Lit in Progress

was Weldon Cain.

Food! Glorious food, marvelous foooooood…

Berry Creek Farm, May-October, $480/season for 2, $240/season for 1. Pick up at Farmers’ Markets.

Crestview Inc. Farms, March-October, $480/24 weeks. I like this one. :o)

Elam Flower and Produce, June-September, out of Broken Arrow, $300/20 weeks.

Nuyaka Natural Farm, Bristow, $450/share, May-November (I like this one, too; they give recipes!)

http://www.localharvest.org/csadrops.jsp?id=17790, April-October, $20/wk, 10-wk minimum.

All walked into a bar. :o) I like the names; they sounds like conspirators. I wonder what they’re conspiring about? And if they’re friends, or if they’re enemies, or if they’re businesslike enough to be above that sort of thing?

I wonder who thought of it all. And who’s going to set off the firecracker in their midst.

We were all there. Those of us who were left. Our camp sharded in a few more directions than normal, slicing through a convenience store, a suburb, a salon. The other folk walked like shadows through us, buying and preening; we remained unperceived.

I walked with her through the trees, pausing only occasionally now, to stretch, to examine some unfamiliar herb or peer upward at a vine blooming high above. We moved in circular swaths, radiating from the entry point, moving quietly.

You’ll have to do better than that, she mentioned inaudibly.

My question showed on my face; she continued. We won’t find him at this pace. And you’re making enough noise to frighten an elephant – give him credit for some caution, even when you have none. This way.

Her tone was wry, but she meant her words. She quite floated over the leaves and scrubby grass, twice as fast as we’d been going. I hadn’t learned the knack, yet, so I stepped as lightly as I was able, and tried to keep the newness from catching my eyes so.

(hunt, hunt)

And there he was, like the light bounced off a passing car’s mirror, then gone. She hissed in her teeth, and redoubled her speed. I started to pant. He drew us on, or we pushed him on, for quite a way. He was beautiful, like a red peacock or a dragon in a museum tapestry. He warmed to us fair quick, I thought. Rather than taking to his wings, he let himself be chased, even doubling back to rush at our legs. When he darted toward my ankles, clicking his head rapidly back and forth, I could see the intricate designs in gold, teal, and plum in the feathers of his head and tail. I couldn’t stifle my small laugh; he was like my brother Isan, who loved playing tag in the meadow when the skies were clear, but would run shrieking from whomever was nearest – even when he was it. The bubbling happiness rising from his ground-level antics was so exactly like Isan’s.

My laugh, though, seemed to disturb the phoenix. He darted away, flustering his wings, and skittered out of sight, though he stayed within hearing. She threw me a look, then a smile. We were almost to the camp.

We heard them coming, and had time to melt into the background like I’d practiced. They were even more incautious than I’d been: clomping in dark combat boots, speaking aloud. They were speaking of the phoenix, though I didn’t know their language. Their thoughts were foreign, too; images flashed and wavered, shapes and forms as unfamiliar as any I’d met. But some, in the usual way, were clear – their excitement for the hunt, one man’s anger at a reprimand not long before. The other’s thoughts of his lover.

They were here for the phoenix, and from the methodical, correct way my companion was calling to our guards and watchmen, I got the feeling it would be quite bad if they succeeded. She looked at me, and nodded towards the west. I blinked, then concentrated. The two hunters’ minds were oddly receptive; they followed their hunches easily, and it took less than a minute to send them away in the proper direction.

I lay in my hammock, idly folding scrap paper from the ream someone’d charmed to stay filled. The golden glow of late afternoon was fading, and the camp was humming with activity. There were more shadowpeople than usual, but it was one of their holidays, so that was all right. I thought at first that the two visitor girls were more of them; they were dressed in the multiple layers and skinny jeans fashionable at the time, their studiedly disordered hair could have come directly from the beauty shop, and they kept looking around in interest at the obviously unfamiliar everydays of our camp.

They were really there, though; someone was dispatched to make them welcome. I watched them through my hammock, commenting on this or that. They were not interesting, so I went back to my paper. A small bubble of excitement, mixed with anxiety, came across my thoughts. I looked down at the baby rabbit nibbling near my discarded shoes. The phoenix had, for some reason, come with us after all, and now took a less spectacular form. His ears waggled, and I smiled.

It was a fun morning, yeah?

You have no idea, he replied.

“Oh, what a cute bunny!” the girl with blonde braids said, coming near. “Where’d you get her?” asked the older one. I looked up at them; their faces, voices, thoughts were familiar. Their eyes looked hard and bright, and far too interested.

I ran, holding a knapsack – always keep one packed and accessible – over one shoulder, and the infant rabbit in my hand. I was too frightened too notice that I’d finally gotten skimming right; I fled with no more sound than my ragged breath. The rabbit was light, and almost fluttering with delight. I felt impatient; no matter how powerful he was, no one’s invincible. He was less anxious now than when we were at the camp! And we had who knew how many of all kinds of magical folk after us, and I didn’t even know where we were. I’d somehow been jumping between shards all night, going from city crosswalks to cattle pastures to trailer parks and then back to the familiar forest, and we could be anywhere.

I stopped to catch my breath. I set the phoenix – still an adorably fragile-looking rabbit – carefully on the ground and leaned over with my hands on my knees. The roaring in my ears kept up unabated for several minutes; I pressed my hand against the stitch in my side and concentrated firmly on nothing.

The cow arrived without warning. She was huge – larger than any other moose I’d seen – and incredibly quiet. I waited; I wasn’t entirely familiar with their etiquette, but I’d gathered the guest generally spoke first, and the moose of course was always given precedence. But then, I’d never been in this particular situation before, so the rules could be different.

She lowered her nose and took a while before speaking. We’ve been waiting for you. I blinked, but still remained silent. Her mind speech was almost as foreign as the hunters’ had been, also clipped and dry, sophisticated. This seemed all that she would say.

A bull arrived then, coming into the clearing and nearly filling it. They stepped gingerly around the rabbit, who was happily eating something or other. I think you’d better leave him with us for now, he said, in a deeper version of the cow’s precise language. You don’t need any more complications.

The deer – it was a deer in the dream – actually spoke a bit about the hunters. They were German, and they and their people were of the opinion that we should “go back to when all countries had armies”.

And then I woke up. But wouldn’t it be a fun beginning for a story? I’ll have to see where it goes.

I think this would be a great story. I’m not sure where to take it, but I like the name Nutmeg. For a chicken.

Brittney’s last name should be Cagle.

Marcheta’s eyebrows drew together over her thinnish nose as she set the plant flat carefully on the patio floor. She dipped her hands into the potting soil bag, feeling the soil’s warmth through her gloves. Handful after handful, she filled the terra cotta pot, the resin one that looked like stone, the plastic trough, the painted ceramic her daughter’s daughter had made in school last year. Her fingers made imprecise holes, cradles for the herbs, the tomatoes, the marigolds. She breathed, and worked, slowly. “That’s the way,” she said companionably, settling the fragrant rosemary into its place. “There you go; you’ll like it here, you’ll see.”

The rosemary was quite sure she was right.

our unnursery, the brightest room with no furniture
a shoebox as luminous as the flesh of a mango

The sky presses its light, heat, its muggy thickness down,
arching smooth and hard, the white roof of an oyster.

“I had this, once, too,” the woman said, over the needle in my hand.
“You know it’s okay to be sad?”
My legs sweat under the blanket; I talk too much.

Heaven drips its muddy rain over brick houses in domino rows.
Drops slap against windows, splash in empty birdbaths

I wake in recovery, unrecovered.

Cry at the sight of prenatal vitamins, ignore the laundry
Spend time on messageboards, guiltily.

A pickup truck, a white crib in its bed
with pink printed linens dappling without a cover
turned wood bars curved, delicate, waiting
to be gnawed, bumped, grasped in wrinkled, inarticulate hands.

I’m a gas tank, a casket, a dry deep-throated gourd
with peeling paint, suspended from a mimosa tree
uninhabited

Today I saw a hummingbird. It was close enough I could see it clearly, even though my glasses are broken; it was brown, and sounded like a softspoken insect. It was so beautiful. It drank from a rose a little higher than my head as I lay on the hammock, watching. It flew to our honeysuckle vine, but my cat thought it looked tasty so it flew away, unconcerned. It was so controlled and graceful.

the brave.

just sounded like a cool title. don’t know where to go with it. but so I don’t forget it, I’ll leave it here. collecting dust in my litblog. what a fate.

Reflections of the backward world around the edges of my eyes,
shattering around the frames of my glasses, blending
with the shadows under buildings, park benches, plastic bags
blown against wire fences. The space of the unfamiliar,
smooth is rough and black is green without depth,
food tastes like ballistic ambitions,

people walk back to front and worry that they’ll be understood.
Chefs assassinate, dairy farmers sing show tunes. Jewelry made of plastic
silverware hangs around the necks of upside-down supermodels.

Photographs flutter in absent wind, chattering to themselves
in a scratchy, squeeky language. The earth ebbs, flows, water erodes
into squooshy canyons. Ginger root marches in licentious formation.

Teeth chatter in the gloomy generosity of fractal phobias.

… would make a good beginning for a short story, though it seems rather sappy upon waking up. Unfortunately, almost all (that is to say, both the major) the charachters were stolen from books I’ve been reading lately.

She’d grown now, tall and changed and solemn. The garish superficiality of her chosen world, her rigid self-delight, had faded, crinkled, withered like the outer petals of a rose. She’d become older than she deserved to, ought to be. Her face was sharper. It had taken everything she had, magically, physically, intellectually, to escape the colorful courtyards, the cardboard people she thought she ruled. She’d come at last.

She came unwittingly to the world he was in.

Okay, what happens is Gwendolyn (en?) somehow grows up and gets away from her ruling-world, and somehow gets adopted or mentored or sponsored by some Lady, like Kim in the Mairelon books, to be presented in Society (I know, the era’s slightly different, but if there are multiple universes anyway, who’s to know?). So I guess they’re having this kind of dress rehearsal for a party (don’t ask me; the dream here’s mostly about the house still; I am in Real Estate, you know). And the home at which the party is/will be held is really cool, actually. But the only thing I can remember about it is that it has an Entry, and also a large bathroom you can get to from the entry, and then go directly from the bathroom into the living or drawing room, or whatever I was calling it in my subconscious mind - “So you don’t have to be seen until you’re Ready To Be Seen,” Gwendolyn’s mentor says. So she’s struggling with a ginormous skirt, trying to use the restroom (yes, the door’s closed) when she hears someone come in to the entry. When she comes out, he’s talking with her friend in the drawing room/parlor thing (keep in mind the house is vacant, like a new home or most open houses I’ve sat). And somehow it starts snowing and they’re stuck there. (Don’t ask me.) And she recognizes him, kind of, but he looks shorter and he’s put on weight, so it takes her a while. She actually has to squat down (not a debutante all-time, eh?) and look at him from about rib height, and then she gets it. “Chrest-!” she begins. He stops her, “Don’t say it!” I’m not sure why; in the book, Chrestomanci comes whenever someone’s calling him, but since he’s there already, I’m not sure where he’s worried about going - unless, of course, he’s not the Chrestomanci anymore, and maybe the NEW Chrestomanci’s not happy about it, and he doesn’t want to call the guy or something. Also, the important shift from the Chrestomanci world is that Gwendolyn is no longer Janet’s double, but rather (improbably) Millie’s.

She was so different, now. He wondered about how thin she’d become, and thought ruefully of his own recent obesity. (thoughts of Dr. Pawson? do all expert enchanters have thyroid problems?) She reminded him of the thin-skinness of movie stars, of statues, of Egyptian paintings.

Sitting, waiting in the cold empty house, with her, not talking. She is quiet, no longer malevolent, no longer childish. Their friend the Lady stands upright at the window, watching the snow fall and drift on the side of the house.

He thinks about his wife. They had been walking over a field, grey-yellow with winter, she growing weaker. She had lost her footing. She was in a coma. She was dead.

And Gwendolyn looked so much like her. “Shall I go out, and try to find …?”

At christmastime, when people evaluate their relationships

in terms of foil-covered chocolates and picture frames

trapping smiling unbelievables

As the year slides itself into a pile at the bottom of december

slipping through fingers like flour into a mixing bowl

My skin has begun its laborious etching,

rivulets folding, crinkling at the edges of my face

bringing thoughts of frightening things

a quick varnish flusticates slimily,

shimmering over jasmite lidges,

meting menagerous merenguerie,

with klisforous sassafras klopping.

Perhaps I am imagining things, or perhaps I am reiterating uninteresting observations already made, remade, and worn to bits too stale and floppy to enjoy. But whatever.

So here’s my assertion: The church (at least, the churches with which I have had contact) seeks to avoid conflict both within and without the boundaries of its community, where conflict spans from mild friction or disagreement to persecution and martyrdom. (Except, perhaps, on the issues of homosexuality and abortion, but I think the fixation upon these issues is actually symptomatic of the broader directive or desire to avoid conflict. More on that later, perhaps.) Perhaps “seeks to avoid” is not the correct terminology – perhaps, instead, I’m trying to say that the church views both internal and external conflict with dismay, as a sort of failure of the mediatory and relationally-focused philosophies which override its dominant discourse and overriding metaphorical framework.

If this is the case, and the church is viewing conflict between and among groups of individuals as a thing to be avoided, how does that mentality, and the activities produced thereby, influence the church’s effectiveness as an evangelical organization? (Perhaps I should stop here and really think about what I think the church should do. But I don’t think I will; my 15 minutes are almost up.) And as a supportive community? Is it beneficial for the church to percieve a healthy relationship as one devoid of conflict? What role does conflict play in a “healty” relationship? What role has conflict historically held in the growth of the church as an organization? As a community? What benefits can be obtained through avoiding it? What degree of conflict is desireable, necessary, or beneficial? Is it beneficial at all? How do the ways in which we percieve “conflict” influence the ways in which we percieve – and behave towards – God and those around us? Ourselves?