I am a Big Beautiful Black Woman and I very much enjoy being one.
If you want to know more about me (and you know you do), see my "About Raivenne" page.
Fall comes fast and furious in ochre and goldenrod jewels that seeming shoved aside the abundant verdant hues of summer. For all its warm beauty I am cognizant of the oncoming days when grayed twisted bodies, shrouded in mounds of white fluff, exchange its colorful jewels for icy diamonds that drip from limbs that will scratch at the too cold skies of winter.
As I kneel in one of the garden beds, the loss of warmth and color sadden me. It’s peaty scent, petrichor after the last thunderstorm momentarily bely the seasons in my mind. I am reminded after winter comes spring and the better days that then follow. Pruning, turning over earth in preparation I remind myself I’d like, too, to plant the sweet alyssum that smells like honey and peace. Thus I bury my autumn doldrums in thoughts of spring for now.
Sanaa (aka adashofsunny) would like for us to write a Prose piece which includes the line:
“I’d like, too, to plant the sweet alyssum that smells like honey and peace.” from the poem, “What I would like to grow in my Garden.” by Katherine Riegel.
Write a piece of flash fiction or other prose up of up to or exactly 144 words, Including the given line from the poem.
The fresh scent of lawn anywhere Can sometimes take me there Magnolia wafting on morningbreeze Even if I cannot see the trees Yes, sometimes a hint of sweat Remembrances of you beget The mourning in memory spurred When into earth you were interred
Yesterday on Quadrille Monday Linda Lee invites to put our best morning forward in a quadrille.
A Quadrille is simply a poem of 44 words, excluding the title. It can be in any form, rhymed or unrhymed, metered, or unmetered. You MUST use the word “morning” in your poem.
Today dVerse guest host Jo invites us to A World of Common Scents and challenges us to write a poem of scents.
Linda’s “morning has broken” struck at Melpomene who cruelly reminds pleasant scents do not always pleasant memories make.
I am aware it is still Summer. I am the person who emphatically espouses yearly that my birthday is officially in the summer, regardless that the vernal equinox follows only a couple of days later. So believe me, I well aware it is still Summer.
That being said, it’s officially Virgo season and this week I have noticed my personal markers for the coming season have begun:
Waking up to darkness again at 5 in the morning.
Being fully dark again by 9pm
Enough leaves have begun to descend that the groundskeepers around my job are using already using leaf blowers to clean.
I haven’t seen so many people wearing long sleeves since early May.
Last night I closed a window because the cross breeze was a bit too cool to take.
I know we still have a month of regular summer, and there’s also Autummer* to go through later in the fall season. But these past few overly humid Canicular days are starting to get to me.
Come on sweater weather!!
*Autummer – what I dub what was once known as Indian Summer, which is no longer used out of respect to Native Americans. It is that brief, yet lovely, time of year mid-to late autumn, here in the US and Europe where after it starts to feel noticeably cold, it suddenly warms up for a few days. It is what summer should be: regular length days and acceptable heat, just before Jack Frost slips his fingers in to give a hint of what’s coming next.
Let’s see how others are chilling it out this Tuesday…
Sir Michaels looks out the window in his nightly watch aware that he is in a way supervised. The neighbor in passing of his own windows across the way, Mussa by name, sees him there. It is the same near every morning, in or out of the light of the moon. If one did not know him better one would think him obsessive in his watch, the neighbor is one such.
He knows folks of the town have warned Mussa to beware such gazing upon Sir Michaels in his solitude – people talk, they do little else – that Mussa would not like it if the sharp faced neighbor were to know of his nightly staring. He has spied the contents of some of the letters the senders and receivers presume are exchanged in secret. The tales told are fanciful and frightening, but remain merely tales, nonetheless.
For now. Should that change – it will be dealt with.
It amuses him that those who claims such dire tidings as truth are unaware that Mussa already knows he has been cognizant of his spying since his first night seeing him there. Having watched for many months now, though sometimes wondering if he should be, Mussa was not worried about his neighbor. With his face slightly tilted to the sky, Mussa believes he has not been noticed. Sir Michaels prefers to let that deceit continue.
For now. Should that change – it will be dealt with.
Truth be told a part of Sir Michaels admired Mussa’s steadfast observation of him.
Thus, he remains, to Mussa’s eyes at least, a solitary figure draped in moonlight dissected by the muntined panes in the massive, mullioned windows that overlook the garden of night blooming flowers.
“Can you hear me?” Sir Michaels asks into the night.
In the distance Sir Michaels hears the very first howl of many in response. Knowing he is under a watchful eye, he who howls lessens the volume of such as he draws closer.
“Can you hear me?” Sir Michaels asks into the night again. “I know your nature says you must run. Come quickly.”
The howler is quiet as scant hints of the lightening sky foretell the coming dawn, but Sir Michaels does not move. It is near the uncomfortable hour when the first rays of El Sol start to break the jagged horizon of the London skyline. The windows face east, making it dangerous for him to be there. Still, he does not move, he cannot. Not until he knows he is safe.
“Can you hear me?” Sir Michaels asks once more, nervous as he looks at the soon to be too light sky. “I love you.”
Sir Michaels breathes a sigh of relief as a bulk of dark silver fur rubbed against his leg and under his hand. He smiles as he feels his hand rise as the wolf becomes man in the sunlight.
“I hear you. I love you.” Lord Gregon rises from his lupine form, his arms around Sir Michaels, his hands in the man for only a brief moment before he dissipates in the day’s sunlight becoming a gyrfalcon that lands on his shoulder.
Across the way Mussa gives a slight shake of his head in acknowledgement of the uneventful night to Lord Gregon. He sighs and greets the guard of the day shift, before turning from the window, his watch done. He hopes, as he does each new day, that a cure for cursed lovers who crossed a madman’s path and that doomed them before he died is fond. They are safe.
7:27am my desk: I am standing at my keyboard going through my usual morning routine as I log in. My earbuds are in, my iPod has RATM blasting because while my body is on the job, the rest of me is still asleep in bed. A colleague passing by sees my very enthusiastic headbanging, looks at me like the very insane person I am, and pronounces “No, it’s too early. No.”
Because she arrived at a perfect moment in the song – I look at her, smile benignly and when the beat drops in my ears a moment later, I raise both hands high – full on rock fingers gesticulating – face scrunched befitting the song’s mood and reply in her face with “Come with it now!“
She understandably blinks at my unexpected response then shakes her head laughing clearly knowing the song by that one lyric sung even if she can’t hear it herself. “Nope, MUCH too early for that.”
“Hey, I just walked in I’m not awake yet,” I laugh as she walks away while I head-bang on and continue with my checks.
“Have you tried coke?” she asks as she reaches the corner.
And because I really am not quite awake yet, therefore honestly thinking about the caffeine boost, I hear a fading disembodied voice around a corner call out “And I don’t mean the stuff in the can.”
I settled for my usual morning IV infusion of C25H28N6O7, and C12H22O11, aka coffee black 20oz with 2 tsp sugar; but now all I can imagine is a series of horned Red Bull cans carrying banners as they follow a white powdered line down the street stomping in tune to RATM.
[For those not into such – RATM is Rage Against The Machine, an American Rock band and their song I reference is the very loud and very thrashing Bulls On Parade.]
Let’s see how others are rocking and slicing out this Tuesday…
Tonight Mish hosts at the pub and wants us to “wrap” things up in a quadrille.
A Quadrille is simply a poem of 44 words, excluding the title. It can be in any form, rhymed or unrhymed, metered, or unmetered. You MUST use the word “wrap”, or some form of the word, in your poem.
Merril hosts at dVerse and wants us to “celebrate” in a quadrille.
Some couples do celebrate their divorce amicably.
A Quadrille is simply a poem of 44 words, excluding the title. It can be in any form, rhymed or unrhymed, metered, or unmetered. You MUST use the word “celebrate”, or some form of the word, in your poem.
“I didn’t give you permission to go anywhere, young lady.” Me – 40 to a 71 year old. She left anyway.
“Don’t give me that look! If you don’t make it to fifty, whenever I catch up with you, I’m gonna make you SO sorry you married me!” He didn’t – jury is still out on whether I keep my end of the bargain – only time will tell.
“Man, I haven’t won a pot in two years. You fixing the scores or something. At least let a sista win a box or two, cuz! Or else!” Never won another pot or a box at least not in that specific football pool.
“Oh please! You better come to my birthday this year or I am not going to any of yours ever again!” As of last Saturday I know she won’t make it. The rest is now a given…
Because of the latest one I am remembering how I was just me, being me, leaving them laughing. Not knowing they would soon be leaving me, reminiscing on this earthly plane.
It is a silver lining. A faint silver lining. One feeling a little tarnished right now.
It’s funny what things you remember…it’s tragic what things you wish you could forget.
Let’s see how others are slicing it out this Tuesday…
Here’s what must be my shortest slice ever: me being oddly amused by the local flying frack enjoying breakfast.
I was minded of when my sons were toddlers picking up and tossing food with their hands. I looked very much like this. Now, here is a sentence that you won’t read every day…. the pigeon was cleaner.
It’s been a slow week – what can I tell you? Apparently nothing.
Let’s see how others are slicing it what left of this Tuesday…
Come with it now! 
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Raivenne-lations 