Mushrooms and Painted Skies

I find myself sitting on the brick steps in front of a lovely old house. The house is two-story, painted green, with knick-knacks and a few metal-wrought tables and chairs decorating the porch. Up a set of well-worn stairs, a cozy coffee shop is tucked away. There, the walls are painted warm colors, paintings are hung, and scattered everywhere. A few of my pieces hang around too. I'm quite proud of those. They're so surrealistic, and I'm always surprised to find that the brush that paints so smoothly is in my hand.
The muted tone of the band playing ukelele's and horns comes flooding out of doors and reaches my ears. I am on sitting on sun-warmed bricks, my fingers wrapped around my choker necklace, fiddling with the glassblown mushroom, trapped in a teardrop of glass. I watch as the sky floods through shades of color.

First the sky becomes a wash of blues, that fade to purple. A smashing pink lights up the horizon, purple candy clouds dance away from the sun. The sky fades to the most beautiful orange. "Thank you," I whisper. I knew God knows what my favorite color is, but I hardly realized that He loved to create the perfect orange, and to decorate the sky with it - just for me.
A man came and sat down next to me. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

"Mhm," I barely answer, lost in the beauty of the shifting oranges of the sky, the licorice and lavendar clouds, and the sweet scent of the sun-warmed evening.

The band had stopped playing, and I heard someone else strumming softly on his guitar, singing love songs or lullabies. His voice sounded like love itself as it is whispered to your heart. But his song ends, and I hear someone else play something more upbeat, on a soft electric. His voice sounds almost sad, and I feel suddenly as though my heart wants to know a thousand secrets, but has a thousand more to tell.
I suddenly realize I have been sitting for quite a long time, as my backside has lost all feeling on the hard, unforgiving brick.
I stand up, and lean against a wall; it's siding that has been painted purple, and decoratively painted with what looks like the potential for a faerie tale. I think it looks silly, but in the evening's glow, it somehow enchants me.
To the right of me is a low wall around the porch, between which I had been sitting on the steps. A cat is laying there, so lazy and self-satisfied. He has long gray fur, and his fluffy, ragged-looking tail flips about lazily, as if swatting something in his half-sleep. His fur rippples with his purring. I reach out and pet him.
I reach down, smoothing my sun-yellow skirt, then peer back at the boy who joined me. "What took you so long?"

-end part 1- (possibly more to come...)

© copyright by Michèle Aimée Lahaie, 2009

A Memory of a Man...

The walls are stained

the door is cracked and broken

it swings, creaks on its hinges

I thought I had forgot this place

But it seems abandoned,

that I never knew it at all

From the walls

comes a stench i know

but one I can barely recognize

I smell a sweet stench

one that was once sweet with love,

now is foul - the smell of inadequacy

A breeze passes through the house

and the dust flies round my face

Dust's lonely abandon touches my face

Rust bleeds from the hinges,

like tears, crying down the frame

Deep red stains defile the once majestic door

The floor is cracked,

the beautiful wood, stained and broken

the very foundation seems to fall apart

The once glorious chandelier

has torn through the ceiling

and has broken to shards on the floor

I hear a whisper

I feel a touch

I remember, and I know.....

I know his hands,

I miss his eyes

I know this man who isn't there...

I close my eyes as I remember...

I remember his touch and I see

his blue-flamed eyes clear out of memory's haze

I open my eyes, to find

I'm standing in the house

The majestic mansion as it once was

The man who had disappeared

is there once again

His eyes, bright with love

He shows me the door,

how grand the deep wood is

and how rich the details are

He takes me by one hand

and wraps his other round my waist

as he guides me up the spiral staircase

At the top of winding beauty

He shows me the delicate,

and most intricate crystal chandelier

He leads me through the dining hall

and to the living room

where a plush, regal couch seems so inviting

He shows me the gloriously carved ceiling

and the sleek wood floors

and glass blown decor

He presses my waist with his hand

and leads me to the bedroom

and I remember our room

As I look on the bed

I remember all my past

All he was, all the life he had

I remember how I knew him

My eyes well up, and he disappears

as I look through him

I look up,

back in the living room

and see a dying tree, its withered leaves

The man has disappeared

I am left alone

and my heart fills with despair

But a whisper comes in my ear

as I see all that was broken through the house

and he whispers a secret, a hope,

'I'm returning to you,

My foundation is in repair

and when I come, so much more will I be'

I turn to leave the house,

and as I walk down the garden path

A single snap-dragon blossoms

It winks at me

and whispers

'Don't yet give up hope'....

© copyright by Michèle Aimée Lahaie, 2009