The Space Between the Words

On quiet days, when rain sings its distracted melodies, and clouds drift low and stoically,
the small shadows between words of friends recalled are genteel visitors reminding me
of peaceful moments that drift like small sailboats near the shores of my beating heart.

There is such sweetness in tenderness recalled, wrapped in silent and tender refrain,
on those days when solitude wears like a soft and familiar sweater, and brings a smile
where perhaps on a less merciful sunrise hope might be met with a bitter taste.

Time flows like a breeze on a benevolent sea, with the sun and stars above in
playful synchronicity, seagulls keeping pace with the relaxed step of my memories,
as I gather new strength and energy for days of less bright light and harmony.

Poised to accept the winds of destiny, I welcome the warmth of today's reveries,
thankful for good friends along the way that help me get from here to there, by
reaching out with silent but sonorous touch to ease the burden of my life's uneven path.


Trudi Ralston.
February 27th, 2017.  



 

Icarus

The ocean below, the high searing sun above, enclosed in a labyrinth
not meant to leave behind, my spirit finds a way to fly on makeshift wings,
hoping neither water nor fire will trap its freedom song and beating, feverish heart.

But why bother, reason comes to mind, when all you have to be is content with the earth
beneath your feet. Does it not provide you with abundant green grass at day and the light
of stars at night? Is there not a song in your heart, must you also want it to fly?

In between acceptance and delusion, the ocean's roar lulls me to sleep each time,
only to haunt my dreams on wings of fancy where my words can toss their shackles
to roam free, high in the sky where your dreams have found safe anchor among storm and tides.

Who can know why your feet fly free, neither too low, nor too high, your course not sluggish,
nor running too fast and avoids leaving tracks that are nothing but dry, withered, charcoaled paths?
There is a place for you that is just right, your wings are strong and not held together with dead feathers and wax. 

So I will keep on and fly on high, leaving the foaming ocean's roar to scream its discontent,
to feel the sun burning its mark upon my brow, to scowl at my fierce attempts to be free.
Do not dismiss my odyssey as I reach up with seared wing to where you drink from ample fountain
where neither sea nor desert mountain burn your step or flight.


Trudi Ralston.
February 25th, 2017.
For Dr. Driss Ouaouicha.

Backlog

The February 2017 issue of National Geographic Magazine has an article dedicated to the hundreds of millions of women worldwide who in a staggering number of countries are subjected to incredibly unfair and medieval discrimination and abuse once they become widows. The problem is creepy in its  scope. The small ray of  hope in this dismal situation is that some women are fighting back  and in some cases are able to gain a sympathetic eye and ear of hopelessly outdated laws mired in rigid and biased traditions. There is one double page picture that sums it all up: the view of a room filled from the floor to the ceiling in a young archivist's office in Uganda. The earnest looking man seems dwarfed by the mountains of files all around him. The files are claims to settle property rights of widows, even rights to their own children. The files on the floor and high up by the ceiling are coated in dust and yellowed with time. It is a stunning photograph. The young archivist looks sincere and it is hard to tell from his turned away gaze how he might feel about  the perplexing enormity of his task.
The photograph is spellbinding, in the scope of human tragedy it captures, and the often absurd conditions of life in so many parts of our world. In an effort to catch my breath emotionally, as I delved into the article and its stark stories, a different thought intruded on my mind. How often do we allow backlog in our relationships to overwhelm us to the point where it becomes almost impossible to repair the damage? Every connection we have, whether recent or longstanding, whether it be family, friends, neighbours, lovers, can fall into the backroom archives of our heart and mind, where eventually the dust overcomes the life and vibrancy of the connection, and we just give up.
Relationships take a lot of effort and time to maintain, to keep them dust and cobweb free. Complacence may let us slip the importance of one or another connection closer to the floor, closer to the back of the desk that is our mind, until eventually some relationships vanish all together from our view, stacked somewhere high out of our reach, until we even forget their importance to us. Other relationships come in, and pretty soon they too, with time, if we become careless or distracted, might slip further back. It is a daunting realization. One way to avoid this, is to let our family, friends and neighbours know that they matter, let them know we care, we appreciate what they mean to us, if we want to stop losing people we care about, and realize we let them get covered up like so many papers in a dusty file in a dusty backroom of our hearts and minds.