Morning glory

She stepped out the door and headed down to the stables, fastening her jacket against the early morning cold; rubbing her hands together to warm her fingers enough to do what she had to do. The garden was nearly finished; not enough there to bother picking. She stopped and looked at the sky; clear and bright, all the way down the mountain to the sea. There was a hawk, lazily surfing the thermals; he'd already had his breakfast and the orphaned calf was reminding her that he hadn't had his.

"I'm coming!" she called, but he wouldn't be convinced until the bottle was in his mouth.

© 2007 Cynthia Newcomer Daniel

Sterling silver and turquoise bracelet. Hand fabricated.

Leaf Frost

Fall lingered late this year; the leaves turned very slowly and took their own time leaving the trees. Our first snow came long before the leaves fell, just an early morning dusting, but the backdrop of red, orange and yellow made the fat flakes look very exotic and unexpected.

It melted before I thought to take a photograph; but even now, when all the leaves have fallen, I will picture them behind the next snowfall.

© 2007 Cynthia Newcomer Daniel

Sterling silver and lampwork earrings. Hand fabricated.

Ripples

She sat on the edge of the pond and tossed nuggets of koi food into it; she watched the crisscrossing patterns of the ripples as she sent each lump into a different place. The fish were new, they were hiding from her largesse; they didn't understand that these small missiles that disrupted the surface of their lives were actually sustenance that would nurture them and help them grow.

She leaned back on the bench and felt the morning sun on her face; she closed her eyes briefly and enjoyed the moment. She wished she could just explain things to them, somehow show them her purpose; but they would have to figure it out themselves. She knew that, in time, there would be those who welcomed her with glad hearts; those who followed the others, wishing that they knew what the first seemed to know; and those who stayed forever hidden, fearful of her very existance.

Faith was always a choice.

© 2007 Cynthia Newcomer Daniel

Gold-filled and tourmaline bracelet. Hand fabricated.

Slings and Arrows

"Time to do battle," she thought grimly, and dressed accordingly. Nothing weak or uncomfortable would do; no high heels, nothing that would need adjusting or have to be accounted for; thongs and dangly earrings were out, out, out today. She would be completely, totally, prepared.

No matter what.

She synchronized her watch with the clock on the microwave; it wouldn't do to be late. Being caught unaware gave her opponents too much advantage; she calculated that she had ten or twelve minutes to spare. Her coffee cup was still in the microwave from this morning when she'd punched "reheat" and forgotten about it; she punched it again and vowed to remember this time.

Dang it. The bus was early today. Her teenagers were home.

© 2007 Cynthia Newcomer Daniel

Copper and lampwork bracelet. Hand fabricated with a heat patina.

Searching for hope

It was the dust, more than anything, that wore us out. It coated everything. Even the water we sipped got muddied from the dust on our lips. We held out as long as we could; cursing the sky when the promise of rain was delivered to other parts, the clouds building, and then vanishing, before our very eyes.

Every day we woke up to find more people gone. It seemed they'd decided at bedtime and took off before the sun rose, too worn out to stay, and too embarrassed to say goodbye. We didn't fully understand until it was our turn. We left the same way they had, the pre-dawn darkness hiding our shame, the truck filled to bursting with household goods and children.

We vowed not to stop until the land gave us flowers.

© 2007 Cynthia Newcomer Daniel

Sterling silver, lampwork by Melissa Vess of Inner Realm Creations. Hand fabricated.

Summer Skies

The sky is heavy today; winter is coming, and although it is not cold enough, the clouds look like they hold snow. Summer is a pleasant memory; I have lost the oppressiveness of heat and humidity and only remember the deep turquoise of the summer sky as thunderclouds build for an afternoon storm. The summer sky of my memory isn't this sky, uniformly heavy and pale grey; it is a dramatic and noisy sky, demanding and receiving attention as we gather up our towels, find the lost sand toys, and scurry back home before the storm breaks.

That summer sky is from such a long time ago; my children were small, then, and summer stretched out for months and months ahead and behind us. We went to the beach every day under that summer sky, and we knew its pattern as well as well as we knew our own swim-suited bodies. We lived by its rhythm.

Today's sky asks for nothing.

© 2007 Cynthia Newcomer Daniel

Bracelet; sterling silver, amazonite, lampwork by Gail Kops of Beadles. Hand fabricated.

Glacier Lakes

I had been climbing for hours and there was still a lot of mountain in front of me. I had been promised a great view from the summit, but I seriously doubted I would get there. I raised my hand to shade my eyes, tipped my head back, and looked up. Way up.

I ran through the entire motion, backwards, and looked down at where I'd been. I looked at my watch and did a little mental math. I couldn't fool myself into believing that I could significantly pick up my pace; the climbing was getting harder, not easier. And even if I pretended that I could come down the mountain at four times the speed I'd gone up, I was not going to make it. Not before midnight; and, even though the trail was excellent, and well-marked for beginners like me, I was not keen to be going down the mountain in any sort of dark, let alone pitch dark.

I looked around; it was too early to give up and head back now; but going forward just to fill the time seemed pointless. Aha. A trail marked in blue branched off the the right; that would do.

© 2007 Cynthia Newcomer Daniel

Earrings; sterling silver, lampwork by Gail Kops of Beadles. Hand fabricated.

Eclipse

I'd gotten to the point where the reflections in the water seemed more real to me than what was being reflected. It was, after all, just a simple paradigm shift; a trick of perception; a game I played and, depending on how you considered the outcome, lost or won.

Such a strange mirror; the water deepened the color of the sky, and, where it slid over boulders it obscured things with frothy bubbles that shimmered and made the world look even more abstract than usual. I realized suddenly that I preferred the reflection to reality; its fluid dance swiftly eclipsed the staid, solid world and replaced darkness with its own light.

© 2007 Cynthia Newcomer Daniel

Sterling silver, amazonite, lampwork by Melissa Vess of Inner Realm Creations. Hand fabricated.