A flash of light

moving forward

new lines of

aging

I am older now

but I stand alongside

our summer hello

and winter farewell

I see you standing

in a locked embrace

holding someone new

and its always too soon

for believing in the distance

We

must constantly

count our pennies

along with our blessings

pinching where we are able

for flour and sugar aren’t free

even gifts have a ransom

we hold out hope

for more than

a half-priced

life.

     As a boy, my big brother and I seldom found ourselves on the same side of anything really. We fought over video games, the front seat, and who sat where at dinner. He tortured me for having a night light and sucking my thumb. I told on him for just about everything in return. 

     Back and forth we fought, as brothers do, until one fateful day I heard a subtle, wasteland-heart, crooning notes over a rock guitar. The voice sounded both lost and fearsome at the same time, and the melody droned on, melancholic and penetrating. I crept down the hall to hear more and found myself in my brother’s room while my big brother V and his best friend Mike nodded in unison to Sound Garden’s “The Day I Tried to Live.”

     I knew I’d catch a beating for even thinking about being in V’s room without a good reason, but the voice called me from the hallway and pulled me in. I was powerless. The voice soared over the dissonant guitar riffs, wrenching away from the melody with crystal clear rebellion. I was changed. I closed my eyes and imagined what the singer looked like. He must be tall. Defiant. A hero, fighting against something bigger than himself, but fighting bravely anyway. Saturday cartoons had taken hold and I was very into super heroes back then and imagined him like that. “V, what the hell?” I opened my eyes to see my brother and his six-foot behemoth friend gawking at my bravado.

     V sat up and stood but instead of throwing me out, he said one of the first non- threatening things to me in our short history at the time. “Hey, come over here. What do you think of this, huh? You don’t like it do you?” Mike laughed his dopey laugh and shook his head.

     I piped up, “It’s...amazing.” I’ll never forget how my brother grinned. Like I’d passed some test. Mike laughed and said, “Start it over bro! See what his favorite is!” We spent the next hour listening to Superunkown, ironically enough, it's how my brother and I got to know each other.

     To this day the album takes me back to a place of discovery and understanding like nothing else, and though I’ve grown up some, now I don't think, but know, the singer who cranked out those noble notes was a hero. He was fighting against something larger than himself, and he held fast decades passed when a kid heard those cries in the hall and heard sounds of a battle. 

     Not all wars can be won and, "The lives we make never seem to ever get us anywhere but dead," but Chris gave us the soundtrack to the fight and showed us the meaning of perseverance. For that and so much more, we will miss you Mr. Cornell. Your voice will never die.

Rest in Power,

Hanif

Have you ever had that feeling when you look at a photograph from a dusty old album lying on the shelf and come across a memory of an amazing day spent with your friends? Festivals, holidays and birthdays come and go. We click a picture and seal thousands of memories in that one photograph which is responsible for our nostalgia on the occasional cupboard-cleaning day. We treasure little stuff in a rusty old box which is a key to the door of our childhood days. While other people might dismiss it as unimportant junk, we can't help but smile every time we look at it. It is a reminder of the mischief due to which you were scolded or those unfulfilled promises you made with your friends as a child. As we grow up, our feelings change, we meet new people and naturally our priorities change.While some people easily embrace this change, others frequently dive into the unfathomable depths of the memories which remain, (though the people may not) which takes them to an unknown but still familiar place from the past. In this place, broken bonds are temporarily joined, disputes and differences resolved, worries left behind and foes reconcile. Because in this place, there is nothing but a group of people facing you, united by a struggle to smile against the bright sunlight and posing, not for a picture, but for a memory.

I disappear to these lands of snow capped mountains and pasture valleys

To breath in the cold air to clear my mind and smell the grass within the land

In my walks, I find my ranch with horses and alpacas

I ride my horse as I tend to my sheep and cows which

I lead to the clear blue waters of the mountains

to satisfy their thirst and keeps the lands-a-plenty

with grains and crops to live off of the land

In my ranch there is a huge library 

with leather couches and a desk, a well stocked bar

with good whiskies to drink from far off lands

and shelves of books to read at my leisure

Occasionally looking out the wall spanning windows 

and gaze out at the mountain and valley views

A well stocked kitchen to cook at will

and wines to both cook and drink 

until I pass out in my huge bed

with linens so soft, you'd think they were

clouds...

The shrieking roc dives from the endless sky

Banshee's shrill scream urges me through thick sand

The breath of its colossal wings pass by

King of eagles blasts into the scorched land.

Black embers score my skin as the roc strains

In ebon sand that throbs with the sun's rays

I drink in the sand's power--fire floods my veins;

Set alight, I harness the charred sands' blaze.

A charcoal swell surges at my command--

Then twists away of its own strange accord

Given life by some invisible hand

The sand's black coils claim the sky's fallen lord.

I will never forget this novel feat

Of the sand that lives in the searing heat.

She passes before me, casting 

a bright light of confidence

And the way she walks,

like she can't wait to explore

I love the smile she has

it gives so much emotion,

excitement, wonder and the love

of the unconditional

She wonders why she draws 

men like months but

I have to turn away

sometimes, for I am drawn, too

How can I tell her that 

the reason for her glow

is not her shape and form

but the glow of her spirit?

This is not love just 

unconditional infatuation

This is not love, just

the rants of the lonely

I write my pain

with a bucket list

squeezing out wishes

swimming in dreams

drowning in the want of

a past swept down under

I'm exercising push a little

two hands that pull in a prayer

a desire for rescuing love, anchoring

The words in a fight for savoring

I'm always running late, returning you

All the hopes we had in our summer memories

I never went through any trying time of my life without you in it. I shared my oh so personal feelings with you. I felt safe that my secrets and feelings were not exposed in any manner. Mom, your were my confidant, listener and adviser at times. You were such the go to girl who could relate with experiences of your own making me feel human. I recognized your skills with others. Your kindness and generosity I will always pattern after. I'm so proud the pear don't fall too far from the tree.

Della

i am too young to be looked over

too old to be overlooked

too young for a place in the world

too old to fit in the corner

i am not too young to hear the clock 

ticking seconds i am not talking

minutes i am a minute thing

days spent in a daze

years of deaf adult ears

ticking toward too late 

what is my age?

younger than me.