#FWF Kellie Elmore

 

Hello? Rhia a tall young woman with beautiful red hair, trailing down her back, was taking a walk past fields of grass through the lush green forest when she stopped short in front of the most beautiful image she had ever seen. She gasped, just staring at this magical wagon, with different colors, different textures. She said “Hello? again.” It was odd, she was sure she could hear whispers and giggling but she didn’t see anyone around. She felt incredibly safe so she climbed up the steps and peered into the wagon.

Rhia was a quiet but very strong young woman, having lived on the streets and shelters before, but as soon as she got to the top step she suddenly she felt a rush of happiness and love enveloping her. She never felt this feeling before. She walked around the carriage noticing the brilliant colors and daring to touch the lovely, embroidered, velvet and cotton and silk fabrics. She listened closely the sounds that the bells made swinging in the air.

 

#175357420 / gettyimages.com

 

She KNEW she had to know more about this magical place, she couldn’t leave, she would not leave for anything in the world. Her life, in the past had always been disconnected, she loved no one, no one loved her. She had never known what happiness was but she was beginning to think that a miracle had happened.

Today was the first day she felt a thrill of excitement and joy, her life was, from one minute to the next, blooming in vivid colors. She was part of a tapestry of richness and the Earth, magic, starlight, sun, moon. Immediately, her dull, tough, cold past and all that she once knew disappeared. She couldn’t remember anything that had happened before this day, but she knew by the way her heart was warming up inside her, she had just arrived home.

Rhia had been a wanderer before this, a sad, lonely young teen with fiery red hair trailing down her back. She had been born to live with nature, and as soon a she entered the wagon, she met a beautiful, mystical woman who she felt an immediate connection with, her name was Mother Ash. Ash and Rhia had been searching for each other for so many years not that they knew it, until they met that day and then they knew they would never be apart, not for a single day.

Together, they lived in the magical wagon with animals as their extended family to keep them company, to give them a home, to feed each other to sing songs together at night, to wake up together in the glorious sunshine.

A wolf was their best friend, and a furry-red haired fox that they knew must have been one of Rhia’s younger siblings, their hair was so similar.

Two large dogs stayed with them to protect them and keep them warm and two goats named Larry and Lena provided milk and home-made honey-lavender ice cream. The bees that swarmed were friendly, offering honey and among the grass precious plants grew, sweet-smelling lavender, mint and chives, dill and there was a huge vegetable garden that could keep them eating happily for months. They had eggs and cheese and of course they had no meat, how could they eat their friends?

The wagon never moved, except in their imagination. They didn’t want to hurt horses by making them pull, horses were their friends. Finally, when Rhia and Ash had lived there for three weeks and three days, the faeries and gnomes, feeling satisfied, presented themselves to Rhia and Ash. They had to be sure that these were the right people and of course they were.

At night, you could hear music that the animals played together, the sweet sound of the faeries giggling around the circle that they made, music played by the owls in their trees, the birds tweeting their flutes and the squirrels banging softly on their drums.

Rhia and Ash lived there forever, with more and more animals joining them, the sky in the morning was sunny every day, the night ended softly, phasing out with a beautiful blend of colors, a gorgeous sunset, that all the friends sat together and waved to say good-night to the sun.

 

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FWF Kellie Elmore

Bear and me

my name is greta, i am five. i live here with my bestest friend Bear, we used to live someplace else but no more. we came 2gether cuz wee had 2 cuz of the bad stuff for us  but we love it here. he and i are the ones in charge of all the other friends and family. theres mr.  red cat, an mrs.duck and her yello ducklins, monkeys that make me laugh when they tickle me under my chin or throw me lellow bananas. they swing from branch 2 branch like a circus show some person in the bad other world took me from.

circuses were fun once but not ythe other part where i got losted and the mean man pushed me in the bathroon door an hurtted me a lot. he lockeded the door and i tried to screem but no words came out and my momma culdlnt find me cuz he coverred my lips with a smelly rag. no daddy came neither, but i new they was lookin for me cuz i kept hearing my name in the air. for a little while until i was asleep an i f elt sick.

wen i woke up i didn t now wher i was, and i has to throw up bad. the mean guy was still ther and he was madder than smoke i got sick again and again but i had to. i didnt want to mac him mad, i swear. he hit me a lot. he told me to shut up and used a realy bad wordd but i cant repeat it but it starts with the letter  f—. i tried to stop sayin anythin and to stop cryin but i wantd my momma and daddy sew much.he sayd they didnt want me no more an i was gonna be dead soon after he got some money for me.

he sayed he waz gonna sell me but somethin bad happened an there was lots of bad men fighting an screeming, i herd guns an shootin, i saw red blood flyin aroun the small white room, no win-dows. i tried to pre tednd i was sleepin but th en i messed up. i opened my eyes too fast and 2 guys, one the meanest one, got a shot gun an the other a small gun an they both shotted at me the same time, in my bleedin heart and left me. i waz bleedin an in the beginnig it hurt but i couldnt cry an then it didnt hurt an i was raised up to be here past the blue sky an puffy clouds to be betterer an happier to live with Bear an my animal friends forever. i no peoples say that some mans and womens are good but i dont  care i dont believe them, an i dont have to cuz my world is safe up here with my forest family.

Haiku Heights-Green

A Thick Forest (Photo credit: Jon Person)

*Envy steals the soul

Gripping, stomach shooting, pain

Life lost in the past

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Forest, milky dew

Inhaling fir, musty leaves

Crisp apples of sun

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Ocean, sea of lights

Tumbling green, gray-blue colors

Looking for lace foam.

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*Dedicated To Tammy Spice, who once had a doctor that destroyed her life. I wish I could take the pain away from you. Please keep on fighting.

The Fox And The Wolf

Rainy Golestan National Park (Photo credit: brum d)

I have a friend, a dear friend, a soul sister that I have forged a deep connection with and recently learned she is sick. I fear she is very sick and while I may write and sob, wearing my heart always, on my sleeve, she is calm and accepting and talks about life after death calmly. I am here, a long way from her, this friend I have never even met, and I am crying, my tears flowing down my red cheeks without stopping. I don’t even attempt to dab at the waterfall cascading from my green eyes, I could not keep up. In some way I don’t want to mop up my tears and have a clean face; it just doesn’t feel right.

I try to put on a brave front but she knows me and can see through my pretenses. “You have lost many people and you just don’t want to lose your new friend, your soul sister” she writes to me as if to explain. I put my head in my hands and rock myself while she is trying to comfort me from afar. She is a brave warrior and I feel like a fearful, young, gray mouse yet we coexist in nature. I have learned more from this friend about life and yes, death, than from many people I have known a long time. People can call themselves “best friends” but it’s only a label, an artificial one.

She and I connect, spiritually. She sent me a poem that used in one of her pieces of writing and it turns out to be the same poem (* see below ) I had read at my father’s funeral. It did not surprise me but as wonderful as the poem is, it does not quiet my heart when I miss my dad the most and that, she acknowledges,  is true. I wish I could wrap her up in a cocoon of the softest, silky threads and take care of her, feed her so she will stop losing weight rapidly, sing folk songs deep into the night, looking at the stars and making her tea with tupelo honey.

We have never met, she and I, but we know each other well, like wildlife in nature, harmoniously living together, understanding intuitively what is good, what is bad, a friend, a foe.  I hope to meet her someday soon but even if I don’t and even if she does die, as we all will, I know now, that feeling connected to another person, is worth the sadness that might occur later. For everyone, for everything, give people your heart and appreciate whatever time you have with them. Because, without them you would have been a lesser person, a smaller animal in the beautiful green forest.

Thinking of an anticipated good-bye is downright torture for me, it’s like squeezing blood from my brittle bones, without anesthesia.

*Do not stand at my grave and weep is a poem written in 1932 by Mary Elizabeth Frye. Although the origin of the poem was disputed until later in her life, Mary Frye’s authorship was confirmed in 1998 after research by Abigail Van Buren, a newspaper columnist.^[1]

Full text

The “definitive version,” as published by The Times and The Sunday Times in Frye’s obituary, 5 November 2004:^[2]

Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there; I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow,

I am the diamond glints on snow,

I am the sun on ripened grain,

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning’s hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circling flight.

I am the soft star-shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,

I am not there; I did not die.

dedicated to my friend, with love. she knows who she is.

Where The Sun Rises

Image by Florian Seiffert (F*) via Flickr

Right now as I am about to go to sleep there are people waking up all over the world starting their day. The earth continues to spin, bringing me soft cotton blankets and images of sleeping baby lambs. On the other side of the world, in Israel, people are waking up with the energy of a newly performed puppet show for grinning children.

There, old women with white hair put red and blue carpets outside their apartment windows and beat the rugs rhythmically with a broom. That same sound would wake me up in the morning when we visited. Plumes of dust would escape the beaten rugs and disappear into the blue sky like magic.  Once awake, I would tiptoe to the living room window to see the stray kittens and cats on the ground floor crying out, begging for food. I would slip behind my step-grandmother’s back and throw bits of chicken or bread out the window every day. I knew I wasn’t supposed to do that but that was not going to stop me. I would do the same thing today.

There is a main street in the city, Dizengoff Street, that is filled with shops of all kinds and numerous outdoor café houses all in a row. It was a tradition after an afternoon nap to pick a place and have coffee and cake, or in my case, iced chocolate and cake. There was never a question if we would go, but rather where we should go. The one that had the deep chocolate fudge cake or the one that had lemon meringue tarts? Where could we get orchestra seats, a front row table, to watch other people go by. Everyone knew each other back then and it always felt like we were being welcomed back home. My mother was the star, the queen from America; often, people would recognize my mother and come over to say hello and join us as they smoked cigarettes, one after the other.

I felt safest here, walking alone at night with yellow globes of lit lamps along the street and a steady stream of people cheerfully talking near me. I did not fear missiles or bombs or terrorism. I had little more to do than try to avoid eating some of my step-grandmother’s moldy cheese. She would keep little squares of cheese and cut the mold off and say the rest was fine; she did this with all her food. She would hold on to tiny bits and pieces of food in her refrigerator and never throw them away. I tried to stay away from the her home-made dark tuna salad that reminded me of cat food.

During the early morning we would go to a beautiful pool club that was next to the ocean. The pool water was bright, glimmering blue, sunlight crystals sparkling on top of the water like freshly polished diamonds. People would play beach tennis on the beach; the hot sand only a few seconds away. The tide was strong, pulling, pulling, like repetitive pain. The current could go from challenging to dangerous in a split second. Lifeguards blew their whistles here too.

My mother would hold my hand as a child and take me from store to store to find American Cheese and Nestle’s Quik for my milk, I was always a fussy eater. Once we found corn flakes in a tiny store no bigger than a closet and that was a major triumph. On every street corner there were at least one or two vendors selling freshly squeezed orange juice or grapefruit juice. We always stopped for a glass as we walked on the steaming pavement under the blazing sun. I can almost taste the fresh orange essence dancing on my tongue.

In three days my friend’s son is getting married in a forest in Israel. Two interwoven trees, black and white, were beautifully hand drawn on the invitation. I wish my whole family could have been there but it is a long way from home and very expensive. I imagine the happy couple, friends and family, dancing joyfully. I imagine endless platters of food: vegetarian only: hummus with pita, salad, platters of eggplant drizzled with olive oil, home-baked goods and people cheering and celebrating into the wee hours of the morning. Dogs and children playing on the forest floor making happy sounds, babies gurgling with delight.

I need to go back with my husband for a visit. I would like to return to a place where I have a lot of colorful memories from. I would also like to take my mother back to her home. She wouldn’t need to find me chocolate milk or cheese; it’s my turn, this time I would take care of her.

Congratulations Daniel and Nora!

Dedicated to my Mom.