"Autobiographies of great nations are written in three manuscripts – a book of deeds, a book of words, and a book of art. Of the three, I would choose the latter as truest testimony." - Sir Kenneth Smith, Great Civilisations

"I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine." - Leo Tolstoy

I have never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again. - John Updike

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it." - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti


[Note - If any article requires updating or correction please notate this in the comment section. Thank you. - res]


Thursday, February 25, 2021

R.E. Slater - Yesterday's Tomorrows




Yesterday's Tomorrows

by R.E. Slater

I awoke the morning having dreamed a most
fantastical dream of dead relatives and strangers,
of failing houses built anew long creek bottoms,
near hillsides flowing in waters tumbling down
stony cascades ’neath shaded arbors spilling
sunlit warmth. In the distance, soon borne near,
old farmhouses had become magical estates too
majestic their beholdings. Made of wood and
rock, smoothed granite and clever masonry, all
turned grander by dint of hand’s sturdy vision.
Each the more magical as I listened dead loved
ones gabbling on as they had our back porches
or large reunion picnics. Men chattering away as
old women, and the old women more talky than
before. All nonsense and rhythm, laughter and
goodwill. It was grand to hear, and soothing upon
the heart, to think on.

Women dressed in thin gingham affairs, men in
their white shirts and suspenders; and all wearing
black or brown laced shoes fitting much too tightly.
Beyond lay splendorous bluing pools and spas, 
nooky alcoves and hidden hide-aways, each with
their own attractions. The expanse of it, the vision,
all there, all become, where once there was none.
Imagination could not begin to comprehend the
rocky meandering step walls on which to climb,
or graven scripted facings, or even the planted
greenery there-and-about. And as I stepped within
then down, everywhere about me lay a sprawling
solarium as high as it was wide, under which the
airy evening stars dwelt in timbrelled lights spilling
over a gathered storyteller's head, circling ’round
the many listening ears and wizened heads nodding
broad smiles to the teller’s gesticulating, much
animated, stories of olden days and friends. Beside
me in their corridors buried within narrow cozy
enclaves lay nearby adobe-like bistros built like
honeycombs winding about-and-around each the
other, filled with chatty supplicants beheld in gay
festivities of every sort. And as I wandered lost
within, I wondered to myself the visionaries, the
architects, the designers, and builders all, but
feeling the joke of having been blinded the day's
unseeing-beyond I withheld any comment to
myself whence dumbstruck its sublime mystery.

 

 

It was then I awoke quite disorientated not sure
where I was. Outside my ward’s flowing chiffon
drapery a foggy grey mist wafted off the briny
sea lying still off the bow beyond my bedroom’s
chambers. A great grey, sleeping ocean, across
which I was drawn to as I lay half-awake listing
the bizarre stories draining through my foggy
head seeing for the last time rare sights seldom
granted. There again rose my grandma's sparse
farmhouse, the one she grew up within, with its
occupants and rooms filled with gaiety and light.
My last living relative, dad’s cousin, excitedly 
talking as he never had before when ensconced
in his father's house, though I had spent many a
kitchen hour conversing with the old man and his
aged wife. The lively cobwebs were now lifting,
sweeping my fuzzy head clear beguiling thoughts
whence I saw again dear dad like he was ’ere the
night before we last met. Each going, going, gone.

All strange. All strange. All strange. I thought to 
myself. Nothing making sense except that I went
to bed too late, too tired to hear beyond the open
curtains of my bedroom's windows to be called to
wander with old memories and new on a somber
winter’s evening. Each a spinning scene making
me dizzy how earthly glory might be. Could be.
The camaraderie, the fellowship, of riding along
rushing creek sides on mounted sorrels weary the
dusty trails from a long day's saddle. What could
be, what can be, only imagination could tell me.
And yet, I felt the poorer when waking as both
past and future fled as one into the foggy spindrifts
lying over the oceans of my mind and heart. And
I, left alone, last thoughts and feelings from lands
portending much more if I had but listened and
mended during the days of my waking to follow
the siren calls of yesterday’s tomorrows.


R.E. Slater
February 25, 2021
Rev. March 5, 2021


@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved