My classroom is a block like one of those you stack to do math when you're in kindergarten. Desks turn forward like lines of British soldiers, and students shout and throw rulers and text each other in a war for attention. My desk is the general's tent—present, to the side of the commons and barracks, capable at a moment's notice to survey the ranks (all I have to do is lift my eyesight an inch from my monitor to review a regiment using cell phones to redo eyelashes or sneaking markers to color in a map of Asia or clunkily dropping fidget spinners). From this distance it's difficult to tell if a student in the back is passing notes digitally on the phone in her lap or using a calculator to complete physics problems. So, with a war-weary sigh, although sans mustache, cigar, and epaulets, I get up from my chair and remind the Front that their assignment is due in two minutes.

A raindrop on a rose petal

That holds a world within

A shimmer in the summer air

Is where it will begin

A sparkle in your lover's eye

When they look upon your face

A promise in a single glance

Says you're in the perfect place

A whisper dancing in the wind

Sharing secrets, hopes & dreams

A song upon the ocean waves

So beautiful it gleams

A smile on a newborns lips

So innocent & pure

A crease upon a mother's brow

For the worry she will endure

Such precious little moments

Suspended, held in time

See them as they are

Real, not a pantomime

They are there just for you

A treasure chest of gems

When you're feeling sad

From here your memory stems

& then as you remember

A smile begins to appear

All these little precious moments

Are there to hold you near

They will keep you warm & dry

When it's cold & wet outside

& when you're lost among despair

They give you somewhere safe to hide

So do what makes you happy

Go dancing in the rain

Lose yourself in fantasy

Let it ease the pain

Don't waste your moments

Make as many as you can

Live, laugh, learn, explore

& remember how it all began

Light caramel breeze

floods over the seas.

Sunrise wades

into our lives,

amber light

of promise, weaving

butterscotch drops.

Cobalt veil lifts

as night surrenders

to pregnant morn,

bleeding colors

and life

into layers

of our skin.

Our eyes

echo soft hues, as

we watch golden orb

continue its path,

struggling

to grasp life

in yearning hands,

ingrained perfectly

in formed memories

of this moment

in time.

You whisper

your dreams in

impressionist light

but I tint them

with my own afterglow,

trapped in my own

reverie of luminosity.

Without hearing

your rosy words,

I turn to see

that you are gone,

the sound

of seagulls fades.

She wiped her hands on her inherited apron and caught a reflection in the chrome of the kitchen faucet, where the spigot always ticked: drip, drip... a dampened, furrowed brow, silvery waves, dim sarcastic quips... had she grown out or in? stretched or cramped?

All this time, here, but away: counting pins...

A rolling pin in hand, the tool of now...

The pins that pulled at her hair, clamping the past...

That gold pin of hope weighing at the gingham lapel...

Them game pins, reservations, little grand-kids' birthdays...

well pinned, standing solemnly on the needles of many someone's aching feet. 

Much has happened today that I was unaware of till I 

came home after a day with friends, 6PM CDT.  

In a moment, when I turned on the news I was 

horrified by the hate that was spread and the evil 

that we can still inflict on one another.

I don't know what this hate is, and my heart was heavy that

a life was lost due to the loss of control of emotions.

Emotions that we have against our fellow man that spreads 

nothing but hate.  To impregnate the evil onto their fellow

man...their brothers and sisters and do harm.

In Charlottesville they came, 

not to greet their brothers and sisters

and hold them in their arms

but to spit venom at them and 

hold them at bay

In Charlottesville they came,

not to spread the words of love

nor extend their hands in friendship

but to punch and harm those that 

thought another way

In Charlottesville they came,

not out of hope for peace

or the spoken words within law and order

but the discord of men's hearts

and the spreading of the imagined enmities

There's blood everywhere;

missiles in the air

The boat we flipped

to hide behind

gave us away

they had seen us

and the blows began

the water churning red

as we each tried to run

soldiers falling around me

the scent of death

fills our heads

we can barely breathe

but we only see the shore

the barricade we implore

hide us, hide us please--

BOOM

my hearing went shrill

⠀⠀I screamed in agaony

⠀⠀⠀clutching my head

⠀⠀⠀⠀wobble toward the barricade

⠀⠀⠀I see my army

⠀falling around me

My eyesight 

is going 

blurry

⠀⠀⠀

and I see

 ⠀⠀⠀

⠀⠀

⠀⠀only

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

⠀⠀

⠀⠀

⠀⠀⠀⠀darkness.

⠀⠀

⠀⠀

⠀⠀

⠀⠀

⠀⠀

Four good friends, shared many a wonderful moments. Some moments contained laughter, some contained love. But, there was one particular time, that the moment that was shared was so profoundly special, that they each tried to capture it.

Amy pulled out her camera and tried to capture it in black and white. She loved seeing the contrasts in that particular moment and all of the shades of gray in between. That was how she would always remember it, many years from now, looking at that photo, framed and always kept on the main wall of all of her future dwellings.

Brenda always carried her pencils and charcoals on hand for moments just like this. She put the moment to paper. A moment like this deserved the paper of the finest sort. She wept when she was finished, she not only captured the moment perfectly, she captured perhaps the most perfect moment of her life.

Carly's form of choice was to distill the moment down to its purest poetic form. As the feelings of the moment translated into verse, she found that she captured the moment into a sonnet. A sonnet had never come together so quickly and beautifully before. She knew down to the core of her being, she would never compose a sonnet so effortlessly again.

Doug took in the moment in his mind, and took in his very best friends as they went to capture the moment before it fled. He took in how Amy studied the moment to get the perfect shot; she was so beautiful when she held that seriousness. He took in Brenda as she whirled her pencils over the paper; her wilds were always set free when she was drawing anything. He took in Carly penning her sonnet; she always seemed more alluring when she was lost in capturing verse. Doug wanted to capture it in a different way, but for him, the moment contained his friends trying to capture it perfectly as much as the part of the moment being captured by them. So he instead tucked it into his heart, the entirety of the moment and what followed after.

Four friends captured a special moment shared, each in their own way. Four friends marveled as to each other's technique of capturing the moment. Four friends continued to live and laugh and love, another special moment cementing their friendship further.

I picked her up from school in the rain

She was in the 1st grade

We walked to our apartment

Under the black umbrella

Surrounded by green terrain,

Brick walls covered in snails

From pavement to patio

As they sought to escape the water

That submerged their homes

It literally looked like a snail twilight zone

They gathered and slithered in every nook and cranny

Leaving no space to walk,

“Crunch, Crunch, Crunch!”

We walked on

Trying to avoid them

Until my daughter turned to me

And stated ever so solemnly,

“Mommy, I can’t take it anymore! Call the cops!”

Trembling beside him, full of fear,

and letting him whisper in my ear,

I could only mutter back, "ar."

Desire crept in me, and he careesed

my shoulders melted in to let him arrest

and we formed into each other, sweet rest.

His lips met mine, tasting both sour and sweat

and I breathed in his bare skin, color of farm boy wheat,

he nibbled at my ear and I wanted to eat.

My craving was him. As perfect as fall.

I climbed on top and wanted all.

His sweet lilts between kisses, ll. 

But in the morning, he left me alone.

I reassured myself, I stayed lone.

But if I wanted him, I wanted just one. 

Chasing waterfalls cold clear collecting all the water. It's looming down in form in all, and some. The water so passingly. What makes water? Before the sunshines= Give warmth, and cheer. Along comes with heavy drops of summer rain. Again and again the rains repeat. Lute plays a deep melody over the drops of rain. On this earth there are your rhythms sad and wistful. While the leaves have me looking back and the leaves fall like my sleeves. Colors seem to turn at last. Given me room , drops in setting face of the sun. If ever a color.