Writing Center Creative Writing

Thanks Giving

by K.D.

Thank you, Allen wrenches.

Because of you I have a dining table, dining chairs, and a TV stand.

You so beautifully overpopulate my toolbox.

Thank you, wine.

You know who you are.

Our friendship has deepened, if not matured, these many lockdown months.

Thank you, Writing Center colleagues.

Some of you, for laughing with me when I shut down the meeting that Friday. Oops.

All of you, for giving me a stimulating and caring community during Covid.

This Moment

by Anne

Right now, the sun is stretching her light over the mountain, slowly illuminating them with liquid gold.

Right now, the day is just beginning; endless possibility bursts into boundless directions.

Right now, the peace and quiet of the day suspends the soft chatter of the sprightly blue jays nesting in the ancient oak.

Right now, the mistletoe hangs high in the oak tree like a verdant chandelier. It sways in the zephyr breeze, and the breeze licks my face.

Right now, the mountain, the sun, the oak, the jay, and the breeze greet me with promise and possibility. Everything is good and pure and right, right now.

Untitled

by Lisa

I remember the excitement I would feel at those first signs of fall;

the first orange, red, or gold leaf found sunning itself on the still warm pavement,

its soft edges becoming crisp, burnt, and shriveled,

like an aging sunbather on a sun-soaked beach.

I remember the anticipation I would feel watching even greater numbers of leaves;

falling in a windblown carpet across my dew-soaked lawn;

like brightly colored paratroopers gracefully descending toward the earth,

not knowing that they would soon be gobbled up under my father’s rake,

then piled high in a massive jumble with their fellow comrades.

I remember how the many haystacks of musty leaves

became an adventurous wonderland for neighborhood kids;

who wildly awaited this annual bacchanal ritual,

unabashedly running, jumping, romping and frolicking

in the joyful destruction of those many tidy piles.

I remember that for the briefest moment,

my house would become Disneyland;

a place where all the kids wanted to play

and the autumn air was filled with laughter and joy.

Untitled

by Jeff

something between us

smell roast chicken—

see my grandmother in her wooden kitchen—

listen to her say, “jeffrey”—

understand my heart, that moment—

no,

you don’t have it quite right.

you smell roast chicken—

but which grandmother do you really see?—

that’s not how her voice sounds—

and my heart, that moment—

how can I ...

maybe if we try it another way:

recall a cherished memory of a loved one

The ties that bind (a little poem written on the super fly)

by Anne

These days what binds me to others is what I see in small, precious frames.

These frames around me offer mini pictures everywhere.

From my desk in my dining room: I see a sweet vignette of two little people reading a book while laying on my rumpled bed. My sliding patio door frames a fast moving scene of Amazon delivering brown boxed-connections to neighbors I have never met.

My computer screen frames small live pictures and stills of faces from my work I dearly love and miss. The ties that bind us are live, virtual, necessary,

Mother

by K.D.

There is Mother.

She is forty-nine still, or again. I am no longer provoked by the difference.

She lapses, Depression stoic, New England steadfast, roused to effervescence at the scent

of shame. Deadly with a sigh. I care for her

tenderness born of tolerance

Painting her face in cadmium blue and gold

leaf. I sew cabochon rubies to her lips, tear drop

pearls to her ears. Together, we plant lies

harvest chimeras, toasting ghosted opulence with whiskey, neat

dribbled over tongues anxious with memory

Untitled

by Anne

Ally and adversary, the grains

migrate through

the

hourglass dropping

conventionally, a daytime friend functioning reliably on standard time

then, without warning, they

shift their trajectory floating slowly

through the brittle glass

now suspended in defiance of physics and empathy

amoral grains multiplying in the darkness

when my restless night mind is most vulnerable to the voluminous

grains swirling heavy

with the weighted burdens of the world