Stained Glass

 Sunbeams flicker like fireflies though glass stained with paint. Paint pulled from the earth and pounded and mauled into paste. Water, dirty water, from the brown river mixes with it into a soup. The soup has lumpy vegetables, which stick to the sides and the bottom and hide. Simmering it gently with rocking arms and a stick makes it perfect, light, translucent, coloured.
The best taste it, the soup they have mined and mashed and swirled. They know the secret of creation, it is not creation but discovery, the choice of the matter not the maker, what to become. They see it for the living things it was, the living things it will portray, they see the life hidden under colour.
The worst let it sit by the window, growing filmy with the sun and impatient for death. They force their ideals onto it and it lumps and sticks.
The best know to paint when it calls them from the dark floor, the dirt and dead flies cushioning it in dormancy.
The worst pick it from the windowsill and stir it and swish it and force it to make something.
The best take their brush like a sword, like a feather, and carve. The paint guides them.
Then both take a basket of rushes and the best weaves a new basket but the worst uses an old basket. They pack the painted glass, the best swaddles and ties each one, but the worst slots them between lunch and a stool.
The best sets up their stall away from the others, in the shade.
The worst sets it up right in the centre, blocking a passage.
The best waits, but the worst shouts.
You might think justice goes to the best, who has laboured and packed and sits in the shade.
But the worst shouts and people listen.
The sun cracks the paint on the glass, but it gets in the eyes of people buying so they don't notice.
Soon the worst is eating lunch on the stool. Almost all the glass is gone.
A woman and her child pass by the stall of the best. The child gazes up at the glass. The sun makes a kaleidoscope over her face.
She reaches out to touch one...
But her mother has seen the stall of the worst and already he is getting up from his stool and smiling.

 The image is from here.

 Thursday Tales

The Hill

Beware lest they charm you into the hill
and concoct a robust feast from your bones
and gnaw and chew, enjoying the kill
Yes, beware, beware of the hill

Three Word Wednesday

Sepia Scenes #99

Some things just lend themselves so well to Sepia, and Coole Park is one of them. Yet another sepia scene from Coole.

Sepia Scenes

Like Ink

You don't know about me, but the river knows.
And when it snows, the vultures know.
They know of carrion frosty beneath the hardened earth
They know the sound of cold steel shovels turning dirt.
The vultures know of windy places where the trees are dead
Where if you close your eyes, the birds will take your head.
Where branches claw for skin and stone is cold and wet,
that's where the vultures take you if you can't escape their net.
In the forest there are arches, but the third is a lie
beneath the king key stone one false step and you die
Bone is white is white as snow
and colder is night is night than you'll know
softer is death is death than you think.
Where the vultures wheel, blood flows like ink.

Carry On Tuesday

This is an ante-dated post. My apologies. The internet was down and so I had to wait to post it.

New Friends and a Martello

Sometimes things just feel right. Moving here was one of them. Often I have had occasion to think that this just could have been the worst decision ever made. But sometimes things just...fall into place...and I know it was meant to be.
Like yesterday for instance.

We were planning to go see an old Martello Tower nearby (here is a little side story, feel free to skip ahead...We saw the red dot for Martello Tower on our Ordnance Survey map, they are the most amazing maps, and if you ever need a great, detailed map of a portion of Ireland, do get one of the OSI maps, they are genius. A bit about Martello Towers; Inspired by a round fortress on Mortella Point, in Corsica. The British copied the design but got the name wrong. Fifty Martello towers were built around Ireland, with most on the East coast near Dublin and seven in Cork.)
MM and DD fell asleep (!!), and when DD woke up, it was after six and he didn't seem inclined to going. I, originally neutral to the idea, now really wanted to go toady, NOW. MM woke up (cough) and we decided to go (yay!).
There we thought we were acting spontaneously, but...
We found it okay, first going too far and getting directions from someone. We saw two people standing taking photos and we left them to themselves.

Martello towers have a raised entrance normally and this was no different. DD climbed the ropes (left by local teens presumably) and reported there was really nothing inside, not even stairs to the top :(
I decided later to try my hand at climbing them and was standing there with DD when their dog came around the tower, so I quickly untangled myself from the rope.
They said hi, we said hi.
The they asked where we were from.
DD said where we lived...
But originally?
Maine.
They had lived in Boston but had moved here a few years ago.
We just clicked.
They had decided just the day before that they needed to find a good computer person to help them.
DD is great at computers.
She is a photographer, me too.
He and MM have things in common.
It was like it was pre-destined.
If MM and DD hadn't fallen asleep...
If we hadn't gone becuase it was late...
If we had given up when we took the wrong road...
If we hadn't been standing by the tower when they left and said hello...
He was able to tell us there was a staircase inside the walls of the tower to get to the top.

Sometimes thing are right, and this was one of them.
These things that reassure me it was the best decision to move here.

Sepia Scene #98

This was supposed to be posted around last Wednesday, I'm catching up... A paddle-wheel boat taken from a pier.

Sepia Scenes

Until the Ropes Break

Once upon a time, there was chaos. There is no trying to control chaos. The important thing is recognising chaos as a good thing. Leave the little things to blow in the breeze and tie the important things down one by one. But don't grieve if you miss one, because the others are still there.
I am not an organised person. I am a person who plans and prepares and then decides to watch television instead.
But.

I can try to do everything and have it all fall down. Or I can try to do some things that are important to me and keep juggling to save the world.
So I am going to do some things. I am going to do every single piece of work I am assigned in school instead of leaving some for last-minute rushing. I am going to keep blogging, mainly on the weekends. I am going to write. I am not going stop watching television, because I enjoy it. I am not going to spend all my time doing work or blogging or dossing.

Today I spent the morning reading blogs I had missed during the week due to homework and going to bed earlier. I spent three hours and had only read posts that were posted a day ago. Now I will do like other people and read posts that look interesting, that I might comment on, instead of all of them.
I felt bad that I could not read some people's posts (most of the ones I read I commented on but not all) but I am only catering to my own limitations.

Expect to see me lurking at the edge of the spider's web, where I can travel the strands to anywhere but cannot get tangled.
Also expect to see either a load of posts published today or pre-scheduled throughout the week for last week's memes (I fully maintain better late than never).
Thank you.