Moment of Shine

Every winter when my sisters and I unpacked the ornaments to our Christmas tree, there was one we always searched for in particular. We gave this ornament a place of honor in the center of the tree where everyone could see it. It wasn't expensive or made of blown glass, but a homemade silk and styrofoam bauble that grew just a little bit shabbier with each year, losing beads and splitting into frizzy threads. Still, it has always been my favorite ornament because I thought it looked like Cinderella's coach, or the dream of it. I hung Cinderella's coach on my own tree for the first time this year, carefully angling it so that only the good sides showed. Dreams fray with time, too, but we still angle them to catch the best light; a brief moment of shine.

Autumn Ode

 Rubifolium

As trees lose their summer-time silhouette,

I slim, too—

Undone by Autumn,

Stripped into a colored frenzy

Of wings.

As the wind scatters my soul
Across the pavement,

My mind skitters into gullies and corners,

Heaping up hopes like dried vermillion. 

S.P.

*A poem I wrote a few years ago, 

a picture I took a few days ago,

All things come back to red.