writing – Page 23 – Carrie Birde

Under Cover — A Dream

Under Covers.jpg — “Under Cover” — C.Birde, 3/17

“Did you bring your outline?” she asks. She wears black leggings and tank top, and her long dark hair curls, loose and unrestrained, about her shoulders.

No, I think, I don’t have an outline. I didn’t use an outline. The story emerged organically, by surprise, and I translated it from thought and dream to the page as it arrived.

Silently, I shake my head.

“That’s too bad,” she said. She holds a long, metal ruler in one hand. It flashes, sharp-edged with light, as she crosses the room in easy strides. “It’s easier to give input and feedback based on your outline.”

I’m not sure I want input. Or feedback. Of any kind. Good, bad, or otherwise. Why am I even at this workshop? The hotel room feels increasingly constricted, although it is large and airy.

I watch uneasily as she approaches the unmade bed. White sheets and comforter knot and twist and fall to the floor, their folds and creases filled with blue shadow. All but the throw blanket tossed on top – a plush, pink sweep of soft color. Beneath those layers, those folds of white and pink and blue, is my manuscript – just shy of two-hundred pages, clamped tight by a black binder clip, contained in a battered manila folder.

Ruler held loosely in hand, she arrives at the bedside and pushes back the plush pink blanket, peels away white comforter and sheets. My nerves spark and dash. She opens the worn folder, flips past the first dozen pages to lay the ruler vertically along a random sheet.

“You have to watch your margins,” she says. With a blue pencil, she marks the right side of the page, then the left. “If your margins are off, even a little, your book can’t be bound or printed.” She adjusts the ruler to mark horizontal lines along the top and bottom margins. “These look good,” she says, looking up at me. Her dark, neat brows arch with surprised approval. Ruler flashing, she leaves the bed. Sheets and blankets fall back into place like a receding tide.

I smile. Relief floods and soothes. In a single inhalation, I fill my lungs – I didn’t realize I had held my breath. From the corner of my eye, I glance at my manuscript. Thumbed pages in a worn folder, tucked and enfolded in soft pink layers. Unbound. Unread. Safe.

dreams writing

Earth’s Bones — An Image

Earth’s bones —

rugged and worn —

harbor trees and leaf litter,

shadows and

history.

— C.Birde, 3/17

Struggle — A Poem

Struggle, large.jpg — “Struggle” — C.Birde, 3/1

Dark star’s

collapse,

plummet

and crash.

Bones

broken,

protest

choked.

Wings tight-

folded,

neck arched

in sharp crescent;

plucked feathers

spread over green-

bladed grass.

Dark-bodied

constellation

pricks and studs

surrounding

trees,

mourns

in raucous,

full-throated,

voice.

— C.Birde, 3/1

Struggle, small.jpg — “Struggle, Detail” — C.Birde, 3/1

birds Nature photo writing

Moon Door — A Dream

Moon Door 2.jpg — “Moon Door” — C.Birde, 2/17

Slate stepping stones lead up the grassy hill to a fieldstone arch. Flowering vines climb and tumble over the stones in green-leafed embrace. A heavy wooden door is set within the arch; which is older – door or stones – is difficult to determine. The stones, plucked from the surrounding hillside, are worn; their serrated edges smoothed. But the door, too, has aged and hardened. Once ligneous in nature, the door’s brass-bound boards have absorbed the elements and now mimic the solidity of their frame.

Just above the hill, just beyond the closed door, as if waiting to be invited in or to welcome and entertain, the full moon hovers. It is enormous in size and brilliance, hung against the immense, black back-drop of star-pricked night. The moon’s calling card of light slips beneath the door’s crack, limns its edges. And, at eye level, a small, crescent moon cut from the door’s face, traps and holds the moon’s glow.

dreams writing

Blades & Branches — A Poem

Branches 2.jpg — “Branches” — C.Birde, 2/17

Again,

the grind

and grumble

of saw and blade

disturb.

Air parts,

earth trembles;

Bark,

phloem,

cambium,

sapwood,

heartwood —

bitten,

pierced

and chewed

in joyless

hunger.

Sentinel Maples

or Evergreen Guard,

Merriam or

Addis Oak,

Hickory

or Treebeard –

When next I walk,

whose absence

will

I mark?

— C.Birde, 2/17

Tree Smudge 2.jpg

Nature photo trees writing

Alliteration in S — An Image

Snow,

sand,

sea;

surf,

sky, and

shadow —

Alliteration in

sequential

steps.

— C.Birde, 2/17

Nature photo writing

Winter Light through Pines — An Image

Winter Light through Pines.jpg — “Winter Light through Pines” — C.Birde, 2/17

Winter wind

and

light,

strained through

needle

and

compact cone,

bear

the Ocean’s

breath.

— C.Birde, 2/17

Nature photo trees writing

Winter’s Scythe — A Poem

Wind & Clouds.jpg — “Wind in Clouds” — C.Birde, 2/17

Scythe of Winter —

wind that lashes,

scours,

cleans;

sweeps the path

clear

of excess;

prepares space

for tender,

new

growth.

— C.Birde, 2/17

Nature photo writing

Grotto — A Dream

Thick grass soughs and whispers about the hole’s rim. Time and erosion have peeled back its rough edges, and, set within this misshapen maw, is a spiral staircase that descends down and down, corkscrewing into the earth.

Fingers clutching, toes seeking purchase, I scale the stair’s exterior and lower myself by careful degrees into the hollow. Slowly, light fades to shadowy dark, only to soon bloom once more in vague luminescence.

The staircase accesses a small grotto. Moisture slicks sloped earthen walls, drips from the vaulted ceiling. A body of dark water sings and ripples with falling droplets, and, protruding from that subterranean pool, are small hump-backed mounds of earth. Fuscia and teal-blue vegetation tangle over those scattered islets.

Humid air abounds here; thick, warm, and still. Stepping off the landing, I sink into spongy undergrowth. Leaves and moss wriggle and curl between my toes. My shoes rest on the landing where I have stepped out of them. Sitting amidst the foliage, I pull my shoes back onto my damp feet. A simple task; absurdly difficult — right shoe on left foot; left shoe on right; laces knot, come undone, pull entirely free of their eyelets.

While struggling with this mundane task, I catch furtive movement from the corner of my eye. There, pressed within the shadows of the grotto’s walls, a man steels toward me. Opposite him, approaching through twining vines and fuscia leaves, creeps a young woman with a long, dark ponytail. They circle from opposite directions in a predatory manner. With a cell phone, the woman snaps random photos of my failed attempts at shoe-lacing.

Hurriedly, I stuff my feet into my shoes, tangle the laces together. Turning, feet pounding, I dash up the stairs, spiral up and out. Emerging above ground, the air is cool against my skin, fresh and sweet to taste. The green world spreads endlessly in all directions. Blue skies spill overhead. Stepping off the spiral stair’s landing, I trod upon a pair of socks — bright yellow, patterned with black and white, blue and red. My step sends the socks off the landing. Slowly, gently, they drift through the air, twist in unseen breeze. Down and down, like twin rays of sunlight, they fall. Down through the hole in the earth, swallowed from sight in the damp grotto below.

drawing dreams writing