Calliope's blog

These tangled threads

twist my hands until

I cannot feel.

I read my Austen

and Akhmatova

and imagine what will –

could have been.

And I silently smile.

I imagine what can be

and what I will.

And I smile,

a little louder now.

I’m looking out

and can only see the lights

glowing in the night,

the bent heads of the many

Yesterday morning I found a smooth pebble,

it lay almost hidden,

silent

among the dirt and dry grass.

I wouldn’t have seen it

if a breeze

hadn’t brushed my cheek

making a shudder

caress my spine.

When I bent to touch the stone

I couldn’t reach it.

I could not lift it.

And it lay

silently

abandoned.

Imagine

that river

untouchable,

soft, cool,

unreachable,

that breeze felt but never held,

never captured.

Unthinkable.

Imagine

a place

unseeable

and you

incapable

of finding the steps

untraceable.

Unnoticeable.

Imagine

a dream

unattainable

a wish

unalterable.

You know those moments

when you wish

that something had been

said. You know

those times

when you could have

taken another step

from beaten

road to a softer,

gentler touch

of untrodden grass

beneath

My hands

may try to feel

what was,

but clichés thwart me.

I like to dream

of moments

when we fit –

alliteration and rhyme –

Ten years ago I sat in a small theater with one of my then best friends, attempting to stifle a cough that was the straggling remains of a cold I had contracted while on a girl scout trip to the Montshire Museum. Today I sat in a much larger theater with my sister, 3-D glasses in place. 10 years between - more than half of my life. I was 8 then - much quieter and smaller with longer, wilder hair. I was always Hermione. Today I am 18 - very nearly 19. In a few weeks, I leave for my first year of college, just across the river from the Montshire.