Category: A river of stones
-
Small stones: Toddler in the wash basket
I pull my toddler in his wash basket boat with a dressing gown belt as a rope. Up the hallway, around the living room, I follow his command. We collect things on the way, teddy bears to ride along and cars and dinosaurs. He is my youngest child and still fits in a wash basket,…
-
Honey
Pure honey on my breakfast table, the honeycomb still visible, the dark triumphant golden of the hexagonal walls, the structure that seems to breathe, to concertina, something that you could walk through. But I don’t walk through, I take the castle on my spoon it passes across my lips and tongue, down my throat, coating…
-
Small stones: The moment not
I feel this moment a lot, this moment not, this time with no outline, no handholds. This falling like terraces, down, a small plateau, and down again, the expectation that is stretched beyond it’s elasticity and becomes limp. The unanswered word, message, gesture, look, or the time of not knowing when.
-
Small stone: The tipping point of raindrops
On the window they hang, these globules of water, those transparent ovals, their own surface tension holding them together. As I child I use to trace them with my finger, a kind of pluvial join the dots. But the fascination both then and now is with the tipping point of a raindrop, the moment it…
-
The press of remembrance
I feel memories like an indentation, a pressing into or inside the flesh, a coagulation of associations, the smell of a strawberry candle, the sound of pigeon’s cooing, the journey into brown eyes, and always waves, or water of some kind, the splash of it, the smell of old upholstery in a recreation hall, the…
-
Small stones: Smattering of snow
Out of the window, the sun just up over the hill now golden brown like the song, a smattering of snow has settled on the garden arch, the rose stems, on the top of the wall. It resembles Icelandic ash and laughingly triggers memories of the recent unprecedented snow that locked us inside otherworldly snow…
-
Small stones: Where my children came from
On a part of my skin on my lower abdomen there is no feeling anymore, it is numb. Because of emergencies and policies it was from there, a horizontal cut across the bikini line, that all my four children emerged. Before I knew better I felt as if I had never actually given birth to…
-
Take heart
Take heart Have no fear Be kind Reinvest the aching Strive Rake leaves Stride Flatten the mutterings Kiss Take hold Whoop Fly Stop Breathe Dance to the Artic Monkeys Dance in general Have no fear HAVE NO FEAR Expect nothing, hope for something, enjoy many things Forgive, let go Begin, again and again Love without…
Alison Wells Author 