Confession

 

I daydream of fighting injustice on behalf of the defenseless. I become Zena Warrior Princess, sexy outfit and all.

I daydream of owning and managing a hugh cat colony. Kitties have the job of keeping our property rodent free.

I daydream of traveling to the past to change so many poor choices. If only that was possible.

I daydream of decent interactions with everyone I meet. I make sure I do my part.

I daydream for all of humanity that their suffering ends, peace reigns and umbrellas are handy when it rains.

Georgia

A Beautiful Day

 

It was a beautiful day without a cloud in the sky and the heat of summer had subsided a little. The cooler temperatures of fall would soon be arriving, but today was as beautiful and peaceful a day and everything was wonderful in New York City. However, hidden behind that cloudless sky was an invisible malevolence full of dark clouds of hatred and lightning bolts of mechanized aggression intent on destroying the city and its reputation for being a place where there was tolerance and acceptance of cultural differences and perspectives for its melting pot of residents…

Jim

What's up with the Weather?

 

The weather would be fine if she wasn’t so moody. When she’s happy, pleasant, sunny weather comes our way.  When she’s feeling sad, pouring rain comes down from the sky, drenching everything and even causing floods.  It’s when the weather is feeling mad that you really have to watch out!  This is when she sends windstorms, hurricanes and even tornadoes.

 It reminded me of a time a few years ago, on a Saturday, during the summer. The weather was bright and sunny with not a cloud in the sky. It was so inviting outside that my family, and I decided to drive a little way up a nearby mountain and go row boating on North Lake.

After renting the boats, we sat two in each one for a total of six of us in three boats and headed out to the lake. There is nothing more relaxing than gliding on the calm water of the lake and being out in nature.

We weren’t out on the lake for more than twenty minutes when we saw several black clouds in the sky quickly headed in our direction.  All of a sudden, we started feeling raindrops the size of quarters hitting us and everything around us.  The rain started coming down harder and now we could see lightning making its way toward the lake and us!

The owner of the row boating business yelled for us to come back in right away.  At the same time, I realized that the boats were made of metal. It was a race against the lightning. “Row, row as fast as you can!” I yelled loudly to whoever could hear me.

We all managed to reach the docks in time. None of us got struck by lightning but boy oh boy everyone and everything was sure flooded from the rain. My family couldn’t believe how suddenly the weather had changed.

That’s when I told them my theory about how moody the weather can be. She started out happy and we had beautiful weather for North Lake. Her mood quickly turned to being incredibly sad. That’s how we got flooded. Her mood was also becoming quite angry and that’s how we almost got struck by lightning. As we drove back to the house, my family seemed skeptical about the weather’s moodiness, but me? I was convinced of it after the volatile weather we experienced at North Lake.

Ellen

Sparrows

 

These little brown feathered ambassadors of sunrise.

Agile, like acrobats in a circus.

Earth toned feathers, grown, gray and white.

They are our avian city dwellers living in buildings and parks and unbothered by city life.

As a cool morning breeze stirs the air, the sky is painted in pale hues, hinting at a warm day ahead.

Georgia

Field Trip

 

                The caravan of brightly painted canary yellow cheese buses wound its way into the cobble stoned horseshoe driveway of the AMERICAN Museum of Natural History. The buses were practically bouncing up and down from the unrestrained excitement of all the children on this novel excursion outside the restrictive walls of the classroom. An unusual bouquet assailed the senses with a mixture of red roses from the museum’s gardens and carbon monoxide from the buses as they maneuvered for position before coming to their final stop. Although it was only 10 in the morning, the bus drivers appeared to have already put in a full day.

                Deep in the recesses of the first floor in the drab overlooked southeast corner of the museum near 79^th street and Central Park West sits The Hall of North American Forests at the base of the Astor Turret and the surrounding area. Untouched by renovations as far back in time as I can remember, it is clean but dreary, dark and old. The redeeming feature of the hall are the huge, magnified model reproductions of diverse types of bugs, visible in all their glory with six-foot millipedes, two-foot ants and even a four-foot mosquito in his own case set in the middle of the hall to attract attention.

                The children are a joy to the museum and the walls of the old complex are alive with excitement looking forward to stimulating these young minds with the many wonders and insights that the museum has to offer at this critical time in their lives while their minds are open to new ideas, perspectives and possibilities before the vicissitudes and difficulties of life start to wear them down over time as they age and their minds become fossilized and rigid, retreating from new and innovative ideas into a shell of comfortable old cliches for solace and self-fulfilling prophecy.

                Far off in the building can be heard the first excited utterances of the school children as they make their way into the interior of the complex. The invasion has begun. The first group of exploratory pioneers enters the hall of North American Forests including Rosa with her teacher Miss Portent. Rosa looks at the various display windows before being drawn to the old wooden case set off in the middle of the hall with a giant mosquito in it!

 He was very ugly with a segmented body and six long skinny legs all covered in hairs like the quills of a porcupine. He has wide hairy antennas like a moth, a set of palms for detecting the proper chemicals of an acceptable host and a long proboscis jutting out above his sharp mandibles which are used for breaking through skin before sucking blood or nectar. The sign explains the the model is seventy -five times his true size! Rosa is utterly fascinated by the mosquito and pushed her nose up against the case to see him better. Rosa is a very imaginative girl. In her mind's eye Rosa imagines that her classmates have helped her lift the glass cover from the display and she has asked the mosquito if he would give her a tour of the enormous museum. The mosquito agrees, needing some exercise after standing in the display case for ninety years. Rosa climbs up onto the wooden base and carefully sits down on the insect while having gently pulled a pink ribbon around his neck to harness and steer him.

                Now his wings have lifted up and began to flutter, faster and faster until he lifts off the display case and shoots through the hall. Rosa finds the ride thrilling as the mosquito leaves The Hall of North American Forests behind and streaks through The New York State Environment Pavilion, then through the Fritter Gallery bordering the south drive often used in the past to bring large specimens into the museum to add to their collections. He shoots straight ahead into The Hall of Human Origins where our early ancestors are on display in all their splendor. A quick right turn leaves us in The Hall of Meteorites with huge, pockmarked pieces of iron that have plummeted to earth through the ages. Next, Rosa is star struck by an enormous glittering, dazzling purple geode of amethyst ,welcoming the visitor into The Hall of Gems a treasure trove of impressive diamonds, gems and minerals all illuminated to accentuate their beauty, including The Star of India ,the largest opal in the world weighing in at 563.35 carats that had been stolen for a time from the museum along with The Delong Star Ruby and the Eagle Diamond on October 29,1964. Rosa is infatuated by the spectral display of a star on the opal. Rosa pulls back on the reins to see her birthstone in a case dedicated to this subject, one stone for each month of the year. Rosa travels through many interesting halls including Ocean Life with the enormous life-sized model of a blue whale suspended from the two-story high ceiling. Rosa and her winged steed fly past the many displays of sea life that surround the whale including Killer whales, Penguins, Walruses along with hundreds of other sea creatures. She even rises to the whale’s eye to stare into it.

                Next, she shoots out through the Hall of Biodiversity showing the infinite number of species that life had evolved into and then into the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall filled with star struck tourists and visitors buying entry tickets from long desks of museum employees. There are guards giving directions to visitors while other visitors stand entranced by towering fossilized dinosaurs positioned in mock combat. Rosa does not linger long gently nudging her  Pegasus to lunge up the open marble staircase to the second floor through the exotic hall of Asian Mammals then past the next level of the Astor Turret wizzing through the Hall of Asian Peoples, and onto Birds of the World and African Peoples straight on to a trip through time on the Cosmic Pathway of the Rose Planetarium starting billions of years ago with the Big-Bang and flying in concentric circles all the way down to historic times and the beginning of agriculture.

                Rosa’s mind seemed ready to explode with all the information that she is learning but now her teacher Miss Portent breaks into her dream state, “Rosa please move back and take your nose and hands from the glass to avoid picking up any germs. You will be able to see the mosquito better. I do not want you to catch a cold.”

“Yes, Miss Portent “says Rosa, wishing that she could have continued her imaginative tour through the museum. Walking through the museum would be fun also as she stuffs her pink ribbon back into her pocket. She would not be wrangling any more giant mosquitos that day. Being at the museum was much more spectacular than just reading the book about the museum that she has read many times with her mother about being there.

Jim

The Unwanted Wild Goose Chase

 

My baby brother Harold went missing today, and we couldn’t find him. When he disappeared, I looked at my sister, Jeanne, who is two years younger than me.  She looked like she was going to burst into tears any second. I put my arm around her and told her everything was going to be all right.  Neither of us thought anything like this could happen.  It all started when I asked my sister to come to the park with me.

Now, with the moon peeking through my bedroom window, and me trying to fall asleep, I think back on the things that happened earlier this morning when my sister and I decided to walk to the park.  It was a very hot and humid day, and we couldn’t wait to get in the sprinklers.  We didn’t want to take my baby brother Harold, but he was crying and begging to go so we decided to take him.

It was a long walk to the park, and we were tired and hot, but we kept thinking of how good we would feel when we got in the sprinklers.  As soon as we saw them, we jumped in and got soaking wet.  The three of us played and played in the water until our fingers were all wrinkly.  Then we got out and played on the swings, monkey bars, seesaw and slide. As soon as we headed toward the park bench to take a rest, my baby brother said he wanted to go home. “What?” my sister and I screamed at him.  We just got here a little while ago. We’re not going home yet!  I dragged him by the hand and started our walk back to the sprinklers.

As soon as I let go of his hand and my back was turned, Harold was gone. “Well, there goes another turn playing in the sprinklers,” I thought. My sister Jeanne and I walked around the entire park at least five times and we could not find him. We decided to run home as fast as we could and tell our parents we lost our baby brother at the park.

I was very surprised that my parents didn’t stop what they were doing and spank us hard. Instead, my father put the keys in the ignition of the yellow taxi he used for work and drove us all up to the police station.  My mother was upset.  You could see it in her eyes.  My father was just MAD. My father walked up to the counter and explained we were there because his child Harold was lost. My father gave the officer all the details. The police officer started smiling and said to us, “Follow me.”  He took us to a small office that had a closed door.  When the officer opened the door, there was my baby brother Harold sitting on top of a desk, eating pork chops.

After the first initial shock of seeing him, we all started laughing in relief. “How did you get here?”  “Who found you?”  “How long were you lost?”  “See how hungry you get when you’re lost and alone?”  We all started asking baby brother questions at the same time.

My mind stops thinking back on everything that happened on this hot summer day and I think to myself, “I’m so happy they found my brother.” Just before I fell asleep, I remembered something one of the police officers said,  “Well, how old are the three of you, seven, five and four?  Maybe this wouldn’t have happened if you went to the park with some grownups.  We’re all very lucky this event had a happy ending.  Next time, wait till you’re all much older before going to the park on your own.”

Ellen

Seasons Speaking

 

Summer heard Autumn call and ran the other way

I’m not leaving yet
There’s still more time
coming my way
After all it’s only Labor Day

I’ll Fall to you
Your work is done
Beautiful bright flowers, fresh fruit and vegetables for everyone

Bringing pumpkins, spice and bright leaves in the crisp morning air is my seasonal task — when you step aside.

Autumn kisses Summer good-bye.

When I’m through it’s Winter
for me and you!

Spring into new beginnings


Laura McManus

Autumn

 

In autumn, New York City hums with divergent energy. Crisp leaves swirl and crunch beneath hurried footsteps, their dry whispers carried by the cool breeze. Central Park is a symphony of rustling gold and amber, punctuated by the distant honks of cabs and the soft murmur of people lingering by coffee carts. The wind, now sharper, threads itself through the towering buildings, letting out a fleeting whistle as it slips through narrow alleyways. It’s a sound that signals the season’s shift, as the warmth fades and the city settles into the crisp embrace of fall.

Georgia

The Buzz Brigade

 

General Buzz of the mosquito army has once again waged war on good citizens everywhere. Not surprising after all it is summer.

Tiny terrors armed with needled mouths and a thirst for blood.

There will be no peaceful slumber. Flailing wildly, slapping the air in a futile attempt to vanquish the enemy.

General Buzz leads the charge with high pitched whine in ears to drive one to madness.

I had an idea; maybe they can’t bite me if I am dancing. So, I turned on the music and started dancing to Staying Alive.

General Buzz was confused “Humans are weird. Let’s get some cows.”

And off they all went.

Georgia