How can one grieve that which was never lost, for it was never held?

And he asked, "How can one grieve for something they never knew they lacked?"

And I answered, "One cannot; for it is only the discovery of that which was lacking and anticaption of the place it could have held, that makes appreciation and grief possible."

The Contest

(A short, short story I wrote probably back in 1984 or 1985.)

THE CONTEST

You could hear the crack of glass on glass as the aggie flew from the boy's fingers and struck the marbles, sending them off in different directions. 

"Ha!  I won!" cried the boy.

"It wasn't a fair shoot!" said the opponent moodily.

"It was too, and you know it, Jamie Gregg!"

"Was not," Jamie said quietly so Steve wouldn't hear.  Steve being a year older and three inches taller, Jamie was careful not to make him angry.  Twice already that summer Steve had laid into Jamie with a vengeance for something phrased wrong. 

"Well, I won and I get to keep the marbles. " Steve said arrogantly, daring Jamie to argue.

"You can't keep the marbles.  They're mine.  They were a present from my brother, David.  He'd get mad if I lost them."  Just thinking of what would happen to him if he didn't bring home those marbles made him pale.  They weren't a present, just David's, taken while David was away at camp.

"That's too bad, wuss.  They're mine and I'm gonna keep 'em."

"Whattaya say we have a contest for them?"

"A contest?  What kind of contest?"

"You know, the kind where you see who's the best at everything kind of like the Olympics."

"The Olympics, huh?"  Being three inches taller and having a good twenty pounds on Jamie, Steve felt pretty sure of chances for winning just about any physical contest.  "Sure, okay.  We'll have a contest."

"Okay.  So, whattaya want to do first?"

"First, we'll see who can throw the farthest."

"Yeah, and then we'll see who can spit the farthest and then who can run the fastest."

:And who can hold their breath the longest!"

"All right!  Let's start."

They began with throwing rocks.  Jamie won that one.  His brother, David, was the star pitcher for the high school and had been coaching Jamie before he left for camp.  Next was spitting; Steve won that event.  He had studied the way his grandfather spit tobacco.

At the halfway point in their mini-Olympics, the boys were tied one to one.  They began the second half.  They ran from the market on the corner to the end of the street by old Mrs Sanders' house.  Jamie won that one too.  Steve wasn't as used to his newly-long legs as Jamie was to his old short ones. 

"We might as well say I won, Steve.  Two out of three.  There ain't no way you can beat that."

"I can tie you, though.  And then we'll have to do something else."

"Okay.  But I bet you can't do it."

So air was sucked in and held trapped in cheeks that became red from the effort.  Ten seconds…fifteen seconds…thirty…forty…forty-five…Jamie exhaled suddenly and gasped for air. 

Steve's breath exploded in laughter.  "I told you!  I told you!  It's a tie.  Now we got to think up something else."

"I don't know, Steve.  It's getting late.  My mom's expecting me home soon."

"I know!  We can throw houses!"

"Come on.  Not that.  That's messing with somebody else's stuff and that's not right."  Jamie was reluctant because the last time it is was Brian Weston throwing with Steve, and the sheriff found out.  He told Brian's folks, and Brian's was grounded for the rest of the summer. 

"All right, chicken.  We'll just say I won then, and I'll keep the marbles."

"Okay, okay.  We'll throw houses."  Jamie looked around to make sure no one was around to tell on them. 

"You go first, since you're so chicken."

So Jamie chose a house.  He found a good handhold so he could get just enough leverage, braced himself, and heaved upwards as hard as he could.  He watched as the house landed just a few feet from where he was standing.

"My turn, wuss.  Steve walked to the house he had chosen and hoisted a corner.  Like Jamie, he braced himself and heaved.  This time the house flew through the air. 

"I won!  I won!"  Steve crowed triumphantly as the house pitched end over end, obviously going farther than Jamie's had gone.  "The marbles are mine!" 

Even as he gloated, though, Steve's eyes grew wide with horror as he watched the house land on his prize, the coveted marbles, and they heard the audible crunch of crushing glass.

Moral:  Those with glass stones shouldn't throw houses.

I am a poet

I am a poet; I have been for 30 years. I love words -- how they sound, alone or strung together in chains; how they make my spirit vibrate, the way you feel the cello in your chest. Words resonate in my soul and echo in my mind, like a delicate concerto for strings.

Sometimes words fall from my pen to the paper like drops of water from a leaky faucet. Sometimes someone tightens the washers and the drips dry up. Other times the washers give way completely, and the words spew everywhere, drenching me, the floor, the walls, and the ceiling, leaving me to mop them up with paper.

Only later, when the soaked pages have dried, do the words begin to vibrate. They must cure into the chains that become vibrating strings to be plucked and stroked. resonating and echoing in the chest, imagination, and the spirit.

Opening scrap

Hail and welcome, Earth reader! Why the look of confusion? Oh, that's right. You probably can't understand me. Here, just give me a minute. Now, hold still. There may be a flash of light and you may feel a small pinch. *  There, is that better? So, again, hail and welcome! I am NNY86.3 or just Nanny. What? What did I just do to you? Nothing much really. I downloaded a translator program into your organic on-board computer, or rather your brain. Don't worry; it's not a virus, not exactly anyway. I mean, technically, it is a virus: it changes your brainwaves to accept and translate whatever language is input through the video ports. That's a good thing, right!  But it only works with the known languages; step outside this universe and you'll have to upgrade to the paid version.

*(translation) Hail and welcome, Earth reader! Why the look of confusion? Oh, that's right. You probably can't understand me. Here, just give me a minute. Now, hold still. There may be a flash of light and you may feel a small pinch.

Marbelous ideas...

Ideas roll around my mind like marbles loosed on the warped floorboards of the attic, tracing ghost trails in the dust, barely discernible and difficult to follow, almost impossible to unravel from the paths of other ideas.

Invisble Girl -- poem

Invisible Girl

Ghost
Shade
Transparent
Unseen.

Murmur
Whisper
Voiceless
Unheard.

Invisible girl,
Dismissed.

~~ BNL 9/16/13

Archaeology -- a poem

I wrote this as the final assignment of an online archaeology course. It sums it up (for me) quite nicely.

Archaeology

Discovery, elation

Disturbance, destruction

Racing against time, nature, thieves, and bureaucracy

To rescue the past for the future.