Good morning. Something fresh I just finished polishing up. :) C.
Celebrations: Mirror
Perhaps I talk to myself. This year, let’s ignore the holiday.
Cake, candles, decorations, bunnies, thank you, give back
the land. No matter. Behind the black fence, in between
roadside stallions and modest, paint-chipped yellow houses,
in between grand cats and loose jeans, there is a month
for us. In between hillside mansions and tornado-torn trailers
mounted on cinder blocks, crushed cans of orange soda
roughly wedged inside man-shaped holes, there is a week
for us. In between artificial intelligence, and the sound
of one woman singing alone in the sanctuary, belting out
her homemade, Christmas number, screaming the chorus,
despite the sore throat, there is a day for us. In between
mountaintops and two shattered T-birds slanted sideways
on the sewer grate, in between lofty stages and shadowy
basements, buried within the wrinkled, crimson sheets,
there is an hour for us. In between cities, countries, planets,
oceans, lions, elephants, hawks, moons, wolves, sharks,
music notes, costumes, bare skin, a paint brush’s strokes,
in between racing thoughts and sedative whispers, calmly
drifting across the world, carried by wind, dropped down
by rain, there is an hour for us. One minute, let’s ignore
the holiday. Spooky, welcome hell, fireworks, bang, bang.
Remember those we have lost. No matter. Instead, happy
birthday each moment. I second the deep dance of silence.
In the gap before the crowd’s noise begins, there is a time
for us. Perhaps – laughing, weeping, wishing, dying, living,
never giving up – we find secret celebrations. Rest assured,
behind the scenes, however belated, in stillness, I am working
on something, forever reflecting. Instantly, between the lines,
there is a place for us.
C.A. MacConnell
