From January through March I participated in a daily writing challenge – each day the people participating were given a new prompt and asked to produce a new piece. This is one of the selections from that project. The title is the prompt.

Look around and see
The fellows with the pall and dour visages
Idling, hoping, moping, dragging
On thoughts that behind that door lies sought answers,
Or if not answers, at least yearned relief.
And no longer looking within, without
Or beyond the appointed time.

I say no, I will not treat it so;
It is not a waiting room,
It is a doing room;
A laughing room;
A dancing room;
A crying room;
A birthing, learning, failing, soaring room;
Even in my quietest contemplation
It is the being room.

I shall go through that door
When called,
But I shalt not pass my time
Waiting.

From January through March I participated in a daily writing challenge – each day the people participating were given a new prompt and asked to produce a new piece. This is one of the selections from that project. The title is the prompt.

Old Chicken sees Still Fox. Dew glistening as dawn light falls on red fur. Still Fox is inside fence. Still Fox has crept through hole Old Chicken saw last sun. Old Chicken knows: first bird to leave coop today will die.

Unless Old Chicken squawks. This is the chicken way. Then other chickens squawk. Then Farmer comes. Then Still Fox becomes Running Fox. 

But Old Chicken makes no sound, instead turning to look at New Cock.

New Cock has been here five suns now, arriving a few suns after Farmer pulled Old Cock’s neck. 

New Cock, who already acts as though it is his coop. New Cock, who told Dappled Chicken she did not scratch for worms the right way. New Cock, who took Young Chicken, his beak pushing her neck to the ground, before Young Chicken was ready. New Cock, who clucked to Old Chicken, ‘old ways are gone ways,’ when she told him this was not the coop’s way.

So Old Chicken does not cluck loudly.

Old Chicken thinks.

Then Old Chicken rises. She walks to where New Cock is sleeping, pecking him gently from behind.

“Away, crone,” says New Cock.

“Sun coming. You must crow.”

“Leave,” he says, flinging hay back at Old Chicken.

“Sun coming. You must crow. Old Cock did not crow. Farmer did not wake. Farmer killed Old Cock. You must crow.” she clucks, deferentially. It is hard to humble herself. She does this anyway.

“Be gone, crone,” says New Cock, this time swinging his ruby cockscome to the other side as he pecks hard at her breast. She feels it. But she has seen many cocks, and knows to lower head. She knows to show submission, even if she does not mean it. 

It works. New Cock rises, and waddles out the henhouse door.

Then Still Fox becomes Haunched Fox. 

Haunched Fox becomes Leaping Fox.

Leaping Fox becomes Snapping Fox.

Snapping Fox becomes Sated Fox.

And Old Chicken, satisfied, ruffles her feathers. She sits back down in the hay. She knows old ways are the best way.

From January through March I participated in a daily writing challenge – each day the people participating were given a new prompt and asked to produce a new piece. This is one of the selections from that project. The title is the prompt.

San Francisco is a city of four sides and three edges, the ocean and bay capping the sides and top making clear “thou shalt go no further”. Travel south though and the city continues, dense housing giving way to less dense housing, compact shopping streets turning into malls and then strip malls, until the spaces between the buildings grow larger, and without realizing it, you are now driving through gold-brown hills dotted with infrequent mansions. On the journey there is no obvious point where the transition occurs, but eventually you acknowledge you are no longer in the city.

Break out the map though – society’s view of the city – and the edge is there. Stark. And all the imaginary things change at that point.

Zipcodes change.

Taxes change.

Supervisors or councillors change.

Society has defined an edge where landscape demurs to be so impolite.

I do not feel old. My body can still run. My hips can still sway. My mind remembers yesterday, and the day before. Yet I’m closer now to the final country than ever, and the face that stares back at me in the mirror is my father’s not mine. There was no moment in reality when it happened, no true demarcation. 

Alas yesterday, when the AARP invitation showed up in the mail, my wife laughed and said, “Now you’re old.”