A 2022 Story, Part 9
Part 9 You can read part 8 here: https://www.melindacoppola.com/a-2022-story-part-8 The skies grew dark earlier and Moon stayed longer. Sun still warmed the skies, but the air was crisp and cool. Trees on the banks of Big River dropped bright, wide leaves or dry brown needles into the swirling waters, and still Little Stream and Wee […]
Through Emerald Eyes
1. I saw an army of righteous green soldiers, spines erect, facing away from the wind to trick the opposition into doubting their strength. 2. Another day, a thousand brushes— great green swaths of them, moist and willing to receive dust from coats of dogs, little bunnies, the neighbor’s insolent white cat. 3. Who’s to […]
A Little Bullish
I know, I know. Much is not right here in the world. We conjure and raise up hatreds and fears born of misconceptions. We bow down to profit and convention instead of the goodness in each other. We make wars, first with ourselves, and then with those we call other. We perpetrate unspeakable violence against […]
Sixty Unplugged Minutes with my Love
I used a text to carve an island from a Thursday in two overloaded lives. I typed 10 to 11 Walk with me. Moose Hill. I meant Come. To the refuge down the road, the one where boardwalks hover over murky waters in which juicy clusters of grape-like frog eggs expand in the quiescent womb […]
All This Joy, All This Sorrow
Monday, March 28, morning. It’s snowing as I write this. Big, fluffy flakes that arrive past the date of our northern hemisphere Spring equinox. I wonder if they know they won’t accumulate. If they did know, would their especially short lifespan would matter to them? I suspect not. Nature cycles despite our self-important desires and […]
I Wish You Knew
In the Garden Imagine if you will, dear one, dear one and all, that you are sent to manifest something unique and quite vital to the world. You arrive as rich seeded earth, landing in just the right geographic location to support your eventual yield. The trees and the flowers and the shrubs in […]
Time, Place, Classroom
WHEN The world gets so noisy. Too many voices straining, pushing past their natural limits to be heard. Our small ears can’t discern provenance or factuality. Reactions quicken, turning knee-jerk, protective. WHERE There is the place where trees thicken into extended families, root systems entwined beneath the earth. Look for the leafy canopy that forms […]
Turn, turn, turn, turn
OCTOBER October is like an unplanned drive, the roads back country and meandering, the other cars occasional, a determined deer or quicksilver squirrel the biggest hazards, and then just like that the road widens, and thickens, a harsh unnatural line slicing the middle, asphalt and buildings erupting like an acne upon the tender earth. Last […]
Natura Illustratio
Nature is a picture book of wisdom and example, an illustrated guide to how we could arrive, and live, and die. Take, for example, a leaf in spring. It draws from mother tree the energy it needs and not a drop more, grows to the edges of its vibrant green potential without once demanding bigger, […]
Rocking the cosmic swirl
Rocking It comforts me to know the old couple across the street just celebrated fifty years in the same house. Fifty together years with the home they perhaps chose to be new in together, a threesome of sorts, their bodies joining brick and hardened earth settling and cracking and pressing together, adding more spackle and […]