We never know
what words will wrap around someone’s heart
and make a day bearable.
We never know
what actions will give strength to someone’s resolve
and encourage tomorrow.
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What a gift it is when someone from long ago calls to say that you made a profound difference in their life. How humbling it is to know that we touch so many people, and to be reminded how important it is to appreciate those we meet from day to day.
Yay! A short short story I wrote for a Writers’ Digest contest has been shortlisted to the Top 5. How exciting! Now the public can vote on their favourite. The winner will be published in Writers’ Digest magazine. I would so appreciate your support! The stories are here: You don’t have enough points, sir. I’m Entry B. (Think B for Bird 🙂 ) You just have cut and paste into their comments to vote. Easy peasy. Please vote for me! Thanks!
Ah, you with your honeyed tongue
whispering words that make me feel
nervous of my sweet tooth.
When everything was expanding,
blowing out of proportion,
I found you.
No daily hour of pain.
Discipline brings results,
not agony.
A small discomfort yielding huge reward,
and a glimmer of hope.
.
.
It has been one year
without you.
I could take off mourning now,
remove a black cloak of outward grief,
but I will never remove the sense of loss.
It has been one year
without you,
but I still hear your voice
I hear your laugh,
your bad jokes,
another repetition of your life story.
I could take off a mourning cloak
but I will wear you on my shoulder,
hear you in my ears,
love you with every breath
until we meet again.
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https://shawnbird.com/2015/07/25/obituary-herbert-mosses-duguay/
Hot day.
The mall is packed.
Swimming lessons need a driver
(kids can’t get anywhere by themselves, after all).
Joggers sweating past.
Gas mower chugs obnoxiously around the yard.
I miss the soft swisha-swisha of dad’s old Rotary mower
when summer was gentler
and filled with children’s laughter.
May have this dance,
owed from fifth grade?
Embrace memory
And wistful wishes.
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Paper Town. John Greene.
A hundred years ago these fields yielded
grief, fear, bodies, blood, and mud.
Now, wheat dries golden in the sun,
leaves wave in the breeze over crater scars,
While the earth returns bones and bombshells
to the surface: a century of slowly expulsing the detritus of war
extruding shrapnel from its pockmarked body with the new grass.
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Watching the history channel, and amazed to learn that even today, Belgian farmers keep bins in their yards for unexploded shells they find, and the army comes by regularly to collect and destroy them. What a legacy a hundred years later! I’m just finishing Anne Perry’s World War One series which has made trench warfare very vivid.
I’m searching for you
street after street,
household after household.
Your entire block has vanished,
uncountable mystery.
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(I’ve just spent 2 days combing 2000 entries in the 1921 Montreal census in search of the block where my father lived. I can’t find it in any of the districts, though I have found addresses within 5 mins walk in all directions. It’s like they forgot to enumerate his neighbourhood. So frustrating!).
Shawn L. Bird 