Life's Stories

My brother collects dirt in tiny vials
keeping samples of so many places
lined up on a shelf in his hall.
I collect air with awed inhales
breathing stories in and hoping
to remember them long enough to write them.

I remember,
although my memory is more solid than my language.
I can't ever find the words.

How do I line up the flamenco dancers
on the streets in Spain?
The Belgium stars that stretch as endlessly
as the canals in Amsterdam?
How do I tell
of the widower in Frankfurt
who explained the war he lived through

without mention
of the dirty vile air
he must have tasted?

How do I hold the voices of the little man in Italy
who sings opera on the streets
in a filthy tuxedo?
 I can't,
so I take nothing home.

In the end we all take nothing,
not even our borrowed skin
or the air we've shared but left behind.
We leave only the stories,
and filtered too many times,
the stories are retold.

I want you to gather my memories,

pluck them from me
as though you were gathering blackberries.
Taste them, consume them
then tell them as though they were your own;
Spread them like my brother's sons
will sprinkle his vials of dirt in their gardens.

Let these people and their stories pass through your own
and yours through them,
And when you cannot find the words either,
let the resonance and tone of their languages
be the breath you exhale.

Then, at the end,
though you will take nothing, too,
you'll have left my life and their lives,
 and yours,
 to live and live again.
                                               ~MNH

Time in my junk drawer.

Wow, I've been really slacking in the upkeep department here! It's mid-March and this is my first post of the year. Is anyone still reading--aside from the spammers, who weren't really reading in the first place?

It's not that I've stopped writing creatively; I've actually been writing more. I've been posting less because I've been worried about that "must not have been previously published" clause that most contracts contain. As my audience grew, I feared I'd soon be unable to submit my work for publication anywhere, because the size of the audience is often what determines if something is considered published. Really though, as 'problems' go, that isn't a bad one to have..

Not coincidentally, my posting also started slowing down after I started a new job in October.  Although my writing continues, I seemed to have much less time than I previously did to cull through what I'd be submitting to find what I wanted to share here whether I planned to submit it or not.

Lately, time has been my most precious commodity. The new job, a new grandson, a husband a few hundred miles away, a son about to graduate high school, my 'baby' entering the toughest of all jr. high years,  and other life events swirling around me make me desperate to experience each moment. Yet it's ironic that I spend so much time trying vainly to slow down time.

I'm not sure when I'll be able to trap more than a few consecutive moments in a row, but when I do, you can be sure I'll be digging through my journals and will go on a wild posting spree.

Tonight though, I've wasted a good number of minutes in random thought. So here I am, typing them out. I think if you follow this maze of randomness to the end, it'll make sense.

The pseudo-start of all of this is probably easy to figure out: I was thinking about time (obviously) and how I wish I could just reach into a toolbox or junk drawer to grab a few extra hours whenever I need or want it. On those nights that I work until 2:30 in the morning, it'd be great to pull out four extra hours for sleep.

But that odd thought wasn't really the start. It came last night, as I dug through the junk drawer for the drywall screw anchors that I was certain  I dropped in there one hectic morning long ago. I remember I was about to use them to put up a curtain rod, but dropped them  there instead of the toolbox  as I dashed out of the house to pick up a child up from an event. I stashed those anchors with every intention of finishing the job when I got back home.

Scissors, tape, pens, post-its. But no time.

After spending nearly half a year thinking about how much curtains would save me on the heating bill (while staring through the bare, uncurtained windows into the winter outside), now I remembered the anchors.  I   decided to get to the job done, even though the winter draft has been replaced by the warm, sweet smell of electron-infused spring rain. To do that, I had to wade through the lost coat buttons, spare batteries, and odd-shaped plastic doohickeys that must go to something!

So of course, because it's spring, cleaning out the junk drawer also seemed the right thing to do. By the time I was done, it was 1:30 a.m. and I was wishing time could be packaged and stored among the pens, tacks, glue, and random 'junk'. And the screw anchors, of course.

Just in case you're wondering: Yes. When I was done, I stole a half hour from the darkest end of sleep  and hung the curtains. But I wished I had found just an hour or two crammed into the junk drawer.

Besides the button to your coat or the screw anchors you tossed in there last year,  is there anything you wish you could store in your junk drawer? Also, because I found some odd things in mine (for example, a set of dice with 6 dots on every side?) and because I have a secret voyeur streak, what is the weirdest thing in yours?