Kristine E. Brickey

 This piece came from a prompt taken out of Barbara Kingsolver's “The Bean Trees.”            But what if you can’t find them? They were here somewhere. Words whispered inside my dream. Brushing my face, a breeze warming my skin, a tickle as hairs blew wispy across my neck. Resting against the leafy maple’s trunk, eyes closed, words had arrived, breathed in with the scent of blooming lilacs. Unnoticed for one breath; snapping synapses alert with the next.  Eyes open. Searching. Worrying the words had wafted away into sky blue vastness overhead.  Seeking. Almost frantic. Feeling the words slide further away the harder I searched. Like holding a plume of smoke in my hands. Impossible.            What if I couldn’t find them? A choice made. Deciding to be only in the moment. I settled again, closing my eyes, breathing in, opening myself to the floating words. Inviting them to return, acknowledging their right to say no.   If not today, then perhaps tomorrow or the next.  They would ma

The moon beckons to me where I lay sleeping. Thousands of miles between us, yet I feel its pull, drawing me out of bed this early morning hour. Where darkness should reign, moonlight rules. Unable to resist, I push up the window's covering, and kneel upon the couch to soak in the scene. Trees still bare with wintery hibernation, grass only recently greened, unfarrowed fields as far as my eyes can see; all are at the mercy of the full moon's colorization, bright yet somehow black and white.  My eyes fill with tears, and I do not brush them away as they stream down my cheeks, leaving evidence upon my cotton pajama top. The last weeks have me overwhelmed with love and joyful things, tears often appearing from seemingly nowhere, my voice quaking as my jaw quivers with emotion. I fear bringing words to the feelings, superstitiously awaiting the jinxing of my open and honest admission of happiness. I became Grandma. Held my daughter's daughter in my arms. Sending me back thirty p