Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Cranberry Winters Issue 06
...---***Cranberry Winters***---...
(hidden faces)
Issue 6, Octobre 1996
---------------------
- On the Art of Forgetting...
- _An Alternate Death_, a short story
- _Blue Madonna_, Christine Millet
- _Years Ago_, a vignette
- _Seeing How the World Is_, Rachael Bryan
- _In Her Hands_, a poem
On the Art of Forgetting...
7 Octobre, 1996
I am a master of the art of forgetting, but there many memories and thoughts
linger long past they are welcome.
An intelligent, hardworking man told me last week that though he believes in
evil, he isn't certain that he believes in good. These are words that make
my heart ache both because they echo a sentiment familiar to me and because
his pain is near tangible when he reflects on his work.
I believe in good things, but I have to search for them.
---
I hope you enjoy this issue of Cranberry Winters magazine - remember, each
issue has a character all its own. The mood to this might be dreary and
bleak but the next might be overrun with a childish humour.
Deborah Bryan, 17
Cranberry Winters editor
An Alternate Death
5 June, 1995
The woman sits cross-legged on the burning sand, wooden barrel confined
within the space between her legs. She does not move, does not appear
even to breathe. She stares at him, burnt and scarred, simply stares.
"Would you like some water, my child?" He does not see her mouth move, but
he hears her. So clearly.
He tries to speak, tries to respond, but it is futile. His mouth is dried
out, his tongue swollen. How badly he wants her water, to drink some more
as he tries to find his way out of this wretched desert.
She understands, though he has not spoken. She raises her hand in warning,
for what reason he does not know. Ah, the thirst! It is driving him mad.
"Be warned, child, each swallow takes a year from your life." Her long blonde
braid sways about with the breeze and her face remains passive.
He nods - how he needs the water! She takes off the plug and hands over the
barrel, not moving from her seat on the desert sand. He gulps the water down
without thought, not caring to count as he gulps it down. The later years of
his life vanish with each gulp, vanish quickly with each of his hurried gulps.
How wonderful the water feels running down his insides! He swallows the
water, swallows, swallows.
She observes what he does not notice or feel: as he drinks, his skin turns to
dust, to sand, everything falling away till he is nothing more than sand
amongst a sea of sand.
A smile passes briefly over her face, then fades. It is better this way,
she reminds herself. Better this than the hunger, the thirst, the pain
that had become his existance. She kisses the sand where he once
stood then rises again. She turns toward the sun; steps once toward it, now
twice.
Her figure, covered in black, trailed by long, blonde hair, now begins to
fade. Now she is translucent ...
... and now she is gone, as though she had never existed.
Blue Madonna
Christine Millet
Spring 1992
Poverty can never be virgin of birth, so the blue Madonna casts her shadow
on her new-formed flame.
Economic forecasts bring dark clouds quickly to this new union.
Poverty nibbles away the blue Madonna's self esteem; she carries the shame
and cannot share the blame.
Work barely breathes life to the necessities, so she begs for help to survive
a life of disparity.
Poverty brings out the parasitic in all from the benevolent benefactor
to the bum in quite natural ways.
She then sells herself to varying degrees and finds she is never able
to establish clarity over her loss of power with all this charity.
She looks to the community for unity and hopes for empathy,
but community protects its golden treasures and agrees in fear
over her having chosen her own pain.
So it goes on. Society sacrifices the blooded scarlet ewe
supposedly to save the lamb.
But the blue Madonna still swims upstream with the hope of spawning
a better future for her child.
Maybe you'll see her some bright day dropping silver-lined tears of pain
instead of change in the wishing well of life.
Years Ago
20 Septembre, 1996
The coats hang untouched in a dusty hallway and spiders watch for prey.
Salt- and pepper-shakers wait to once again resume their sole
purpose, their lone duty.
Children smile through layers of grime on tops of tables, desks, and
dressers. (Are they smiling now? In their photographs they are forever
happy, gracious.)
The same story plays out one house away, and two, and three.
Where have all the people gone? A lost child would offer several
explanations, perhaps, all amusing and uplifting in nature. None would
even touch the surface of the truth.
Screams echo silently through this empty town and the layer of grey
that covers everything looks suddenly more suspicious.
Brush the soot from your arm; you are brushing Daniel Hirschel,
formerly little boy, away.
Seeing How the World Is
Rachael Bryan
Summer 1996
Living like a softly-honed tune,
Never knowing where to go, which corner to turn,
Lifting well-worn eyes every day to the same sight,
The same morning with similar activities.
Break away from the redundancy of your lawnmower,
Mow the petunias one week, the grass the next.
Why mow the grass every week? It isn't asking for it?
Good knows evil, as evil knows good,
But do they know each other well enough
to invite one another to tea?
Biscuits and jam verses sticks and stones?
Pots and pans and sealing wax to avoid the everydayness
Climbing the ceiling to avoid the wall,
walking the path by reaching the car
Following your dreams by leaving the thought.
Leaving life of its desperation, climbing sealing wax,
and avoiding dullness are not so different than
scrubbing your mind of its conformity
with a little bit of dish soap.
In Her Hands
6 Octobre, 1996
Got a call this mornin'
Gramma died
in her sleep
last night -
and she was clutching
a photograph
of you,
pressed tightly
to her cold brown chest
Now, you know,
don't you,
Gramma won't
be pass'n' noth'n' on?
But she loved you mighty
And Mama wants you to know
ain't nothin' better to give
than love
--------------------
For information on contributing, mail
brideb@efn.org.
Comments and suggestions to
brideb@efn.org.
To receive Cranberry Winters bimonthly, mail
majordomo@efn.org
and include the message "subscribe cranberry-winters (your name)"
You can find my webpage at
http://www.efn.org/~brideb/Deb/
Thank you for reading!
