I Became a Thin Blue Wire. That Held the World Above the Fire.

big snow in japan by takezzo

We all stood still in the snow but time surged ahead.
It went on like this for miles. Frozen track weather and us, climbing out from beneath it.
Lovers stood stranded in doorways
Neighbors trudged up the road clinging to children and their grocery bags.
Whether or not we believed in the accuracy of weathermen or the church. We all still needed it.
This return to seeing each other outside and uncovered. This return to walking.

This return.
It is upon us indeed.

Put on your parka.
Get out the snow shovels.

Prepare the way.

Adventures and the Aftermath

eleonore in the snow by milkie

Dear.

I love adventures and tonight, there the most delicious one afoot.

The lights have gone out and I have never seen this much snow before. I pulled my bed into the den with the wood burning stove and piano. Lit four candles. Thanked my elementary computer teacher for making me memorize as I pressed practiced keys in the dark. Thought about call of the wild. Where the wild things are. and cold mountain. and stacked the wood so high, you would have laughed and reminded me how they looked like linken-logs.

All these memories are housed only in my mind. To be released only through my own recollection of them. In a journal or on a camera. or strung into some selfish regale I will later mention in a crowd to boost my independent persona.

I miss sharing and I am weary of having adventures alone.

I wanted you here with me. grinning about linken logs and laughing.

Please come find me under all this snow.

Ashley

promise what you will. by iron and wine

untitled by mephisto19

a song about waiting. put simply and much more clearly than i have managed.
You can also go here to have a listen.

Lately she don't care for a warmer breeze
Or shade around the base of the maple trees
Spring was on the mountain we climbed upon
Stopped to see how high and how far we'd gone

I said "love is waiting and better days"
She smiled and placed a kiss on my waiting face
Promise what you will something good for me
Time will take it all and it will you'll see

The take cover. The sweeping insensitivity of this. Still Life.

lift your skinny fists. by ashley brown

When I wish to be elsewhere at 26. With someplace or someone to call home. Please remind me that you promised. without fingers crossed behind your back. like I would have done given the weight of all those prophesies and parched lips.
Remind me that when you said no. and not yet.
You were just busy writing another part of the story.
One where more hearts beating blood through our veins and against our ears and lips.
Where bodies would turn to bread.
And planning the night when all those cathedral walls fell down and we would find you sitting among the rubble.
Remind me, you were just busy saving my life.

The Waiting Place.

The Waiting Place. By Dr. Seuss

You can get so confused that you’ll start in to race down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space, headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.

The Waiting Place…for people just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance. Everyone is just waiting.

No! That’s not for you!
Somehow you’ll escape all that waiting and staying. You’ll find the bright places where Boom Bands are playing. With banner flip-flapping, once more you’ll ride high! Ready for anything under the sky….


Dear Dr. Seuss.
Indeed there are so many useless waiting places. But I do believe our particular waiting place is not so useless. You see, the waiting has become useful because the object waited for is not boiling water or a bus. But a person. And the very person that will draw a map most odd looking and more like a figure study. of our escape route.
Yes.
somehow we will escape all that useless waiting and staying. with the longest piece of string.
through the most unexpected alleyway.
Today is our birthday.
An exodus.
A new born and our escape into a new world.

Ashley

It Could be a Bomb or a Bullet or a Sentence or a Savior.

sandy blue waves. by stoonja

We have needed this for so long. Thought of a thousand different ways it would happen. The weathermen spoke of floods and opened their umbrellas. The faithful mentioned crowns full of anger and amethists. fearful fortune tellers tried to plug the hole to heaven and the pagans just plugged their ears. We all thought you would be louder, you know.

The mere waiting or wild guesses might have stopped our hearts altogether. I think I see now there is some reason for all that waiting. something tangible and important. A savior or a set of gold clubs, isn’t the gift always that much better after we have wanted it, seemly forever. After we have anticipated. Guess at. dreaded. expected.hoped...

something is coming to us. so says the translation and our telescopes. Someone we have waited for since before we knew it. Someone who will sew us up.
wrapped in prayer shawls and the smell of cattle.
Ambilical cords instead of golden robes.
Go figure.

songs for the silence.

waiting. by ynot

We should all have soundtracks for pieces of time in our lives. one for autumn. One for a lover. One for faith. For the moment we started our own family. The moment puberty hit. These kinds of things. And I think advent should be one of these particiularly held, communicated moments. It is important. to me. So I will sit around and soak it up, listening to thoughts about time and timing. wishes and waiting. put poetically. practically. so I understand it.

here’s my list and in this order.

Coal War. Joshua James
All My Days. Alexi Murdoch
Time Goes Away. Rosie Thomas
The Longer I Lay Here. Pedro the Lion
Please Stop Time. Tyler Ramsey
Table for Two. Derek Webb
Revelator. Gillian Welch
Communion Cups and Someones Coat. Iron and Wine
Here at the Right Time. Josh Ritter
In My Time of Need. Ryan Adams
Passing Afternoon. Iron and Wine