Tuesday 27 May 2014

Whispering Deity

I used to hang from architraves in every home around this Universe. They believed then…asked for my blessings for every pursuit and desire. My followers would invoke my name in their misfortunes to change their grey skies to blue, others would invite me to bestow wealth and add a dash of flavour to their bleak lives. Whatever makes you happy. Sometimes they would offer milk and homemade sweets and the smell would fill me with satisfaction. Whether my idols belonged to beggars or princesses I was worshipped from the shores of Atlantis to the red earth of Mars. I would make people feel worthy… but all that is lost now. I am forgotten from the hearts and minds of men. Just a whisper in the zephyr in the summer heat. No more thoughtful devotees but broken metal crosses in my stead. Sometimes I try to reach out to a faithful servant of the old gods. I murmur fruitlessly in the wind, “Drink me and I will make you grow.”

The copyright of this post belongs to Komal Patel

Grow


“Grow!” I willed my garden as I cleaned the kitchen windows with a tattered blue jaycloth. Bits of old pilchard swept into the disinfected crisscross of the fabric and was then hurriedly flung down the plughole. I wanted to be out in my beautiful garden, within its pockets of green leafiness and tranquillity. I admired my prize-winning rhubarb with its dark rusty umbrella-like leaves. Perhaps another wind for them this year I pondered. Kicking off my sandals I shoehorned myself into my snug garden plimsolls caked in the glorious fertile mud of my garden. Outside I drank in the peace and the silent slow growth of the plants. Vermillion poppies bobbed under the zephyr like touch of the passing insects. This garden was my spiritual and physical sanctuary. Not only did my garden grow but it helped me to grow too.

The copyright of this post belongs to Komal Patel

Tuesday 13 May 2014

Erratics



The land was flat. Spring lay buried beneath matted coarse grass the colour of buffalo hides. Yet, there they were, exalted in their alien shapes. Two immense boulders set on this prairie landscape. Together in oddness. Starkly rough and beautiful. Steam had suddenly poured from beneath the hood of her car, and she had pulled over on the highway's shoulder. She knew it was the radiator. Too hot to handle and nothing in sight to suggest water. She began to walk towards the strange rocks. There was a sign on a wooden post. 'Erratics'. The name given to rocks pushed by ancient glaciers, and left in isolation when the ice melted. Erratics. That was how she felt; pushed against her will on an unknown path. Left to fend for herself, surrounded by an emptiness. A glacial heart frozen by grief. She wanted to touch the surface of the boulders. They towered above her casting lewd shadows. Yet, she felt some hum of safety that trembled through her bones. She lay her cheek against the generous granite's coolness. Her tears ran into its crevice. She watched the tiny rivulet leave a wet track of gratefulness.

The copyright of this post belongs to Claudia Anne:  Calgary   May 11/14