ManicDDaily

This is about a witch who netted butterflies. 

You’d think that the butterflies would be disturbed by the hover of her broomstick, but the witch had good opera glasses, and so, could spy the butterflies out from even a relative high distance.

She caught them with something akin to a fishing net, wide and slightly weighted.  She was never sure if the mesh were gentle enough, but tried to make up for this by pouring or patting the butterflies into the large bell jars she carried and never actually handling them.

She carried the bell jars in little thatch baskets that were hooked like saddle bags upon each side of her broom, and though they were big jars, she tried never to overcrowd them, even in those days when, for some strange reason, butterflies are magically plentiful.

Once she had an assortment—she called whatever she collected an “assortment, though they were often just swallowtails, she would re-charge the broom stick, meaning she would put her mind to re-energizing its float, and putt putt it back home. This was a decayed tree in the center of the woods that she had outfitted as a studio apartment.

It was, admittedly, a small space—oddly shaped as well—the hollow trunk more like a collapsed column than a room. It was hard, from the outside, to imagine anyone could be very comfortable inside.  But the witch was not just anyone, not at least a human anyone. She could, for example, adjust her size quite easily.  So, once she squeezed the bell jars in the trunk, she miniaturized herself, and easily stepped in too. There, she settled herself on a little divan made of twig and bark, upholstered with moss, and basked in the beauty of the bell jars, whose glass caught the light through the breaks in the dead tree in the most marvelous way. She gloried too in the beauty of the butterflies.

You could call it an immersive experience, though she never actually entered one of her jars.

She did not mean to be cruel.  But there was something about lounging beside the glossy curves of glass and the velvet curves of wing that she could not resist.  

You might ask why she didn’t simply miniaturize herself in one of the gardens she poached—why she didn’t settle herself down besides a host of stems or leaf.  

But she also loved the element of control—the fact that she had captured the butterflies, arranged the jars, made the whole tableau.

You could argue, quite reasonably, that she had not made the butterflies, or, for the matter the jars.  But she was a witch and you would not be wise to make such arguments.

Of course, it is possible that she would answer that she had made her tableaus as much as any artist makes anything—a collage or a painting—

But she might not think to offer such counter arguments.

She might  point out that she always tried to return the butterflies, that butterflies did not live long in any case.

But she might not come up with such justifications either. 

It’s possible that she would simply become very angry.

And it never does to make a witch angry.  Especially not a witch with a net.

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Here’s a little story today in place of poem! As always, pics are mine. All rights reserved. Thanks for your visit!  Have a good night!

Strange Cell

It was a strange cell, with only
a bucket, two cots and a
piano.  

I can’t say why
the two of them were there, the young man, young woman,
only that they were.
With a piano, a bucket and two cots, and
no common language, no common spoken
language, but they were each aspiring concert pianists, so
music was a shared tongue. 

It quickly, almost accidentally, became how they spoke
for the cell was frightening and cold, what with the concrete and
the iron bars, what with
that bucket.

So, after all footsteps faded
down what passed for a corridor, and silence
grew thick as a wall,,
one and then the other would play. 

At the beginning, that is, after they were brave enough to try a few notes and no guard
shouted or appeared—they only played songs they knew. 
Luckily, there were many—far too many in some ways, as once they began to play,
each itched
to occupy the bench. 

But almost as soon as the trading of songs became their method
of communication, they knew they needed to improvise. 

For the pieces they knew only seemed only to get at certain things—
longing, yes, but it was a longing
for something deep and emotional, not, for example—“I’m longing
to use the bucket, could you please
turn your head.”

Some songs (surprisingly folk dances and polkas worked well)
could be played with great urgency; these were easier
to mold into some insistent pass of
why in the hell
this cell?  And, I think they may be bringing
the food, better
be careful.

But, soon enough, hands that lived to fly, birdlike, over the pale keys,
needed to gesticulate—

Their fingers felt, at first, ridiculously bared, mid-air.
It was only when the other’s face softened
into comprehension that the humiliation lifted.

There was never complete darkness in that place, but little light,
when the sun set, and
it was in the near-darkness that each placed a hand
on the other’s arm, breast, thigh, tapping out this song,
and then another.

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Here’s a long, but I hope interesting, draft poem, another written for April.  Poem and pic are mine; all rights reserved. 

Waking Up Anxious

anxiety nests in my back like a bird
that shouldn’t be there–
(but what kind of beaked being
should bird
my back?)

anxiety marches through my ear; an army timing its tromp
to my pulse
(as if that could fool me). 

I try to just sit
with the bird
the army—there’s also a worm
somewhere but the bird
pays it no heed—

which gives me the idea of sneaking around
the bird
the worm
the army, moving past them, 

I am thankful
for my training as a child,
all the hide and seek, sardines,
touch football, jumping
rope. 

I think back
to the feel of bare feet.
I can bare my feet now, of course,
but the feel of them running,
their soft sounding of grass, earth, 

all that pride
In the roughened sole.

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A very quick drafty poem for April. All rights reserved to pic and poem. Take care!