Clouds

 

I had a big imagination when I was seven years old. Watching and observing were my ways of discovering the world.

Clouds felt intensely wild to me. I’d notice shapes that looked like bunnies, cats, and dragons. One time I even saw a ship and an angel. “Wow,” I would mutter so no one could hear me. I wanted the silence, so I could feel like part of the sky.

I didn’t have the words at the time, but my whole body was filled with a sense of wonder and wildness. In a strange way, it was peaceful and whole.

As I got older, I learned that fog is actually a cloud that forms very close to the earth. No wonder its density is perfect for Dracula, cemetery beasts, and ghosts.

I am still a skywatcher. I still feel the vastness of the sky and the mystery of fog. I still spot animals, people, and the occasional monster hiding in ordinary, fair-weather cumulus clouds.

This is my private show, belonging only to me—clandestine, hidden, exclusive from the noisy world.

Georgia

AN ICY SUMMER’S DAY IN THE GREEN MOUNTAINS

 

A giant ice-cold pitcher of icy water, that is what it felt like after diving into the deepest fishing hole in my mountain stream in Calvin Coolidge State Park. We had been camping at a remote lean-to in the Green Mountains of Vermont for three days, and a bath was in order. Although it was afternoon in early August the stream roiled and rolled down the mountain as it had rained heavily the night before. The white water sprinted to the finish line, cold and crisp and numbing to the fingers and toes. This was an area of Vermont chock-full of white marble with a quarry nearby. The bed of the stream was full of large chunks of marble. The curious fish that had come to see what all the commotion was, did not realize how grand their stream was as they swam enrobed in a pool of white Vermont marble. True it was not the same quality as the Italian Marble quarries that Michelangelo had trudged through in Italy, shopping for trapped figures that he envisioned, but Vermont marble had been used for a number of important government buildings in Washington DC, including the Jefferson Memorial in the United States Supreme Court. Between the supplies of Vermont marble, the services of Calvin Coolidge our 30th president born two miles away, and the Green Mountain Boys that took Fort Ticonderoga from the British in the Revolutionary War, Vermont had done its part for the new country. My teeth were chattering now so I made a speedy exit from my refreshing, fluvial marble bath.

Jim - July 25’

The Birth of the Quince

 

A mad hornet once met a sweet humble bee.

They made love. They made honey.

They swirled through the orchards

And danced on the flowers.

The apple and pear trees grew drowsy

From their blissful buzzing and

Scrambling soft feet.

The blossoms grew drunk

From their own wild nectar.

The orchard rejoiced in the hornet-mad honey.

Shelia

Fireflies

 

When I was a very young girl, maybe four or five years old, I was spending a very hot and humid night inside my mother's friend's car. Why were we sitting inside a car in front of my house with no destination in mind? We could not afford air conditioning in our house with eight brothers and sisters to feed and a mortgage to pay so we sat in the car with the air conditioner on to get cooled off. I don’t remember where my brothers and sisters were, but I always tagged along with my mother. The air conditioning felt so good!

My mother and her friend were talking on and on and the smoke from their cigarettes was irritating my throat. It seemed to get later and later. Eventually, I closed my eyes for a few seconds. When I reopened them, there, flying all around the car were the most beautiful fireflies. The amazing thing was they were all different colors, blue, pink, green, orange and yellow, and all shades of these colors in-between. I was in awe of this beautiful light show given by the fireflies. Their colors sparkled, shimmered, and shone brightly a rainbow of blinking color in the night’s hot, humid night air.

Bursting with excitement, I jumped to the front seat of the car and asked my mother, “Did you just see them? All those different colored fireflies?” She answered,” No my dear little one. I didn't see them and if I did they would only light up yellow. Fireflies don't light up in any other colors.” “You were probably dreaming,” she explained.

I didn't believe her because the “dream” if it was a dream was so real. I didn't believe I had had a dream at all. For many summers, I waited for the multicolored fireflies but only the yellow ones showed up. After a long time of growing up, I had to convince myself it must have been a dream. Yet it never ever felt like it was a dream, not even when I think about it now.

Ellen

Cat Hands

The night was oppressively dark as the man frantically hurried home, each step an urgent plea against the suffocating gloom. The air, heavy with some unseen dread, pressed in around him.

Then, to his left, at the crumbling wall of a forgotten well, he saw it. Not a normal cat, but a feline monstrosity with unmistakably human hands. They glistened with fresh blood, evidence of a freshly torn mouse lying mangled beside it.

The man froze, locked in a trance. He could only stare, paralyzed, as the creature—its head tilting with an unsettling grace, otherwise perfectly normal—began to chew with a chilling precision.

A feral, ancient flicker in the cat's eyes was oddly hypnotizing, compelling the man forward. He felt an irresistible, horrifying curiosity, a sudden, desperate urge to possess this creature, human hands and all.

The cat remained utterly still, a predator patiently waiting. As the man reached out, intending to touch those impossible human hands, his own hand never made it.

In a blur, the cat's human hands shot out, locking around the man's throat. They squeezed, crushing his cries, stealing every last breath. The night suddenly grew colder, darker, as the cat, with its chillingly human hands, began to consume the man, its new, very large meal.

Georgia

A Moment in Time Before Oblivion

 

It happened on a Sunday at 10 o’clock am mass. The eight grade students were all in attendance celebrating their graduation. I turned my head to give a look and one of the boys, when I saw his face, jolted a memory. His long blonde hair, small nose, fair skin and slender body reminded me of my best friend forever when I was in grammar school. I am guessing I was eight and he was 10.

I really loved him like a brother and maybe I even had a young crush on him, too. He always stood up for me when the other kids on the block were making fun of me. He was my protector and wouldn’t let anyone bully me. We’d play all kinds of games on the street with the other kids, and he would always pick me.

We played Ringolevio which consisted of two teams. One team would run away and hide, and the other team would head out to find them and put them in “jail.” When all the opposing team members were in “jail,” the other team would win.

We also played stickball. It was played like baseball except you would use a long wooden stick, like an old broom stick and a pinsey pink ball because they bounced the highest. Two teams would play against each other and the team with the most runs would win.

Marbles were always a popular game and was set up on somebody’s grass. A bunch of kids would dig a hole about five feet away from where they were standing. The kid that got the most marbles in the hole by rolling them across the grass won.

Everyone played flashlight tag! The excitement of it was that you played after dark. One team hid and the other team searched for those hiding with a flashlight. When the entire team was found the game was began again with new teams members.

I played all of these games and more and with the help of my best friend forever, I always got picked first.

My best ever friend was also very funny and always made me laugh.

When I was growing up, my father would always come up with something he needed from the store on a Sunday. He would insist that I go to the deli for him. There was only one, shabby, run down deli that was opened illegally on Sundays. The owner was a bent over little man who had a voice that sounded like gravel was stuck in his throat when he talked. He also had an accent so he was hard to understand and he was extra mean to kids. I dreaded going there but I dreaded my father more.

To make my Sunday visits to the deli more bearable, my best friend, my protector, would always perform these hysterically funny skits about the scary deli man. They were so funny they made me laugh until my stomach hurt. My friend could even make his voice sound like the deli man’s and he would walk around all hunched over. My friend was a master at imitating grown-ups or kids that bothered me or hurt my feelings.

As we moved up through different schools, we lost touch with each other. I remember how much I missed him when I didn’t see him anymore. I was lucky to have a friend like him.

Ellen

Writing Exercises (June 2025)

 

Example of a Polyptoton -- one that is my personal belief:

Never say never because you never know what will happen.  

Example of Hyperbole: She is always on her phone.

Two Listening Exercises:

Try to write your thoughts and feelings after hearing this piece of music: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis:\

I listened and, in my mind, entered church. Quiet, peaceful, hopeful, in the arms of the Lord.  

Listening to music from Disney’s film Fantasia:

I have listened to and watched the 84 years old Disney movie Fantasia music at least once a year for 30 years. This is somewhat of a tradition and a slip back in time to a lighter, simpler way of life. My kids were small then and we would gather around the TV and place the tape in the tape machine with popcorn and iced tea. Tape machines don't exist anymore.

The pieces played in the movie were written by a composite of classical composers and were carefully selected and performed by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

1. This music makes me feel young, safe, happy, encouraged and hopeful. I will remember and listen again and again.

From Georgia