The Pillars of Promises
Exist in a remote
Province of the universe.
Some are gigantic and radiant,
Some puny and dim,
And every size and brilliance
In between.
There,
In shimmering rainbow spires
They blaze and flare,
Their oscillations measured in tune
With the heartbeat of their mentors
Carrying messages of resolve,
Truth, faithfulness, and integrity.
The colors and the splendor of
These pillars mark the character
Of those who make a promise
And the strength of its determination.
A child’s tiny pillar bright
With blazing blue and white
Spinning swift and pulsing
With fresh exuberance and energy.
Then there are those languid lackluster
Columns of forgotten promises,
Brown and rusty orange
Hopeful of a future revival,
Or the sad implosion of a broken promise.
But the greatest splendor in this province
Are the gigantic pillars of love that spark
And flare about each other shattering
The bonds of time,
And death.
A magnitude of love beyond dimension,
A promise of love that began with the phrase
“I love you.”
A promise of love without boundaries,
An impregnable promise
That endured for a lifetime,
Co-joined pillars of a glory beyond reckoning
Blazing with joy in final filial unity
That can only be discerned
Through other mortal eyes
Living within the dedication
Of a promise of love.
THOUGHT BLISTERS
Who frosted ethereal spheres
With reality anyway?
And divided nothingness
Into fair proportions
Or blew the horn
That sounded life?
A sometime something wasn’t
Because…
It never well went
To engage in a rouse,
Nor could it retreat
From what it didn’t have,
So how could I know
That it ever existed?…(LIFE)
I rode away
Away on a silver slip
A sliver of mist
Detached…without body,
A steed of thundering vapor
To carry me nowhere,
Galloping through
Precarious shades
To capture the essence of a hue………..(LIFE)
A hundred times a hundred
Did I capture,
Lose…and recapture it,
Puzzled by my unknowing endeavor.
Chained by my body
Yet freed through my senses,
I grafted my mind
Onto borderline fences
And sputtered into sanity……………..(LIFE)
Damn these dialectic oscillations
Fomenting internal perturbations.
These booming blasts of self-revelations.
Over in beyond
Perhaps I’ll never know
Of anything as here
That cannot be brought to there
As reality.
But even then?
Sanity never existed
Except inside of myself,
And sanity is life, the great social nothing
Afraid of a directed laugh.
Here’s to you my friend,
Commiseration in confusion,
Life is delusion,
Live without illusion.
And after all…and all,
We’ll finally find the one
Who sounded that primary trumpet call.
ULTIMATE QUESTIONS
From the legacy of gone-by years
That exist when dates are
Spewed off knowing lips, schemes
Of mind pattern the flow of thoughts
Bequeathed for the benefit of man.
There was a man and then another,
Structured from internal confidence,
Who expounded on the considerations
Of the secondary guise…relating to
Man and his worldliness.
From this has grown
A curious blind principle based on
God-trust and eternity,
Prayerful living and entangled philosophy
To insure the final transmutation, that
God presides over the eternal life of the soul.
But worst of all,
Some men preach their special brand.
Frightful systems removed from definity of relationships,
And time and mind are structured and function
According to an unknown synthesis.
To give forth an essence of life is perplexing,
An ordering of qualities the still remain vexing,
Supernatural in vein and relying on faith,
The reason of mind has turned into guessing.
Seek and ye shall find,
But the search has been stopped.
The pebbled ripples in
Stagnant ponds are turned grotesque
And die upon the shore.
Why perpetuate an ancient legend
Exalted by sophist argument,
And plunge to the mind
A hollow vibration
Of an earthly chant for redemption?
The practice of a worthy virtue
By man is unknown. Charity and such
Rely on a trust in absolution for living,
A payment as illusive in whose name it was done.
Indeed you are mighty, O man,
To strike a pact with the ultimate.
Would not the bargain be better made
Were it made with yourself?
To myself I owe the honor
Of the answer to my actions
And pronounce a pledge of life
Upon my living
And invite the question of the skeptic
To ascertain the measure of my pleasure.
Yet well may I
Walk as I must,
With my soul in the grave,
In my body of lust,
Condemned by your doctrine-false
Image propounded as proof that
We are children of God,
And you are children, but not…
And then, but not…
Iconoclast you cry! I cry no!
I do not walk in scorn but in
Search of truth now perplexed by man.
Is there not a truer seeming ultimate to be
Rationalized from something better than a guess?
What need is there to living? But to die.
And why to think? To reason.
Yet from reason, to imagine either
The greatest joy or profound beauty.
Or,
Absolute fear.
Within a man the question is posed
And by him answered,
I do not know, except to fear I know not what.
Or,
Within a man the question is answered,
I do not know, except accept I know not what.
*** ~~~ **
Tammy Cravit
“I feel that the creative spirit is a gift, a visitation, a lover…something to be welcomed when it arrives and to be grieved when it is absent.
The works in this section reflect my lifelong love affair with the printed word. I hope you enjoy them.”
REQUIEM
The sun rose low over the horizon, and I stood on the shore of the Western sea and died a little. Each day for a thousand years or more, I’d watched a little piece of myself cleave off and shatter. Each day, I thought to myself: this is what happens when your children no longer remember you.
The Romans and Greeks of long ago knew me and my consort. Diana and Artemis, they called me, and a hundred more names. My lover they knew as Apollo and Thor and many more names. For a time, they watched the buck run from their spears across the dewy ground, and they saw me there. They watched the stars dance in the sky and saw pictures of me.
Their neighbors to the north, those who inhabited the lands of the Celts, knew me too. Brigid, they called me, and they knew my consort as the Green Man. When the moon grew and waned in the heavens, and in its course drew the blood from their bodies, the Wise Women and Healers knew me. When the cold and desolate winter gave way to the first lush hint of spring, they saw the echoes of the great cosmic dance of birth and death and rebirth.
But in their time, these civilizations were lost in the cloaking mists of history, and others took their places.
But these new cultures – the Hebrews, who followed my cloudy visage and my Consort’s fiery one through the desert and into their promised land – still knew me. Shekhinah, they called me, and my lover they named Elohim and Adonai and Lord. One of their number, the one later called “the anointed one”, begun anew. Christians, his followers were called, and at first they saw in the myth of virgin birth a spark of my own tale of creation.
But then, the Earth moved again on its axis, and their perceptions moved along with it. No longer did they recognize me as the mother who had given birth to all. They relegated me to a wispy, impotent shadow at the fringes of their beliefs, because men were in control then, men who dared not cede any power to a woman. And in time, my names faded from their use.
And now, I am forced to stand in exile on the shores of the vast Pacific Ocean, veiled from the view of those who seek power and exploit the Earth for their own ends. They sing praises to the lifeless husks of their ancestors’ memories of me, oblivious to the vibrancy all around them that announces, to those who pay attention, that I do yet live. I watch them rape and pillage the gifts of my Earth, rape and slaughter one another, and my despair is a heavy burden.
Perchance, I still dare to hope, someone will yet discover me again, find new names for me, new legends and new songs to sing to me. Or, perhaps the tide of death and destruction will continue unabated, and a piece of me will die each day until someday nothing is left. I watch the sun rise over the hillside, and my heart aches, and I wonder if my daughters and sons will yet remember me before it is too late.
There are some questions for which even a Goddess has no answers.
O’DONNELL’S PUBLIC HOUSE
Have you ever known a place like it where you could feel at home?
In some ways, we were family. Hell, we were more than family. So much more, because what drew us together was that place.
“That place,” of course, was O’Donnell’s Public House. It seemed like nothing special, at first glance, just one of a thousand anonymous hole-in-the-wall bars a guy could come to drown his sorrows. And, to an outsider, that might have been so. But like so many bars, to an insider – one of the lucky few who called the place their second home – there was more than oblivion to be found at the bottom of a shot glass.
We took care of each other, there, that much was for sure. When Irwin McGrady’s wife threw him out for the last time (the eighth time, I think) he found comfort and three meals a day and a place to stay with us, until he got back on his feet. When Tracey Stephenson’s boyfriend beat her up one time too many – well, we made sure he got the message loud and clear. When one of us came looking for a kind word, they found it.
There were only two rules at O’Donnell’s bar. First, nobody ever, ever messed with a lady there. That went without saying, and Brian O’Donnell wasn’t shy about enforcing it. And the other rule? Late at night, when the lookie-loo tourists and the five o’clock drunks had packed up and gone back to wherever they came from, only truth could be traded across the scarred lacquer of the bar.