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                     streamriffs.com

Imagination: in three small stories

2/16/2021

2 Comments

 

  
   ~     
One: 
All through grammar school,
I imagined I was a deer, like Bambi,
moving through the woods, unseen,
silent as a leaf falling. 
 
The shyest child ever,
and homely, too, with an impressive overbite, 
coke-bottle glasses, and ten thousand freckles 
I wanted nothing more than to be invisible...
So blending into the background 
seemed like a good idea, to me. 
It backfired, though. 
 
Looking as I did, all while walking like a deer,
on a schoolyard (of all places)
I was  noticed, all right;
 for all the wrong reasons. 
 
Imagination couldn’t make me invisible,
but it did, actually, save me.
When reality became difficult, 
I’d simply disappear into the woods of my imagination.
 
A funny thing happened inside that safe place.
I became a watcher.  And what I saw was this:
Everybody suffers.  Even the meanest people. 
Probably especially them.  Some just hide it better than others.
 
This truth jolted me out of my self-consciousness.  
We all struggle.  We are all imperfect.  Yet, we all belong.
I eventually quit trying to walk like a deer,
but sometimes, I still like to disappear in the woods.  
           
  ~   
Two: 
Once I had a job that my heart refused to go to.
I tried to sweeten the pot,
tried to bring more soul and cheer into my work,
because I did needto go,
but my heart would lag behind
like a lazy, old dog.
 
Eventually, a bridge showed up
in my imagination,
it looked to be woven of flowers and vines,
pretty, but not remotely safe.
It did, however, lead from where I was,
to where I longed to be.
 
Each time I took a step onto that bridge
it lurched and swayed.
Still, the image held
and I wobbled across 
one hesitant step at a time.
 
Sometimes, I look back and I wonder--
How can one cross an imaginary bridge?
 
I only know this--
now my heart wakes early, 
alert as a hunting dog
ready for work, 
every single day.

​
~

Three: 
Four long years, I ranted over a President
who disregarded all that I hold dear,
among other things, air, water, and wild creatures.  
 
Then came this year--epidemics, wildfires,
drought, sickness, isolation, and sorrow.
Politics grew more toxic by the day.
 
I felt scared, as well as angry. To keep the craziness at bay, 
I began imagining a garden in the raw, scarred place
Where Joel and I had cleared dry brush for fire season. 
I pictured it alive and blooming, filled with bees, and butterflies. 
 
I’ve dug and planted, watered and mulched.  And waited.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          It has been nearly a year now.  My “garden” looks like nothing much, at all. 
 
Green smudges strewn and huddled in the dirt. 
I suppose it is still winter, 
For my garden, for the world. 
 
But God, I think, takes interest in our struggles.
The rains arrived, at long last.
My first visitor too,   
a “Mourning cloak,” flitted through the willows,
chocolate-brown wings
edged with ivory and blue.
Butterflies:
transformation. Hope. Life.
 
Imagine.
 
 

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2 Comments
Suzanna
2/17/2021 11:51:33 am

As I accompany you on the meek and meaningful mind meanderings of perspective changes that you shared above, I suddenly find myself pondering a mystery that seems to tie the three vignettes together. Buddhist thought reminds us that what we think we create (because something was apparently missing) turns out to be no more than participation in one of three natural activities: payment, transmutation or transcendence. What if it is all a matter of discarding what is not actually useful, and picking up what some other being didn't need? Could there be a universal Lost and Found Box that caretakers never have to search because they are wealthy enough to never miss the mislaid object?.

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Bev
2/18/2021 04:03:47 pm

Beautiful reflections...as usual!

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    Welcome to Streamriffs.com, a place for fellow creek- walkers and nature lovers.  Lori Fisher Peelen lives in California with her family.

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