taste of home

melting milk chocolate
sliver of almond
tart, juicy raisin.
never have I held
so long on my tongue
a single square
of Cadbury's Fruit & Nut

baked potato

black and brown pepper speckles yellow melting butter in steaming white flesh.  it sits in the middle of the ceramic plate, blue-handled knife and fork poised on each side. my mouth anxious for anticipation to become reality.

camino

trees on each side arch their arms over the road
fingertips overlocking.
our headlights burrow through this living tunnel
no moon
no stars
the darkness pushes at us
trying to snuff out
even our strongest hi-beams

Jinotega

the night air is heavy,
thick with the lush green forest
and spiced by the woodsmoke
of a hundred kitchen fires

in the meeting

markets
prices
coffee.
above our heads on the lime green wall
a sticky-footed gecko undulates across

why I'm writing small stones again

I started writing this as a comment on Kaspa's blog post "Three reasons why I love writing small stones" , then I realised that my response was pretty much a post in itself and wanted to explore the subject a bit for myself.  (In addition to agreeing with all of the Kaspa's very accurate reasons!)

Sometime last week I also had the realisation that I missed writing small stones.  I enjoyed participating in January's River of Stones, I remember it as a particularly enjoyable month of just noticing things.  I remember smiling, I remember walking outside in the cold January air, and, as strange as it may sounds, I even remember breathing.  January was very alive.

I didn't participate in July's River of Stones on the pretext that I was too busy moving house and country.  Then in August and September I was busy with more of the same and lots of "figuring out" of what was next in my life was also going on.  So my mind has been very occupied these past few months.  Last week, I realised that somewhere in all that busy-ness and self-occupation that I had lost touch.  Walking through the streets of San Jose, Costa Rica, I realised that I wasn't seeing them.  Well, I was seeing them well enough to dodge traffic, which is generally a good thing, but I wasn't seeing the birds, the plants, the people I passed.  I wasn't hearing what was happening outside my window.  I wasn't seeing what was happening outside my window.  It was all just noise to me, part of the backdrop of everything that was going on in my own little world.  How could I allow my mind to be elsewhere when there was such a richness before my eyes and under my nose just sitting there in all it's glory / splendour / sadness / disgust / discomfort / joy?

And aside from all of that, it's easy to feel disconnected out here on my own.  But really, it's up to me to connect with what's right in front of me: Life, in all its unapologetic reality.

baby talk

outside my window
a babble of sounds
the little girl speaks her own language
but I can hear the smile in her voice

san jose

ringed by mountains
the city is nestled in a green sugar bowl.
after their morning coffee
the gods replace the cloudy lid,
which fits snugly over the mountaintops,
or wrap the bowl in clear cellophane,
and the sun glints off the coloured roofs.

perched

masked eyes
blue mohawk
the little brown bird's trilling song
too sweet
for his punk costume

night work

half past dark
a car waits in the street
horn blares
impatient
her heels like clockwork
past my window

quarter to dawn
the courtyard gate opens
rusty hinges
protest
her heels like clockwork
past my window

On dove wings

"Guess what! Can you hear that?"
And across the distance
bouncing off countless satellites
to channel through my computer
a newborn's cry crackles in my ear.

Welcome to the family, little one.

rainy season

rain falls on the metal roof over the courtyard
and falls
and falls
and falls
thunderous drops
creating blissful silence

watery grave

kitchen tops cleaned and dried
but morning still finds another cockroach
dead in a puddle turned copper green