4:57

"Are you here for the Bible Study?" she asked.
The expansive voice alarmed me. My quivering fingers hovered over the next impossible chord. I turned to see her - a frail woman in a blue, belted frock. Uncanny, that resonant voice, that incredible, Ozian voice.
"Um, no, I'm actually finishing up. I was practicing piano. I wasn't aware there was a Bible Study here - I think should probably leave before it begins," I said as I closed my song book and masterfully pushed in the piano bench with my right knee. I walked off the stage towards her.
"Oh, please keep practicing." Dove eyes, she had dove eyes - uncorrupted, open, holy.
"I can practice in the Hall across the courtyard, it's okay. I don't want to be in the way." Nervous laughter.
"But it doesn't start until 4:30. They must be running late. Oh, please keep practicing."
She hadn't blinked once. Her blue shimmering lids like moon light followed me kindly. I looked at the clock. 4:25.
"It's really okay, I can practice in the Hall. Enjoy your Bible study."
"Oh, alright. So long."
I left the dim room, leaving the door open for the others. She took petite steps to a wooden chair in the second row, gently - weakly - bent to tuck her basket weave clutch on the inside leg of her chair, and stared brightly at the stage. She waited for a cue to sit.
At 4:57 she was still standing.

uneasy about abandonment.

it's like a child, sweet but lonely, with salt rivers on the inside.

it's like a child postured territorially around her play things.

oh, and her family too.

oh, and her friends as well.

it's like a child uneasy about abandonment.

it's like a child grabbing and clinging,

all the time seized by, governed by the repetitious stubborn refrain:

mine, mine, mine.

if another child makes advances they will be met by a break in the dam.

let the rivers flow.

it's like a child who, after protecting her possessions from the sticky fingers and passing glances of other children (yes, even glances!), finds out they are not hers to begin with.

and finds that she has been a recepient of great gifts.

ah, but the refrain still murmurs beneath her thankfulness at times.

it's like a child who fights the murmuring and chooses gratitude that does not grab or cling, but holds loosely.

green like limes.

i want to sit outside.

thick mug. floating tea bags.

your face through steam.

cold breath and stars in your eyes.

grassy breeze. green like limes.

springtime at night. winter lingers.

creaking bench beneath the moon.

without pretense. to just be.

where the horizon should go.

today the sea and sky can't decide where the horizon should go.

they are both sincerely bad with boundaries, a flaw that they both admit is born out of their desire to be closer to the other.

the clouds daring to run its fingers across the icy blue. we call this a thick marine layer. we say that the fog is rolling in. but the sky is just caressing the sea.

and the sea doesn't mind.

the sea billows towards the lofty sun, and crashes loudly. we call these waves. but the sea is in a fit, willing to collapse within itself, willing to forgo the embarrassment to get a little closer then before. and they sky does not laugh or ridicule the seas attempts.

it welcomes them.

feverish

the stones leading to my front door aren't round.

they are slabs of speckled concrete. square. plain. light grey.

they aren't dainty. or whimsical.

not like the stones that lead to secret gardens or hideaways where rebellious sophisticates rendezvous.

they are upfront and don't lie about how hard they are. or how people who drag their feet end up with stubbed toes.

but their hardness has welcomed me since the third grade.

this morning i saw a lizard with cracked skin scrambling across the third stone.

spry with anxiety. feverish. urgent.

and around it's back was an interminable string - thin, sheer, taut- attatched to the sun.

summer riding high like a kite.

the prison between the binding

reading time was his least favorite time of day. the teacher's pencil skirt zipped so tight, seemed to be like mummys wrappings, well-fitted grave clothes.

shhh. no talking.

the words did not make sense unless they were spoken. they longed to be spoken.

but for forty minutes each school day, he flipped the pages without understanding.

the ships would not leave the dock.

the adventurers added locks to their doors.

bluejays sang and nobody heard them.

children were ignored like shriveled prunes that nobody likes.

forty minutes of pretending.

then on to history - when the sea tasted like salty tea.

compliments of incensed colonists.

but his voice was like magic and justice. it liberated words, black with languish. and ships. and adventurers. it gave bluejays and children the freedom that only an attentive listener could. an earthquake of sound emancipated the captives in the prison between the binding.

their life was on his lips:

endless oceans and mountain ranges and skies and jungle gyms.