This is a collaboration with Michele Lee inspired by our shared love for the nature and friendship. I adore Michele’s work and recently read her novela Her Costal Cottage. If you haven’t already read Michele’s work, pay a visit to her blog My Inspired Life, I hope you’ll enjoy as much as I have been.
A playground first encounter
two shy girls found each other
A friendship bonded by quiet giggles and thousand smiles
Best Friends Forever sealed with a pinky swear
while painted toes pressed into the pearly sand
Promises made when forever was cloaked by the misty gray fog, carrying the secrets of unknown tomorrows
falling gently on their straw hats and small hands busy adding broken shells to their sandcastle kingdom
where two mermaids could live
when they weren’t underwater exploring
The crystal blue above and the deep turquoise below
blending, swallowing shadows and fragile castles
as two little girls left the beach,
side by side skipping, singing, and hand-holding
half buried, a red bucket and spade forgotten
I was once in the school choir, then the district choir, and I sang the leading part. There were performances, and they were a blur.
What I remember though, clearly, the eccentric conductor with wiry hair threw the baton on me, it hit the corner of my head. It didn’t hurt but I was shocked, so as the rest of the choir. We stopped in the middle of the rehearsal. He literally drove the kids out the door and commanded me to stay.
He signalled a spot next to the piano for me to stand. He started to play the piano and I sang again and again where I was out of tune. I could read the frustration on his face, his eyebrows particularly.
I knew what frustrated him, me singing out of tune. I wished I knew how to fix it. I couldn’t tell I was in tune or not. I only knew when the whole choir was doing listening exercise, I was the only one lagged behind. Everybody else seemed to be able to tell what three piano keys he played at the same time. But me, nada, I couldn’t grasp it.
I had no idea why I was singing the lead part. I did what I was told for being a very compliant child. I was demanded to practice and practice until his eyebrows relaxed and his face softened. Then he called the rest of the choir back in and carried on with the rehearsal.
I did it for three years until my father told me there was no future for me to continue in the choir because we had no family connections in the entertainment industry, and I had no real talent in singing. I didn’t disagree and I was glad that the baton was no longer a threat.
In my last choir practice, the eccentric conductor said to me in a grumbling voice, “You are wasting your talent by quitting. Do you want me to have a word with your father?” I replied in a very quiet voice, “My father said I have no real talent in singing and we have no family connections. I think my father is right.”
He started to play the piano and signalled me to sing. I did so compliantly till the practice session finished. That was the end of my singing.
Living Poetry prompt – Discovery
Looking for my lost childhood
deep in the luscious green
I was once delighted
in the gossamer
of my innocent face
looking into the reflection
of the calm river
With each erosion of the bank
I grew older
as the tree trunks grew thicker
until the familiar path
became unrecognisable
overtaken by years of absence
Searching but not finding
the same joy
when a world discovered
to be greyer
beyond the forest gate
Cotton candies hung high in the sky
Balancing on our surf boards
we throw our arms in the air
hoping to pull them right down
and taste our childhood again
in this amusement park
floating on a bed of turquoise dreams
We had so little
one set of uniform
and a pair of sandals
pencils short like cigarette butts
canvas shoulder bag full of patches
But we had colorful candy wrappers
bamboo sticks and string
to make kites
into a hope filled summer
I still remember him
stick skinny
swimming in this hand-me-down shorts
bare foot skipping on the hot tart road
launched his rainbow kite
into the tangerine sky
We cheered so loud
drown out the sound
of the foraging birds
We had very little
and we had it all
There was no concept of toys in my childhood.
For fun,
I trapped cicadas and fireflies,
caught dragonflies and tadpoles,
grew silkworms and hatched eggs,
made kites and kaleidoscopes,
slid down banana trees and swam in streams.
I had a 14-key toy piano in middle childhood.
I played Auld Lang Syne and
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
The Barbie I had was in adolescence.
My father took a bicycle ride
with me on the back seat.
He saved 12 packs of smoke to
spend on a Barbie for me.
I was thirteen.
I made Barbie a studio apartment
with shoe box, handkerchief,
match boxes and play dough.
Two AAA batteries, an electric wire
and a light bulb in an old pill box
made Barbie her reading lamp.
I took pleasure in hand sewing
all Barbie’s dresses.
The favoirite gown was made from
cellophane lolly wrappers.
Wherever I go, I take these
wonderful memories and
treasures with me.
my memory of school holidays
are of the farm life
the rooster crowed at daybreak on roof top
careless with the chimney smoke
the forest green tea plantations
dazzled in the spring rain
early summer crickets sang
amidst the bamboo bushes
village children’s twinkling eyes
fixed on pebble stones roast chestnuts
burning charcoals snuggled in the terracotta bowl
covered by a hand knitted bamboo basket
the card games and craft
under the kerosene lamps
firewood smoke and wet soil smells
connected me to my childhood
through the time tunnel
decorated with fireflies
I saw you
I saw the boy in you
full of love for the world and
the people in it
I saw you
I saw the boy in you fell off
over and over again with
no one dusting you off
I saw you
I saw the boy in you sobbing for
the unheard words
and unfelt love
I saw you
I saw the boy in you trapped in
a shattered glass heart
bleeding into glimpse of hope
I saw you
I saw the boy in you
puffy cheeks and a million dollar grin
fading away in a politically correct world
I saw you
I saw the boy in you
a pure and innocent soul could not be unseen
Truly I saw YOU
Flicker of Thoughts 