Collage by Margaret Bednar
It's not like she needed a VISA to sing the songs of Kansas as she'd been born beneath this funnel-filled sky; hardship and toil were second nature. And yet, she'd don her hat, her white lace and turquoise rings fanciful embellishments only in competition with the ever-present sun, twirl and sing in the swaying fields as if she was Maria Von Trapp atop her Swiss mountain. I was blinded by mortality's mud and dirt, seeing decay; my songbird saw glinted gold in the fields as the larks lifted their wings and beaks toward heaven. Endless sky, endless land, a few gentle hills a long way distant, enough to keep my eyes searching, longing for a future far from here; her eyes content upon the Kansas dust-filled prairie.
Sit here now where the old hen house used to be, where we had heart-to-hearts, rested within the heat with the cooing hens, running a hand across the warmth of their feathers as they murmured to unhatched chicks. My eyes settle upon the spot where she fades gracefully beneath her earth; how I can still feel her, hear her; blessed I watched her closely, learned to unfold my wings, let the thistles fall, allow the songs in my chest a passport home.
by Margaret Bednar, January 6, 2023
Playing along with "Girlie on the Edge's "Six Sentence Story" the word prompt: VISA
8 comments:
A beautifully written Six! I really like that last line, "allow the songs in my chest a passport home."
Nice description of the Kansas sky as "funnel-filled". Also nice description of the contrast between one loving the Kansas prairie and the other wanting to get away from it.
Such a gracefully sad story.
Descriptions simple in detail, yet collectively, they form a complex scene.
Two perspectives, opposite ends of the spectrum; you balance one against the other so beautifully. Loved this, Margaret.
Sometimes the way home can't be achieved through tapping ruby slippers, and memory is tinged with preset reality. Beautifully sad, I think!
*present *
A beautifully written tale of mixed emotions.
Poetically contemplative, sadness and loss intermixed with a feeling of having been given an immeasurable gift of looking at the world with contentment and joy.
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