Saturday, May 23, 2009

gone but not forgotten

A few last words on behalf of the tulips -

*  I thought something had died when I looked out of the window this morning.  Pieces of red strewn this way and that.  Bold stains on shy concrete.  Red enough to make the bricks blush.  Thankfully the victim was only the tulips - given up the ghost for another year, petals thrown to the wind.

*  An evening wind teases fallen tulip petals.  Spins them in ever decreasing circles - their red deepens as the light retreats. 

*  They looked like they should taste of burnt cherry.  They look like they should feel pain.  Unashamed to fall apart so publicly.  I wish we could live like tulips.  Not for long, but vividly, bravely.  I wish I could burn myself into memory and leave bloody fingerprints on your page.

Out with the old, in with the new.  Some plastic wrapped blooms that sit pretty in a vase on a windowsill.  And they too draw me in.  Into their light filled rooms, their hearts bursting with sunshine and serenity.  Delightful, but nothing like their wilder cousins.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

the ghost with the most

Did I abandon my blog? or did it abandon me?  did anyone come in to cut the grass? did it feel lonely?  I didn’t mean to be gone so long.  I followed an interesting looking sentence and it took me further than I expected. 

I’ve been thinking about writing far more than I’ve actually been writing.  Perhaps this is one of the side-effects of The Artists Way which I’ve been working through for the past six weeks. 

It’s like I’m going wild with a cloth, erasing everything previously written on my blackboard.  The air is clouded with chalk dust.  At times I’m choking and I look like a ghost.  But I think it’s making way for a cleaner board, ready to drag that screaming chalk down it again and to see what I’ve got to say for myself.

There are a few things that are taking shape in my notebooks and may appear here soon - a ramble about bravery, and some small stories about strange girls, one who talks to raindrops, one with a red suitcase and a rather odd hairdresser.