White walking this morning

Man plays a guitar
Alone, under an archway
Music echoing.

Flights of fancy

Have you ever noticed that some of the happiest moments occur unexpectedly, when the sun shimmers off the tips of waves, as the birds fly by, and you tear up at how perfect the moment is? And then it disappears.

Sitting in a waiting room

Woman reads a book
Moving her head back and forth
Her eyes get a rest.

Checker'd past

He sat in the groom's family pew at the front of the church. His ex-wife at one end. He at another. The ceremony was waiting for the priest to arrive, while the guests hovered at the back, jubilant to see old schoolmates now they were all grown up and looking fancy. Light shone from their faces, having shed the brittle skin of their bedraggled youthful (mis-)adventures and transformed into these full-fledged adults. 

 
The groom's father stares ahead at the empty altar. The slab of marble; a woven cloth lies across its length.
The bible closed on its metal podium. The crucifix hangs between two stain glass window. 

He avoids looking at his son surrounded by his university friends, chatting about last night's game, or the hiking trip they are planning to take next year in Scotland, or could the groom be actually talking about how nervous he is and how happy he is that they  
are all there. The father turns his gaze back to altar. Wondering whether the closed bible is a metaphor for this moment of estrangement. 

He might have received an invitation to attend the wedding, but he wasn't a part of the celebration. 

Temporal lobe

so long as I could think,
the world shifted and
shaked and was curly.
past is supposed to disappear
but sometimes it gets stuck.
what I hope to be my
future is something that
slips invisible through
my closed fingers like sand.
why am I running instead
of waiting in joyful
anticipation? heart thumping.
mind empty. one more
deep intake of hopefulness.
one release of all that is
messing with my brain.
clear-eyed, strong-willed,
ideas sparkle so bright.

On the path

The sun is shinning, so she goes to the kitchen and picks up bits and pieces out of her refrigerator and packs them into some tupperware containers.

Cutting the carrots into thin sticks. Trying to find a peeler that is sharp enough that it will only take away a thin layer. The same with the cucumber. She cuts the center away with all of the seed, making sticks out of the meaty part of the cucumber and its rind. Then comes an apple cut into thin slices.

It's been years since she ate an apple by chomping down on a whole apple and munching like a beaver, down to its core. Instead, she likes the nibbling
on slices breaking delicately under her front teeth.

After she places all the carrots, cucumber, and apple in their containers, she squirts some fresh lemon juice over them to keep them fresh. Preventing the apple slices from going brown.

She takes two packages of saltine crackers, along with the Tupperware, and places them in a square bag she bought years ago at the summer flea market. There is a pouch inside with plastic cutlery, and two slits to put ice packs to keep everything cool.

Armed with her picnic bag, an old blanket and two towels, she gets on her bicycle and rides into the day.