The wind and her...

Something about wind and her hair makes her eyes that much sexier.

I was thinking about sand and an hourglass. That bird that carried those grains to a distant shore, one by one.

For eternity.

Alone but not lonely because of a purpose however mundane. He's changing the world with each piece of sand carried in his tiny beak. And it's changing slowly but surely. Improving. Changing into something more beautiful because he is beautiful.

Like her. Sweet and young and pure of soul. White and wonderful. And if you look beneath his wings you'll see her reflected there. You'll see the form of the world's beauty because it contains her and she contains it. Complet and sublime. He'll save the world and carry her with him, wrapped in soft feathers.

They may soar to new heights and new sights. A wind-washed cliff or white-capped waves. Because from the first moment he shook his wings, that wind was set in motion and formed the rocks and the waters of the earth with its soft fingers. He formed man from that same sand that he carries still. Sand and clay and the wind from his wings became man's breath.

And man's breath and his body became woman's and she was perfect in shape and spirit. Much like her who is another image of that first woman...

Maybe a sci fi story or something?

He woke to a foreign voice, sweet and sincere, and he wiped a tear because he feared he'd dreamt it. But working under a shaft of grey light he heard it again, far above his head, and was afraid for a moment because nothing good came from above. God was below, in the infinite depths of unseen rock, molten and scorched. But it was such a pure voice. Perhaps one of the first voices, still seeking a way out of the cold and empty.

So he searched. The dark rooms and dark halls. Occupied only by his sweat soaked and soot blackened companions, banging and clanging and toiling in the blackness. And, feeling his way blindly, he struggled from the earth's beating heart. Pulsing like a piston against its braces. Where the only noice piercing his ears was the straining of steel and rods and hissing of steam. The great machine rumbled its engines as he pushed his way through shafts of dirt and rocks, breathing his first crisp breath on a desert road.

His hair blew and he searched the reaching sky for a fan or turbine but saw nothin but space, dark, perforated by light. Nothing to explain the wind. Never had he felt such wind, blowing cool and fierce against his face. Dust swirled and circled in the air like some pale dancer and he wondered at this new place with no ceiling. Where wind blew of its own will.

Then he began to walk...

The quiet hours...

In the quiet hours of the night, when all I hear are the day's echoes, I whisper to you. About will and about death. In the hours after the sun has set, I contemplate breath and blood and warmth and how my thoughts cycle and spin like snow and dust, blowing in the same wind. When the body cools and the soul awakes. Passes through dirt and leaves, does its gaze fall back to earth? Is death really, as Rilke says, when the living depart from everything in order to reflect upon life? Will my identity remain with my soul when my breath goes or will it decay with my skin and flesh until it is merely an imprint on my bones. If it imprinted on my soul, will it remain intact? Or will it evaporate in space with other minds and memories, floating endlessly? I want to believe that these fragments of past generations, the thoughts and feelings and passions of others no longer living, have combined in me and I will remain long after I die. I long for that quiet place where I can sleep and awake to consider life and eternity.

Not much sense among these words probably...

Contemplation...

Who am I in you?
Who are you in me?
I am the seed,
you are the shell,
but we are both also the other.
I am the fruit,
you are the tree,
but we are both also the other.
I am the branches,
you are the vine,
but we are both also the other.
I am the question.
You are the answer.
But you are both in me
and I am both in you.
I am the words,
You are the whispers,
and together we are the voice.

I seek you in contemplation because I forget you elsewhere. In solitude and silence I pretend to hear you and try to speak some phrase to call your presence to me, when all I really need to do, must do, is be content in the silence because your whispers are quiet and still and spoken to my innermost parts rather than my ears. But that is where the greatest movement is, the greatest change. In my true self that only you know and I catch seldom glances of.

Helpless...

Helplessness is beautiful. Helpless beauty... The feeling that you are at the mercy of another, but that other is good and right and true. I've felt helpless. Helpless to be the man that God has called me to be. The one I dreamt I would be, running through the South Carolina nights. That was where the spark of manhood was lit and I chased it through those trees by the creek with my friends. I've been chasing it ever since.

Then I lost it when I needed it the most and wept because of my weakness. But despite my failures and my faults, the Good brought me back to it and placed that spark safely in my heart. I hope. Because now I see why I needed it in the first place.

There was a time not too long ago in the grass where I watched and heard two separate mouths speak separate words. Those words joined somewhere in the air and became sentences and paragraphs. Poems really, we were right. And like those words our minds joined until our thoughts walked hand in hand. And as I lay on my back, watching this unfold, I saw a dragonfly on the top branch of the shading tree. It sat still and alone except for the slight vibration of its wings in the breeze. Then as I watched, another flew to the branch beside it, to also sit in the warmth of the summer afternoon.

Fly beside me, I wanted to say, because I'm safe although this world isn't. We'll follow the breeze together. Let the Wind take us where it wills, somewhere safe and still and quiet. I will watch over you on the way.

Then, like our thoughts, the two flew off together.

I want to feel helpless in this Wind. Just float where it wills because I believe that it is good and safe to do so. And on the way I want to write beauty into the world. There in the grass and the breeze I began to believe that I could.

Part IX...the end.

Jonah stood on his tip-toes and stretched as high as he could, peering into the hole. Set deep inside it was a red shining orb, swirling with color. The surface looked smooth and glassy, but inside the glass was a swirl of smoky red clouds shifting and pulsing. He knew in an instant that this was what Madeline and Tristan meant for him to destroy and he reached out as far as he could to grasp it.

His fingers brushed the glassy surface and a tingling went through his hands and down his arms. The orb shifted in its place in the tree and then suddenly stuck fast to Jonah’s hands. He pulled back from the tree and shook, but the orb, surprisingly light, held firm. And then the light of the tree dimmed, slowly at first but it grew darker and darker with every moment.

Jonah turned to look at the field surrounding the tree and saw motion in the tall grass. The darker it grew, the more the motion increased. Then suddenly there was no light except for the warm glow of the ball in his hands. Jonah began to walk slowly away from the tree, back the way he had come. And then the humming and chattering started. Quietly at first but, like the darkness, it grew louder and Jonah began to run.

He ran as fast as he could through the red grass towards the cliff and with every step he heard another creature stir and chatter in the field. Then Jonah began to hear them behind him, rustling through the grass, their hums and chirps coming from all sides. He ran and ran through the field and the trees, pursued by the strange sleeping creatures.

Finally he passed to the edge of the forest and stood at the cliff overlooking the black sea. He turned quickly and saw, at the edge of the trees, dozens and dozens of red eyes. The humming and chattering was constant and the eyes moved in and out of the trees, each one fixated solely on little Jonah. He turned to the cliff, the sea a hundred feet below, and once more shook the orb. It remained firmly attached to his hands and he began to grow very afraid.

When he turned towards the trees again, shaking the orb, the eyes moved from the trees and in the light of the red star he saw many figures begin to emerge from the dark forest. They were coming for him or for the orb. It didn’t matter. Jonah thought quickly about Madeline and Tristan. They had told him not to worry, but with the orb stuck to his hands there was no way of throwing it into the sea. So Jonah, in an act of incredible bravery, stepped to the edge of the cliff, and with the orb leapt into the ocean.

He fell slowly and quietly and made almost no splash as he hit the water. The sea was black and the water was smooth and felt oily. He sank slowly lower and lower with only the light of the orb visible. The deeper Jonah went, the dimmer the orb became and he sank and sank…Then there in the oily black water, one hundred feet below the surface, the orb went dark and Jonah was left blind.

He no longer knew if he was sinking or floating. They felt the same and he wished with all of his heart that he was back in the depths of space with the blue star and the green star. He hoped he had done what they asked and that, if he continued to sink, they would still be able to help him.

And then a voice spoke to him, somewhere in the depths of the sea. “Open your eyes,” it said. Jonah did not know they had been closed. “Open your eyes,” another voice spoke, this one female. Jonah opened his eyes and realized that he was not floating, nor sinking, nor in space, but once again tucked into his bed. Not only that, but he was in his own room beside his own window, the stars shining bright outside in the night sky. He peered and peered and sure enough, far and high in the sky, he saw two stars green and blue twinkling in space.

“Look,” they said to him, and his gaze was brought to another star, a dark shade of red. But as Jonah looked at the star, it seemed to fade to a duller red. It could have been his imagination, but as he sat in his bed and watched, the red star softened and brightened into the warmest shade of orange he had ever seen.

“Thank you Jonah,” said a male voice, Tristan.
“Now go to sleep young boy,” said Madeline. And Jonah did sleep and it was the most peaceful sleep he ever remembered.

The end.

::Thank you for reading and for being patient. I hope it lived up to your expectations. Any feedback would be appreciated::

A dead phone line...

The phone connected after the first ring and the voice that answered trembled. The sales pitch ended mid sentence when I realized that the old man on the other end was tired and certainly not interested in anything i was selling. He sounded worn out and i thought about hanging up the phone. But then he asked me my name and i told him. And after a minute of listening to a silent receiver i asked if he was ok. He told me that he was exhausted and restless. He told me about his job. How he had at least ten more years in a career he never chose, but he was turning fifty tomorrow and had kids and a dog and a house he couldn't afford. He was broken and poor and floating through life in all the wrong ways. His wife hated him for being boring, his kids never called, and he didn't know if he could take one day more. "If this is what life is really like kid, get out while you still can," he said. Speechless, i held the phone and he thanked me for listening and hung up.

I left the next day in my car with a handful of cash and a bottle of water and just drove...

Part VIII...

He walked quickly through trees and around trees, all the while watching for the flashing glow that would warn him of anything approaching. Nothing happened however, and as he began to see the glow of the huge tree growing brighter and closer, he relaxed.
And then, all of a sudden, he was in a clearing and there stood the great tree before him in all of its red pulsing brilliance. Jonah began to walk to the tree. After a few steps he noticed small shapes lying in the reddish grass. He approached one for a better look and saw a small furry body lying motionless. It looked like a cross between a monkey and a raccoon. It had long arms and legs, a long tail, and its head was round with a small snout. The snout was covered in white stripes, as was the head, which stretched across the face and widened down the back.
There were what seemed to be primitive tools shaped from branches and stones lying here and there in the field. Jonah now saw a number of these little furry shapes lying here and there. He couldn’t tell if the one he stood next to was sleeping or not so he stepped gingerly around it and began to walk towards the tree again, taking slow careful steps.
Finally Jonah reached the tree and stared up. The trunk of the tree was extremely wide and stretched high into the air. Jonah realized that the tree’s branches covered the entire clearing and shone so brightly that it seemed almost daylight. The light of the tree seemed to emanate from a hole in the trunk just above Jonah’s head.

Idealism...

I’ve been called a lot of things in my life. Some of them hurtful, some very thoughtful. Idealistic. A romantic. A romantic idealist. These are the words that were thrown out and struck me recently. The funny thing, to me, was that the title wasn’t meant to be a compliment necessarily. I find that to be disheartening. I listen to my friends whose hearts I deeply admire. Whose minds I deeply respect. They all seem to be echoing the same cry for something beautiful and perfect and true. True love, perfect romance, a beautiful intertwining of souls and bodies into one wonderful shape. Is that too much to ask? “Yes” is the answer I receive far too often. The majority of the time, to be perfectly honest. And I sit wondering what my flaw is. What my curse is. To hold out so much hope for something so unreasonable. The fact is that I’ve heard those stories of perfect harmonious love affairs that led to perfect harmonious marriages. They exist somewhere in the cracks of the broken and painful failings. They do exist. For me though? I’m not sure. I’d like to think so, but the truth is that it’s quite possible that they will never come true. My only comfort is that I know somebody who holds my life, and he has my best interests at heart. My cry to all those hurting and hoping is to always, always remember that our idealism is not merely our stretching imagination, but the intended reality that was meant for all of us.

untitled

I touched the untouchable,
I kissed the unkissable,
and her hair swallowed the night,
the moon's light,
and shone it through her eyes,
perfect and bright,
and i watched, illuminated,
until I could no longer see
and she took my hand
and led me through life,
to peace and rest
and warmth and breath.

cold thoughts about warm dreams

I sat cold,
watching her approach with a smile
like a dreamless sleep.
Beautiful and pure.
The lightest touch on the knee
and me in my best shirt.
Her, a nativity scene
and my hibernating soul
awoke to discover its host,
merging to completion.
Solitude is a blessing
when you are not alone.
When there are two souls,
one with a darkly framed face,
soft hair begging a soft hand,
and the other waiting to discover
who he is.

Part VII...

He walked for a little while, coming to a small group of trees. He was almost certain that the shore lay beyond the trees and entered the small forest. It was dark and the smooth trunks of the trees were a deep red, almost black. As he passed, each tree would brighten for a moment with a pulse of brighter red that lit the area around him for a moment. Jonah wondered if somehow the trees knew he was there as a he walked.
He continued to walk until he began to see the tree line clear somewhere up ahead. He was almost to the shore he realized, and walked faster. As he neared the edge, he began to hear a strange humming around him, followed by short chirps and snickers. He froze and remembered his friends warning about the voices. They seemed to be growing louder around him and when he looked, he could see other trees around him in the distance, pulsing with the strange red light. He knew something was out there, probably following him. Maybe the saw my bed fall from the sky, he thought, and began to run.

He ran and ran, the humming and chattering growing louder and louder behind him and around him until, finally, he reached the edge of the trees and darted out onto the black sand of the beach. He stopped then and looked behind him. The line of trees stood silent, but the humming continued and between the pulsing trees he glimpsed dark shadows moving. He looked at the sea. It was dark and calm, the sand soft under his feet. He turned, the water on his right, and walked north, remembering that as long as sand was beneath his feet, he would be safe.
The beach continued for what seemed like miles, further and further north. From time to time, Jonah would glance to his left and whenever he did, he saw the trees pulsing and the shadows moving. They were following him, but they would not leave the trees so he continued walking. Finally, after a long while, the beach began to slope upwards, and here and there patches of grass grew through the sand. The more he walked, the more the grass replaced the sand and Jonah worried that perhaps the shadows that followed him would begin to emerge. The stars however had told him not to worry, so he forced himself to be brave, though with each hum and chirp that he heard it became more and more difficult.

When Jonah reached the top of the hill, he looked to his right at the cliff, dropping straight and severe into the black depth of the ocean. To his left, sure enough, the tree that the stars had told him about, stood tall above the rest. It was much closer than Jonah had thought it would be. The sky had brightened a great deal while Jonah had been walking, although it was gradual and he didn’t notice until he had reached the top of the hill. The strange thing was that the light was very obviously coming from the direction of the tree. In fact the tree stood silhouetted by an orange and red, pulsing glow.
It was the only tree glowing though, and Jonah took that as a good sign. The shadows had stopped following him and it seemed safe to go back into the woods. So he walked to the trees and entered again, following the glow that he supposed came from the orb.

I'm reading about shit...

I’m reading about shit in a book of prose poetry. Scat. Scatological. My uncle asked me once if I knew what that word meant and I said yes, that it always reminded me of my grandma and the habit she had of examining the piles of animal feces we would find on our walks through the New Mexico desert. Chimney rock and it’s surrounding canyons and cliffs. Chimney rock was this beautiful sculpture of red stratified rock with a sort of mesa at the top and then a little pillar of rock barely connected that stood like a chimney. I used to speculate whether a climber could jump from the mesa to the chimney and make a camp on top. I concluded that nobody had ever tried because of its obvious danger. My grandma and I would walk with my mother and sister, sometimes Jim Hall or my aunt. My mom had an eye for arrowheads and spent some time as an amateur archeologist. My grandma’s uncanny gift was being able to deduce any number of things about the environment and nature simply by examining the excrement of the areas numerous animals. I always thought it was weird. Now I see the strange beauty in what she was doing. Immersing herself in every part of the natural world. Appreciating every piece of matter and mud and rock and chlorophyll. Appreciating the beauty and, in so doing, joining the community of seekers who can find deep spiritual truths and lessons by entering into natural creation. There was a rock climber that my grandmother knew who, in my mind, always appeared as one of these people. I would picture him climbing a rock sheer, his hands on the stone, feeling and listening to God through that rock and learning his purpose and his passion. He fell from one of those walls and broke his back. By the time anybody realized that he was gone, he had died. Somebody carved a bear out of soapstone and it sat for years where his body had lain. My grandma would sometimes take us to that spot and I would stare at the bear in awe and respect of the man that it memorialized. To me he was the epitome of adventure and an example of one who sought peace and found it amid rocks and sage. The fact that he died doing what he loved only reinforced my idealistic image of him. It’s funny that now I can’t even remember his name but I can picture the little smooth black bear surrounded by rough sandstone and dust.

Boy's story part VI...

Jonah spun and spun, quickly at first, towards the large planet, but gradually he slowed and neared its orbit. The red star was huge and bright on his right, pulsing slowly, its colors blending and swirling from ruby to maroon to crimson and blood red. His bed shuddered for a moment and made one last rotation before the sight of the red star. Jonah worried that it was no longer the force of Tristan and Madeline that moved him as he watched the frightening star.
He was still floating towards the planet however, and that reassured him. He floated closer until he was caught in its orbit. The planet’s gravity was strong and pulled Jonah’s bed through its atmosphere. He thought for a moment that maybe he wouldn’t land where they said he would and what would he do then?
Jonah forced these thoughts out of his head and watched as he sailed through the planet’s cloudy atmosphere. It was strangely dark and he passed through dense smoky clouds that he thought should make him cough until he remembered that he no longer needed to breathe.
After a minute or two he broke through the clouds and the vast landscape of Jude’s planet was laid out before him. It was spotted with tall mountains of red rock surrounded by orange-leafed trees and plains of yellow grass. He watched and saw that he was indeed headed for a clearing near the shore of a huge black sea. He wondered what color the water was during the day, if it every turned to day. The sea seemed to cover half the planet as Jonah rushed to a landing.
The shore and the land grew faster and faster before Jonah’s eyes until, finally, his bed thumped to a somewhat gentle stop in the middle of one of the yellow grass fields. He looked around him, making sure he knew which direction the shore lay. The stars had told him to find the shore. He decided that it was definitely to his right and, mustering his courage, Jonah pulled aside his blankets and slid barefoot off of his bed…

Boy's story part V...

Jonah’s bed traveled faster than ever. Through galaxies and constellations and gaseous planets and planet’s rings. Through meteor fields, comet fields, around moons and through suns. Tristan spoke and said, “Listen.” Madeline spoke and said, “This is important.” And Jonah listened while the two stars, his new friends, told him what he must do.

“When you land,” they said, “it will be cold and dark. You will hear strange voices that you will not understand. Don’t try to listen to them. Just walk. Walk until you reach the sea. It won’t be far. Once you reach the shore you must walk North, so that the water is on your right. Walk and keep walking. It will be very far but you will not grow weary. If you hear voices to the left of you do not be afraid. There are creatures in the trees and behind the rocks that will mean you harm but as long as you stay on the shore, on the sand, you will be safe.” Tristan and Madeline were speaking at the same time, their voices mingling with one another to form a sort of music and Jonah listened, the sound filling him with peace and courage and goodness.

“When do I stop walking?” he asked.

“Listen and we will tell you,” they said to him. “As you walk through the night you will see a light ahead of you as if a great sun is rising to the North. The light will grow and grow and it will become brighter, but not bright like the day. It will be a reddish light. The light comes from a crystal, which is set in a great tree. This crystal’s light is the bad will of Jude, the red star. He is the rebel and the deceiver and is slowly killing those that live on his planet.”

As the stars told Jonah this, he saw a small red speck far, far in the distance, directly ahead of him. He knew that the speck was Jude and he began to be afraid for the first time since his journey began.

As if the stars knew what he was feeling they said, in unison, “Jonah, everything will be fine. You have a strength in you that you do not yet see.” And the fear in Jonah shrunk until it was merely a tiny thing in the back of the young boy’s mind.

The two stars went on: “The shore will take you up a large hill and the ground will begin to drop off to your right. The hill will become very steep and, once you reach the top, you will be at the edge of a cliff to your right, a forest to your left. There will be a tree in that forest that is so large it can be seen rising above all the other trees. You will see it from the cliff. It holds the crystal and that is where you must go next.”

Jonah watched as the red speck in the distance grew and grew while the stars spoke and filled him with their strength and direction. “When you reach the cliff Jonah, you must wait and make sure no voices can be heard. If there are no voices it means that it is safe to enter the forest. You must walk to the tree, find the crystal, and destroy it.”

“How do I destroy it?” Jonah asked, the red star had grown large in front of him and he was afraid that he was almost there.

“We cannot tell you that Jonah because we haven’t been told. You must trust that you will find a way. You are almost at your journey’s end Jonah and we must stop speaking. We have carried you far, through many eons and many ages, but now it is up to you.”

“Have courage,” Tristan said in his strong, sad voice.

“You have strength,” said Madeline in her sweet, musical voice.

And, with that said, they gave him one last push and he was flung, alone and spinning into Jude’s domain.

Some thoughts before part V....

I am a raven. Am I a raven? No. A hawk? No, too noble. A sparrow maybe. I don’t scavenge or hunt, I wander and hope to not be devoured. I hope to find somewhere safe to lay my head under my wings, folded back in peace. Peace is such a word. So hopeful. Unrealistic? A dark wind carries me to places I don’t want to be or places that I hoped would be different and I chase this idea of fulfillment, of love perhaps.
Or just peace.
I feel like that boy sometimes, whose bed carried him through space. Carried him into some strange and turbulent conflict. His future looked hopeful. It looked as though he were to play some noble part in the action of the cosmos. Maybe he will yet. Maybe that’s why the story was never finished. I don’t know how to write an ending to something that I am still in the midst of.
I know the ending I hope to see though. A happy one that ends in a sweet death which is really just the beginning to something even more beautiful. Are happy endings just hopeful creations by people who believe that there should be something better to this world, to this life? God, I hope not. At least I have comfort though. Some don’t even have that. The discomfort I feel at times is my own fault and I’m too self centered to see the bigger picture. That my life is easy because I have more good days than bad. That, and food on my plate every night.
It feels like the dark corners of the earth are sometimes growing towards each other. Or the darkness is growing outward so that it is no longer restricted to the corners, but the middle places as well.
I awoke one morning with a weight moving across my legs. It traveled up my body to hold to me to my bed, under my blankets. I struggled, but it felt as though I were struggling against my own body…struggling to free myself from the strange grip and utter some phrase that would free me. And then a warm breath spoke dark things into my ear, telling me that I would never make it out of this, that I would never be more than this. “Always remember that,” it said. God help me. Help me move, I thought to myself and slowly I was able to open my eyes and shake myself free.
How often are dark things whispered to me in my sleep? Things meant to destroy any sense of peace and hope that I hold. How often do I listen to them? What else is out there that I don’t see? Things that hold me and chain me to my darker thoughts and sinking feelings. How do I fight against them? What causes a child to watch helpless as dark figures enter his room and cover his face with their hands, or gives him nightmares of cities turning to ash and rubble as other men stare hatefully at each other?
I wish I were a sparrow...

Part IV...

"I would like to stay Tristan, but how can I help? I'm just a boy..."

Tristan answered, "You just need to be willing. We the stars will help you on the way."

Jonah through again and looked around him; at the stars in the background, the planets behind him. "Where is the bad star, Tristan?"

"Far, far from here. When you are ready we will send you. It will be a longer journey than you have experienced so far but you will be able to hear Madeling and myself speaking to you along the way. And, if you look very closely, you'll be able to see us far in the distance. Even when you reach your destination Jonah. So there is no reason to be afraid."

"Will I be able to still hear you when I get there?"

"Not at the end of your journey Jonah, no, you will not be able to hear us. If you could, then the bad star would hear us too and if he knew we were speaking to you, he would look for you and it would be very dangerous. We can always hear you though Jonah. Let that bring you courage and comfort."

Jonah sat in his bed thinking until a sudden reckless excitement overcame him and he grinned. Tristan watching him and asked: "Are you ready now?"

"I think I am, Tristan."

"Then listen carefully while you travel. Madeline and I are going to give you instructions."

With that said, Jonah's bed sped away from Tristan the green star and once again into the black depth of space...

The Boy Part III

The next star Jonah met was a green one and, like Madeline, this one too shone with all shades of green. It was bigger than Madeline, perhaps older, and its planets were many. All covered with green growth and water. Jonah's bed sped to the star and began to orbit slowly. Again, Jonah could feel the star's presence and mind and warmth, and he knew that it too was watching him.

He orbited the star slowly, around and around. His bed turned over and under, each side facing the star as if he were being examined. When the bed finally stopped its movements, the planets were all behind him an dhe was again facing the star. Suddenly all the dark shades of green went to the edge of Jonah's view of the star and its center was a brilliant shade of emerald green. Jonah waited patiently for it to speak, propped up against his pillows.

When the star finally did speak, its voice was strange. It was a sort of masculine voice; strong but sorrowful, but with a hint of sympathy that sounded almost motherly...

"Hello Child, I am Tristan," the star said.
"Hello. My name is Jonah," he answered, "where am i now?"
"Many miles from home Jonah. I hope that doesn't frighten you. I have been told to answer your questions. Do you have any questions?" Tristan asked.
"What is happening to me? I know that my heart has stopped beating, but I don't feel like I have died" asked Jonah, a look of genuine concern on his face.
Tristan smiled. Or at least Jonah could sense him smiling, although the star had no face or mouth. "Your life as you know it has been put on hold while you are here visiting with us. Think of it more like a dream. Time has no meaning out here and, if you should choose to return home, you will be perfectly healthy."
"Why has this happened to me?" Jonah asked.
Tristan's light strobed from bright to dull rapidly. Jonah decided that he was laughing. "I am so very glad you asked that Jonah, it's what I really need to speak with you about. I have a favor to ask of you. A task and, if your brave enough to agree to it, you will be taken far from here."
"What is the task?"
"We need your help Jonah. Not all the stars you see around you are kind or benevolent. There are bad stars out there too. One of them has put many beings in danger and he must be stopped. That is why you have been brought here. The good stars feel that you can help us and we brought you here to ask if you would. It will be dangerous and very frightening but you will have our help and all the protection we can offer you Jonah."
Jonah sat in his bed, deep in thought. He still believed that he was probably dreaming, but it was the most vivid and best dream he had ever had and it made him sad to think that it might end.

to be continued...

The Boy continued...

The first of these minutes took the boy and his bed to a blue star and he watched it pulse with every shade of blue and violet and indigo imaginable, some that can't even be imagined. He watched the star bulge and shiver, it's blue gases burning and shifting. Suddenly and unexplainably, the star turned its countenance to the boy and watched him. There was no face, no eye, just the feeling that it was somehow looking at him. The boy was startled and if his heart was still beating, it would have skipped. He felt helpless and vulnerable, but looked back at the star and then his bed was pulled to the flaming ball, until he could see nothing before him but blue fire. He felt no heat though, just the warmth of his bed sheets, that and the sense of the star's life and mind, fixated on him.

They sat like that for another eternal minute until the star showed it's face, or a face. It appeared out of the shaped gas and it was a woman, a girl really. She looked at the boy and she smiled and he caught a glimpse of the star's warmth. "She's lovely," he though to himself, and the star smiled wider.

Then he heard her voice in his mind and she asked him, "What is your name?"
"Jonah," he answered.
"Pleased to meet you," said the star. Jonah smiled and sat up straighter in his bed. It shifted under him to accomodate the new position.
"Do you want to go home Jonah?" the star asked and her flames and gases shifted to form an image of Jonah's home, and his empty room. His parents were sleeping, as was his sister. The star showed him all this and his street at night, but Jonah did not want to return.
"I don't want to go home yet," he said, because he was alive and wanted to see more of space and meet new stars and see new worlds Anything his bed or the mind guiding it wished to show him.
"Fine," the star said, smiling, "but be careful because not everyone you meet will be glad to see you."
"What do you mean?" asked Jonah.
"You'll see," she answered, "if you ever need help just call my name Jonah."
"What is your name?"
"Call me Madeline. I hope we meet again Jonah."

And then Jonah and his bed soared away from Madeline the blue star and through space. Jonah began to motice other specific stars of different colors, but no matter how far his bed took him he found he could always look and see Madeline shining blue and bright somewhere in the great map of twinkling space laid out before him....

The boy.

There was a boy once who would lay in bed and watch light move across his walls and ceiling as cars passed by on the street outside. One night while doing this, his bed began to spin, turning left and right and upside down, but all the while the boy remained firmly tucked under his sheets. His heart beat faster and faster as his bed spun around and around.
And then his heart stopped and time began. The world around him turned to stars and space and his bed transported him through galaxies and dimensions, planets and worlds. And he lay there, smiling as he watched the universe take shape before his eyes. He took no breaths because he didn't need to. He could stare forever without blinking. Hours went by and he did not grow hungry or tired. And as he stared through creation and the heavens, alone but not lonely, calm but not sad, joyful but not happy, he realized that he was now truly alive. And he loved every endless minute of his life....

to be continued?

More thoughts...

I’m a sucker for the romantic and the idealistic and everything that brings light and goodness into this world. I say a ‘sucker’ because it’s not the trendy or normal way of poetry these days. It seems that way to me at least when so much of the art I witness in the dark rooms below coffee shops is so broken and twisted…hurtful.
I saw a lady at work today who was young and pregnant and wearing a little red jumpsuit. She came in with her mother I guess and described, with the brightest face, how they were together to paint her coming baby’s room. I shared in her excitement and imagined the joy that she must be bringing her husband.
It’s a theme that’s been coming up a lot with me lately. Pregnancy, and the absolute ecstasy it must bring. I thought again about my youth and my parents and how happy I remember everyone being.
I told my dad for the first time in I don’t know how long that I admired him. I talked with friends about it the other night and how my friend, at 22 years old, should never have had to stand up to his dad almost to the point of blows. Over the way his father was treating his mother. I have my own demons of that sort but not to that extent. We talked about it and my friend sat there with this look of detachment. As if he was tired of being ashamed of his dad and tired of being hurt by it.
I understood him that night better than I had before and we talked about who we were because of these experiences and how they’ve caused us to grow so much more completely than we would have otherwise. After a while I just smiled about it all because it’s alright now…completely alright, and it has been so only by the complete grace of God. I love my father very much. And I love his wife who kissed me affectionately for the first time since I met her.
I’m going to hurt someone and disappoint them too some day. It’s a part of life and, in some ways, a beautiful part because I’m a broken person too. An imperfect person who is unstable at times and doesn’t do things the right way. I don’t do the things that are expected of me and usually have very little desire to.
I’m walking my own road, as cliché as that sounds, and I’m learning and becoming who I think God wants me to be. I drink too much and smoke too much sometimes for example, but I’ve seen the most beautiful moments between friends come at those same times and I wonder at how God uses the broken and the confusing moments of life to reveal truth and goodness to the point that sometimes I don’t see how it could be otherwise.
I slept poorly last night and woke up sensitive and frustrated and shed a tear over a movie that I had seen a number of times before. I was discontent and far from feeling the peace I always desire. But seeing that lady today with her swollen stomach and shining smile put things into perspective again. Life is good and always will be.