Colliding into Death

    We visited the site of the accident yesterday. Pulling over onto the road’s soft shoulder, other vehicles flashed by with threatening gushes of hot air. The car’s hazard lights pumped our hearts into a frenzy of drumbeats. We found the path, the toppled branches snapped and raw, the trunks of strong trees missing chunks like a juicy apple that’s been bitten in to by a hungry mouth. The atmosphere hummed with emotion. Rusty blood marks shared clues of a story without a beginning or a definite end. We crouched to sort through the rubble, handling broken remnants with pensive caution. The tragedy is air-borne; it is contagious and stains the soul with sorrow. We are helpless and this feels horrible. Living through vague snatches of a nightmare, we faced sharp reality: the rearview mirror around which loops an ancient wooden rosary missing its cross-beam, a shattered window, shards of reflection, shiny discs of music speckled with life’s elixir spilled, pieces of a life lost, objects that once accompanied a young man through his daily life….We left a slice of our hearts by the side of the road at the scene of a loss.

Jennifer Burnside

Clutching Survival

    Somehow we exploded to a halt; lurching in agony and disappointment, our shiny sage dolphin gasped his final breath for the evening. A long sturdy whale saved the day in all his foul odor and glory, while the hot gusty winds heaved with aggression. Outside passed the waters and hairy hills, itching to shed their skin without shame. And we plowed forward with a vengeance.

Jennifer Burnside

Wolf's Cousins

    Naughty little creatures associate with one another in a fashion more complex than what meets the eye. Sauntering, circling, pawing at the other’s face with unrestrained envy, the tightly muscled canine believes she has willed her foe to retreat. She is hungry, greedy, and rules the roost. But he cares little for her superiority complex and high demeanor. Without a care, the licorice hound wanders off in search of more amusing diversions.

Jennifer Montemayor

The Game

    The air holds its breath in expectation. And a stern icy exhalation from distant coastal mountains cleanses life of its noon-time sweat. Excitement escalates and voices in chorus bustle like fast-talking sea-gulls. Everywhere there is movement and yet one moment in time seems frozen like the small turtle in a stagnant pond of a water-color painting. Frame by frame, the day passes in flickers like a cartoon court-jester playing hide-and-seek with his own shadow. And then, quite suddenly, the game is over and a multitude of neatly lined-up players clap hands with jolly satisfaction.

Jennifer Burnside

Passion Aroused

    Rippling down the drain, shards of old broken dreams collide in to one-another, causing a new form of music to transpire. Crystalline harmonies charm into existence the faintest and most obscure buds of new hope, who in turn, blossom into unexpected desires. Not all dreams can be retained in the thick scheme of things. Even as perception writhes and molds itself into fresh forms, the subconscious mind gazes keenly at itself in the mirror, pantomiming recognition. Expectations make a U-turn and soon become lost amidst a tangle of arteries and half-truths. Wandering lost between countless pools of softly drowned yesterdays, one comes to realize how soggy is life without the sun. How dull are windows without the light. How dismal grows the day that lacks a song. And so we cartwheel across the field, swim across the river, and claim the only heart we were ever truly meant to love—one mate of the soul, pure and constant, deliciously divine, yours and mine.

Jennifer Burnside

The Hideous Cow

    There was a hideous cow in all her glory, shrieking at the top of her despicable lungs. She painted a pretty picture, all red in the face on a pleasant afternoon. Like an uncapped fire hydrant she gushed forth curses galore as if they were loose turds being flung at an innocent wall. Imagine that such a wall could step to the side just in the nick of time to miss a splattering of filthy humiliation…but walls don’t swerve- they stand strong- until it’s time to amble away and reinvent the meaning of boundaries...With udders swinging haphazardly beneath a clashing blur of cheap tie-dye, the bloated cow bellowed miserably for all to hear, unaware of how ugly she appeared swathed in sheer anger. She chewed and spit her slimy cud with an undeniable vengeance that ate away deep holes in the paved sidewalk as only the most caustic of acids can. Her filthy attitude polluted the air with a sinister smog that grew so thick she could no longer see. After the exit door scooted closed with firm confidence, the hideous bovine made her way back to the toxic swamp from whence she came. And although she was quite fortunately never heard from again, we still catch a whiff of her stench on the breeze.

Jennifer Burnside

Looking Back Fondly- Living Now Strongly

    With “The Cure” lighting the morning’s path, I remembered our life in the woods, the mysterious world that was our future gaping at us with possibility…everything glowed with enchantment even when sorrow rained upon our souls. I still have the blue bottle of 1 dram Frankincense from “The Perfumed Dragon” of The Renaissance Faire. Smelling that sweet earthen scent, I am transported to dusty paths and beaming faces of actors full of energy and humor. We spoke in poetry and felt art and music with our sixth senses. Now we keep those memories closed up tight within intricate treasure boxes. Time passes and we forget what is contained inside these precious faded parcels. So much has happened, changed, and grown, and we have flown off to our own mountains. We gaze at the sea; in the eyes of our minds the tides charm with moon’s sacred rhythm. Looking back fondly- living now strongly…

    Here the birds sing as if in harmony. They represent an array of colors and moods, yet beckon the sunrise each morning in their own unique way. We went to the maze on Sunday and discovered a Hawaiian carving that appears to be a totem. It guards over our dreams with focused clarity…

    Or perhaps it draws the subconscious mind out of its clam-shell to reveal pearls of well-ripened wisdom…

    I hear cars rushing like a waterfall, somewhere gliding along softly in the distance. These metallic dolphins gleefully race one another in the night. They create waves with their movement.

    An energy paces through my system and I can hear new path-ways being formed. Perhaps I am bursting with sheer delight for there is a small creature, assembled by pure passion that bats at invisible flies inside of my belly. We saw the truth with our very own eyes and like for a cartoon in black and white, the soundtrack must be spicy…for the blessed star is jitterbugging away!

Jennifer Burnside