The Birds Sit Warmly on Cold Braches

Their feathers are puffed out to insulate

Their faces brightly examining the view from their perch.

The stiff bush, growing in every direction, makes for a sturdy resting spot

The branches can be scraped for snacks

And tiny mounds of snow are refreshing to peck at.

They are companions.

Though the world be open wide they seem to appreciate the company close-by

They lounge and itch beneath their wings, and look around for perspective

The cold white crystal glows in the light, as though rare gems lay exposed in the place of lawn.

They await the need to move without intention.

Though, HERE IT IS!

Behind the bush, the steps to the home echo with action as a neighbour climbs to leave a little note in the box.

Such abrupt banging makes birds leap into higher air, away from danger or dispair!

But one little bird tucks their head and keeps a careful eye, to bravely consider that it might not be an enemy nearby.

She twitches her head with curiosity and furrows her feathers,

But she is calm as the neighbour moves on.

As her reward, she stretches her neck and itches the tense tingles beneath the fluff.

Happy survivors tweet with relief and join young valour on her branch.

They twist and itch and delight.

Unaware of the woman who sits behind a window in that home

Witness to fitness of freedom

As she writes in a trap of the future.

By: Sarah C Louise

Spring in February

I feel that ugly apprehension, Spring in February,

Those same warm suns which successfully work on the skin and soothe against the chilling winds

Those same smells of awakened decomposition, what had been covered before dying is revealed to revive, the mulching and moisture and moldering.

Those same glimpses of brown grass, provoking hope of the soon to come vast open fields of green which offers such distances to run and such freedom from familiar winter confinement.

Those same looks of the trees which seems to radiate the breathing, blooming, budding beneath the bark.

It feels lively.

It feels uplifting.

It feels glorious.

But it’s not, is it?

It’s a nasty taste, a sour flavour of our ominous reality.

There will be Springs in January, then December, and then the snow will be a memory,

And I will begin to miss the blustering, the stiffening, the piercing,

And I will begin to miss the severe shock of absence of sun,

And I will begin to miss the grotesque cold which kills our less careful or less fortunate citizens,

And I will begin to miss the slippery treks through the river valley or to Chinatown or to the corner store,

And I will hate myself for enjoying the time when there was Spring in February.

By Sarah C Louise

Image from http://art-is-art-is-art.tumblr.com/

Providential Pals

They walked together, arm in arm,

One, a young woman with a love for dressing like an old man.

The sort of attire you’d expect to see on Woody Allen during the making of Manhattan

The other, a long-legged, silver-stiletto-ed, juicy-haired, Queen

Her shoes were 5 inches off the ground; the rim of her skirt was 5 feet off the ground.

They met under unlikely circumstances,

That is, in any other town than Edmonton

The cute queen was attempting the streets of ice,

Sure to go on for blocks,

When, to her rescue,

The woman offered her arm.

They walked together, like a couple who had just been to Bermuda,

They spoke of the marvelous capabilities of their childhood imaginations.

They spoke of their mothers, and their mothers’ mutual habits of telling them what they wore what not what to wear.

They spoke of their preference for velvet over sequence.

In their trudging, the found extents of friendship one can never hope to find at work.

They understood each other.

They mutually adored the fleeting nature of their time together.

And once the stretch was over

The path salted sufficiently,

the Queen blew her a kiss,

and the woman tipped her hat,

and they wished one another a happy time on this earth.

By Sarah C Louise

Snow falling on a winter day

“Snow falling on a winter day”: an example of peace my students gave me.

Beautiful thought, and indeed I do agree, though only from our perspective of being giant in comparison.

When I try to imagine the tretcherous path of a snowflake my stomach begins to turn. A masterpiece of design, carrying such perplexing beauty to compete with Michelangelo’s David or Milo’s Venus, which would stun the world if they could only know. I see it clinging to a tired cloud. The cloud gives it up, abandoning the little flake to the wind. Blowing chaotically, falling perpetually, breaking inevitably, and always landing with a crash: scuffing a stucco wall, thrown into pine tangle, blasted by an SUV, butchered by the colliding, desperate flakes and, finally, cast to the very pit of the sky. Steadily being buried amongst others, indestinguishable, anonymous, paralyzed ambiguously for the remainder of the snowflake’s existence. Cast off, crushed, dissolved: that is the life of a snowflake.

Yet there are a rare few, aren’t there, which happen to land on the cuff of the coat of the man waiting at a bus stop, who brings his sleeve toward his nose in order to get a better look. Or on the nose of a child, who giggles at the gentle chill and admires its slow melting. Or in the palm of a partner, whose precious lover kisses the flake into oblivion.

Peace is a snowflake that has fallen and, despite it’s miniature nature, humbles those who have noticed. More specifically, it is in the exchange.

Written by: Sarah C Louise

Photo taken by: Alexey Kljatov