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Ashlyn Kriegel Apr 2013
It was March, somewhere near the darkened salty wood
When I heard a girl say something, a cry out to me.
She ran out of the forest as fast as she could
To greet me with eyes the shone like the glass of the sea.

"My name is Avery," a silver flute chimed,
"Would you like to come find shells with me?"
I was stunned; all seemed to be perfectly timed,
She came right when I was about to leave.

The ocean waves crashed like thunder.
It was surprising how comfortable she was with me.
All at once, I began to wonder:
Could this be real life? How on Earth could this be?

In the distance, I heard the bell ring,
Seven o'clock the sun signaled to me.
Avery looked upon my face, began to sing,
Which reminded me of a soft and sweet honey bee.

My boat pulled ashore near the beginning of dawn,
And Avery pulled aside and whispered to me,
"Don't leave, who knows where you'll land upon?"
"But my home is not with the trees."

As the ship left, I could see the tear glisten on her face,
And something was struck deep inside of me;
I could only think of the imaginary place
Where I would once again meet my dear she.

Four years later when my home pulled ashore,
Avery was not there waiting for me.
I could not find her anymore,
Perhaps while I was gone, she had found a he.

Slowly, I followed a path into the darkened salty wood
Where a grave had waited upon me.
There, in silence I stood,
Was my poor little Avery.

Nevermore could I hear her whisper her love for me
Nor the songs that she would sing to the sea.
Nevermore would I feel her heart beat,
The only sound would be the weeping, coming from me.
Jas May 2017
It was a heap of plaid,
Orange and vinaigrette
It dully blended the white washed denim
The sod contrasted around his knees
Pete Abrams Jonesy was a discovery on his own.

The glow of the night sky released
The party goers and the venomous tendrils
That loomed beyond the tree hats and
The milky grey drift of dust that
Skated around Jonesy’s fingers as he dug
Scattering the Earth,
Searching and searching for the creepy crawlies
Between the plates of dirt,
the patches he’s scabbed away before;
His mother,
Hard at work building a nation in the kitchen
And Johnny filling his swine
Slipping between the cushions of the sofa.
It was that very night
Tucked away under the fresh linen and the feeling of
His mother’s lips pressed against his forehead
Warming his entire body –
That he realized his kneading desire to take his journey farther
To take it to school.
That day on the playground,
His hands knuckle deep in the land’s treasure
Creating pressure beneath the stubs of his fingernails,
Did he meet her
He met Charlotte Anne Avery.
Her ladybug blouse was loosely cast away from her shoulders
And he felt the urge to push her into the sand
But he couldn’t.
Charlotte Anne stood with her
Pine cone hair mushed on either side of her face;
The chocolate spit smeared on her cheek
Was enough to lure the mosquitoes all around
And he wanted to be her friend;

She’s always seen him around
Though; never before had he been keen on
Gazing back at the eyes of curiosity
Or rather her brown ones,
The plain and wide innocence –
It loomed over her face as she knelt
Bent beside him and dug a hole into the cream sand
With her elbow, gently brushing the circumference of
The minuscule hole she created.
Her glitter pink glasses were
Riding down the bank of her nose,
With her bottom cushioned in the crevice of sand
And Pete Abrams Jonesy’s sandy-fingers
Shoving her glasses back up
To rest beneath the kind eyes
That laid on him.

The end of germs and suspenders came fast,
Summer sped around the corner
While Pete Abrams Jonesy and Charlotte Anne Avery
Flew through the highlights
And the untouched parts of the forest –
Gallivanting beyond the age of the bell toll of adolescence,
Did they lie beneath the Sugar Maple Tree.
The promises they made of an un-relinquishing friendship
Grew beyond compare
And ever so did a union of love between him and her;
Every day was a hot hurricane of journeys spent
Devouring the wilderness together
Until the occurring reign of school
Sprung up again.

A new appreciation for the human body
Was as much as Pete Abrams Jonesy
Had accumulated for the first semester
Attending Mayfield Middle –
His life was horribly array without the presence
Of Charlotte Anne Avery.
His new herd of acquaintances
Brought about a new kind of education,
One that was foreign to the halls of Mayfield
And while his afternoon lunches
Sparked a flame in his soul
He became well oriented with the hypnotizing effects
Of Rummy and Black Jack 21,
His mind still sauntered to the round table
In the bull’s-eye of the café
Where a cloud of pink headbands and perfume
Captured the interest of his Charlotte Anne Avery.

She couldn’t believe the variety of books and music
That were made to live in this world
Sharing the same space as her –
It was enthralling, thrilling, and slightly frightening
The tales and the morals were anything but limited
Was it possible to live a well versed life having heard them all?
Would the chance ever be presented?
Her friends were of everything that was made to be
From sports to gymnastics to video-games to art;
It had all been opened to her in a flurry of welcoming gestures
From the minute she sat down at this particular table.
Even as her best friend now swung in the birches
As his friends, the panthers, ran low
She’d always be welcome on his other side;
Though, surprisingly, she was comfortable in this
Shade of manila spotlight.

A second semester, of many years,
Was a gift in its own
A surprise gesture wrapped up in a bow
Of questions, tutors, late night studying
It all amounted in a pile of stress –
A mound of snow
Of tests and quizzes and failed homework grades;
Pete Abrams Jonesy wasn’t alone in his mind
There in the far corner of sawdust
And memories of the plethora of parties he attended
Did lay his old friend from miles ago;
Charlotte Anne Avery had moved away across the lake
On the tips of his fingers so far away
For whatever reason she had moved away
It was amongst him unknown.
“Should I feel an ounce of sorrow, of grievance
For this new found distance between us?
I suppose not; we have new friends now
A new family
I haven’t known her in a while.”

Solemn years passed.
Days of solitude and confinement,
Days of pondering and guilt – heartache
Mr. Avery had passed away
Lost to his kin
His pristine precious child
Charlotte Anne Avery.
The wake had been nothing more
Than shades of black and blue and grey
Uncomfortable heels and rough tissues
That rubbed her eyes and nose
As raw as the pain she felt for the absence
Of her father
Her mother’s happiness and
Pete Abrams Jonesy.
It’d been years since she’d uttered a word to him
Years since they’d even been in the same room for long,
Though her hands still cowered
When she shoved the letter in the mail
Serving him the news of what transpired –
He made no appearance
Her expectations should have dwindled over time
But they remained the same
As strong as ever,
Slightly calloused with time
Until there was nothing left but a sore spot
Of where he should’ve been.

The rumors still rang clear as she began to heal
She fell in love with Marcus Stalling
The final year of puerile days
Now left to rot in the past;
Graduation was held at noon,
Her cap was arced on her head
Perfectly set in place
The rumors still rang true.
Pete Abrams Jonesy was the
Shadow of a boy she once knew when she was
Figuring things out
He didn’t even make it to this day.
The rumors of the hit and run, the drunk driver
It spread around the halls like wildfire
She had been ashamed to have once claimed him
In any form of the word –
She missed him still.
What would his life become?
“No one will visit him. What will become
Of the adventurous and jovial mind
I used to spend time with?”
When she heard the news on the local station
She’d lost her father all over again
And still no one had the answers
To any of her questions.

College and Marcus
The grand scheme of life begun with those two
Wisdom came with age
Anger subsided
And joy was restored –
The life she once dreamt of having
Still rendered mist to her eyes
So many individuals were supposed to be
Toe to toe;
Charlotte Anne Stalling the center of it all
Yet she felt the same orbital satisfaction
Yielding around her with only those two elements.
All mornings were the same
Her sanity strove from cycling about
In comfortable routines and an endless screenplay –
A memory of a future once shielded her sight,
The warm bodies were anything but familiar now.

The winter would always be cold
Rushing the blood to the tip of her nose
But spring came about
In a parade of confetti and open arms
The coffee shop on the girth of the boardwalk
Met her every day during the breakfast of the sun
And the coffee kept her warm.
It was a morning where the tide was crashing down roughly
The sun fried her skin,
She was glowing
Her attention was snatched away from the scenic grounds
Stolen away by the scream and shouts that traveled
From the end of the boardwalk,
There stood Pete Abrams Jonesy
Clutching his arm while peering at the welt
Given to him by a Sugar Maple Boer.
I wrote this poem with the intention of it being a small fairytale about finding a soulmate, whether it be friendship or more. Instead, this poem became a long tale of what some - if not all - of us can relate to: surviving youth, acceptance, and growth.
#tale #growingup #youth #love #friendship #circleoflife
Nina McNally Sep 2013
Day- Septemeber 15, 2013 Time- 11:46am
When you were born
With those BIG blue eyes
Looking up at your mommy and daddy
With that cute little button nose like your daddy
And you're cute little ears like your mommy
You're so much like your mommy and daddy
And yet so much different in so many ways
We'll just have to wait and see! ❤
7lbs 2oz. and 20inches
You're such a cute little GIRL
Born into a big family
Who will always be there for you
And PROTECT you
And you're COUSINS, Mikey & Connor, will be there for you, too
With LOVE & CARING
So all I have left to say, baby girl,
*"Welcome to the world and the family, Avery!
You're gonna do great things!
WE LOVE YOU!"
©9/2013
McNally/Flanders, Inc.
MH  Jul 2013
Avery
MH Jul 2013
When thunder split the night sky,
and rain pounded the earth, dreams
pushed Avery to my bed: "Dad,
I can't sleep, can I sleep with you?"
Only barely awake I pulled the covers
aside to make room, then heard his
breathing next to me,
soft beneath the rain,
counterpoint to thunder,
only a small puff of wind,
but strong enough to push his ship
away from shore, heading toward the horizon.
My other twin, Avery. He doesn't climb into bed with me anymore (he's 13), and yes, I do miss it.
Robert Frost  Jul 2009
Snow
The three stood listening to a fresh access
Of wind that caught against the house a moment,
Gulped snow, and then blew free again—the Coles
Dressed, but dishevelled from some hours of sleep,
Meserve belittled in the great skin coat he wore.

Meserve was first to speak. He pointed backward
Over his shoulder with his pipe-stem, saying,
“You can just see it glancing off the roof
Making a great scroll upward toward the sky,
Long enough for recording all our names on.—
I think I’ll just call up my wife and tell her
I’m here—so far—and starting on again.
I’ll call her softly so that if she’s wise
And gone to sleep, she needn’t wake to answer.”
Three times he barely stirred the bell, then listened.
“Why, Lett, still up? Lett, I’m at Cole’s. I’m late.
I called you up to say Good-night from here
Before I went to say Good-morning there.—
I thought I would.— I know, but, Lett—I know—
I could, but what’s the sense? The rest won’t be
So bad.— Give me an hour for it.— **, **,
Three hours to here! But that was all up hill;
The rest is down.— Why no, no, not a wallow:
They kept their heads and took their time to it
Like darlings, both of them. They’re in the barn.—
My dear, I’m coming just the same. I didn’t
Call you to ask you to invite me home.—”
He lingered for some word she wouldn’t say,
Said it at last himself, “Good-night,” and then,
Getting no answer, closed the telephone.
The three stood in the lamplight round the table
With lowered eyes a moment till he said,
“I’ll just see how the horses are.”

“Yes, do,”
Both the Coles said together. Mrs. Cole
Added: “You can judge better after seeing.—
I want you here with me, Fred. Leave him here,
Brother Meserve. You know to find your way
Out through the shed.”

“I guess I know my way,
I guess I know where I can find my name
Carved in the shed to tell me who I am
If it don’t tell me where I am. I used
To play—”

“You tend your horses and come back.
Fred Cole, you’re going to let him!”

“Well, aren’t you?
How can you help yourself?”

“I called him Brother.
Why did I call him that?”

“It’s right enough.
That’s all you ever heard him called round here.
He seems to have lost off his Christian name.”

“Christian enough I should call that myself.
He took no notice, did he? Well, at least
I didn’t use it out of love of him,
The dear knows. I detest the thought of him
With his ten children under ten years old.
I hate his wretched little Racker Sect,
All’s ever I heard of it, which isn’t much.
But that’s not saying—Look, Fred Cole, it’s twelve,
Isn’t it, now? He’s been here half an hour.
He says he left the village store at nine.
Three hours to do four miles—a mile an hour
Or not much better. Why, it doesn’t seem
As if a man could move that slow and move.
Try to think what he did with all that time.
And three miles more to go!”
“Don’t let him go.
Stick to him, Helen. Make him answer you.
That sort of man talks straight on all his life
From the last thing he said himself, stone deaf
To anything anyone else may say.
I should have thought, though, you could make him hear you.”

“What is he doing out a night like this?
Why can’t he stay at home?”

“He had to preach.”

“It’s no night to be out.”

“He may be small,
He may be good, but one thing’s sure, he’s tough.”

“And strong of stale tobacco.”

“He’ll pull through.’
“You only say so. Not another house
Or shelter to put into from this place
To theirs. I’m going to call his wife again.”

“Wait and he may. Let’s see what he will do.
Let’s see if he will think of her again.
But then I doubt he’s thinking of himself
He doesn’t look on it as anything.”

“He shan’t go—there!”

“It is a night, my dear.”

“One thing: he didn’t drag God into it.”

“He don’t consider it a case for God.”

“You think so, do you? You don’t know the kind.
He’s getting up a miracle this minute.
Privately—to himself, right now, he’s thinking
He’ll make a case of it if he succeeds,
But keep still if he fails.”

“Keep still all over.
He’ll be dead—dead and buried.”

“Such a trouble!
Not but I’ve every reason not to care
What happens to him if it only takes
Some of the sanctimonious conceit
Out of one of those pious scalawags.”

“Nonsense to that! You want to see him safe.”

“You like the runt.”

“Don’t you a little?”

“Well,
I don’t like what he’s doing, which is what
You like, and like him for.”

“Oh, yes you do.
You like your fun as well as anyone;
Only you women have to put these airs on
To impress men. You’ve got us so ashamed
Of being men we can’t look at a good fight
Between two boys and not feel bound to stop it.
Let the man freeze an ear or two, I say.—
He’s here. I leave him all to you. Go in
And save his life.— All right, come in, Meserve.
Sit down, sit down. How did you find the horses?”

“Fine, fine.”

“And ready for some more? My wife here
Says it won’t do. You’ve got to give it up.”

“Won’t you to please me? Please! If I say please?
Mr. Meserve, I’ll leave it to your wife.
What did your wife say on the telephone?”

Meserve seemed to heed nothing but the lamp
Or something not far from it on the table.
By straightening out and lifting a forefinger,
He pointed with his hand from where it lay
Like a white crumpled spider on his knee:
“That leaf there in your open book! It moved
Just then, I thought. It’s stood ***** like that,
There on the table, ever since I came,
Trying to turn itself backward or forward,
I’ve had my eye on it to make out which;
If forward, then it’s with a friend’s impatience—
You see I know—to get you on to things
It wants to see how you will take, if backward
It’s from regret for something you have passed
And failed to see the good of. Never mind,
Things must expect to come in front of us
A many times—I don’t say just how many—
That varies with the things—before we see them.
One of the lies would make it out that nothing
Ever presents itself before us twice.
Where would we be at last if that were so?
Our very life depends on everything’s
Recurring till we answer from within.
The thousandth time may prove the charm.— That leaf!
It can’t turn either way. It needs the wind’s help.
But the wind didn’t move it if it moved.
It moved itself. The wind’s at naught in here.
It couldn’t stir so sensitively poised
A thing as that. It couldn’t reach the lamp
To get a puff of black smoke from the flame,
Or blow a rumple in the collie’s coat.
You make a little foursquare block of air,
Quiet and light and warm, in spite of all
The illimitable dark and cold and storm,
And by so doing give these three, lamp, dog,
And book-leaf, that keep near you, their repose;
Though for all anyone can tell, repose
May be the thing you haven’t, yet you give it.
So false it is that what we haven’t we can’t give;
So false, that what we always say is true.
I’ll have to turn the leaf if no one else will.
It won’t lie down. Then let it stand. Who cares?”

“I shouldn’t want to hurry you, Meserve,
But if you’re going— Say you’ll stay, you know?
But let me raise this curtain on a scene,
And show you how it’s piling up against you.
You see the snow-white through the white of frost?
Ask Helen how far up the sash it’s climbed
Since last we read the gage.”

“It looks as if
Some pallid thing had squashed its features flat
And its eyes shut with overeagerness
To see what people found so interesting
In one another, and had gone to sleep
Of its own stupid lack of understanding,
Or broken its white neck of mushroom stuff
Short off, and died against the window-pane.”

“Brother Meserve, take care, you’ll scare yourself
More than you will us with such nightmare talk.
It’s you it matters to, because it’s you
Who have to go out into it alone.”

“Let him talk, Helen, and perhaps he’ll stay.”

“Before you drop the curtain—I’m reminded:
You recollect the boy who came out here
To breathe the air one winter—had a room
Down at the Averys’? Well, one sunny morning
After a downy storm, he passed our place
And found me banking up the house with snow.
And I was burrowing in deep for warmth,
Piling it well above the window-sills.
The snow against the window caught his eye.
‘Hey, that’s a pretty thought’—those were his words.
‘So you can think it’s six feet deep outside,
While you sit warm and read up balanced rations.
You can’t get too much winter in the winter.’
Those were his words. And he went home and all
But banked the daylight out of Avery’s windows.
Now you and I would go to no such length.
At the same time you can’t deny it makes
It not a mite worse, sitting here, we three,
Playing our fancy, to have the snowline run
So high across the pane outside. There where
There is a sort of tunnel in the frost
More like a tunnel than a hole—way down
At the far end of it you see a stir
And quiver like the frayed edge of the drift
Blown in the wind. I like that—I like that.
Well, now I leave you, people.”

“Come, Meserve,
We thought you were deciding not to go—
The ways you found to say the praise of comfort
And being where you are. You want to stay.”

“I’ll own it’s cold for such a fall of snow.
This house is frozen brittle, all except
This room you sit in. If you think the wind
Sounds further off, it’s not because it’s dying;
You’re further under in the snow—that’s all—
And feel it less. Hear the soft bombs of dust
It bursts against us at the chimney mouth,
And at the eaves. I like it from inside
More than I shall out in it. But the horses
Are rested and it’s time to say good-night,
And let you get to bed again. Good-night,
Sorry I had to break in on your sleep.”

“Lucky for you you did. Lucky for you
You had us for a half-way station
To stop at. If you were the kind of man
Paid heed to women, you’d take my advice
And for your family’s sake stay where you are.
But what good is my saying it over and over?
You’ve done more than you had a right to think
You could do—now. You know the risk you take
In going on.”

“Our snow-storms as a rule
Aren’t looked on as man-killers, and although
I’d rather be the beast that sleeps the sleep
Under it all, his door sealed up and lost,
Than the man fighting it to keep above it,
Yet think of the small birds at roost and not
In nests. Shall I be counted less than they are?
Their bulk in water would be frozen rock
In no time out to-night. And yet to-morrow
They will come budding boughs from tree to tree
Flirting their wings and saying Chickadee,
As if not knowing what you meant by the word storm.”

“But why when no one wants you to go on?
Your wife—she doesn’t want you to. We don’t,
And you yourself don’t want to. Who else is there?”

“Save us from being cornered by a woman.
Well, there’s”—She told Fred afterward that in
The pause right there, she thought the dreaded word
Was coming, “God.” But no, he only said
“Well, there’s—the storm. That says I must go on.
That wants me as a war might if it came.
Ask any man.”

He threw her that as something
To last her till he got outside the door.
He had Cole with him to the barn to see him off.
When Cole returned he found his wife still standing
Beside the table near the open book,
Not reading it.

“Well, what kind of a man
Do you call that?” she said.

“He had the gift
Of words, or is it tongues, I ought to say?”

“Was ever such a man for seeing likeness?”

“Or disregarding people’s civil questions—
What? We’ve found out in one hour more about him
Than we had seeing him pass by in the road
A thousand times. If that’s the way he preaches!
You didn’t think you’d keep him after all.
Oh, I’m not blaming you. He didn’t leave you
Much say in the matter, and I’m just as glad
We’re not in for a night of him. No sleep
If he had stayed. The least thing set him going.
It’s quiet as an empty church without him.”

“But how much better off are we as it is?
We’ll have to sit here till we know he’s safe.”

“Yes, I suppose you’ll want to, but I shouldn’t.
He knows what he can do, or he wouldn’t try.
Get into bed I say, and get some rest.
He won’t come back, and if he telephones,
It won’t be for an hour or two.”

“Well then.
We can’t be any help by sitting here
And living his fight through with him, I suppose.”


*****************

­
Cole had been telephoning in the dark.
Mrs. Cole’s voice came from an inner room:
“Did she call you or you call her?”

“She me.
You’d better dress: you won’t go back to bed.
We must have been asleep: it’s three and after.”

“Had she been ringing long? I’ll get my wrapper.
I want to speak to her.”

“All she said was,
He hadn’t come and had he really started.”

“She knew he had, poor thing, two hours ago.”

“He had the shovel. He’ll have made a fight.”

“Why did I ever let him leave this house!”

“Don’t begin that. You did the best you could
To keep him—though perhaps you didn’t quite
Conceal a wish to see him show the *****
To disobey you. Much his wife’ll thank you.”

“Fred, after all I said! You shan’t make out
That it was any way but what it was.
Did she let on by any word she said
She didn’t thank me?”

“When I told her ‘Gone,’
‘Well then,’ she said, and ‘Well then’—like a threat.
And then her voice came scraping slow: ‘Oh, you,
Why did you let him go’?”

“Asked why we let him?
You let me there. I’ll ask her why she let him.
She didn’t dare to speak when he was here.

Their number’s—twenty-one? The thing won’t work.
Someone’s receiver’s down. The handle stumbles.

The stubborn thing, the way it jars your arm!
It’s theirs. She’s dropped it from her hand and gone.”

“Try speaking. Say ‘Hello’!”

“Hello. Hello.”

“What do you hear?”

“I hear an empty room—
You know—it sounds that way. And yes, I hear—
I think I hear a clock—and windows rattling.
No step though. If she’s there she’s sitting down.”

“Shout, she may hear you.”

“Shouting is no good.”

“Keep speaking then.”

“Hello. Hello. Hello.
You don’t suppose—? She wouldn’t go out doors?”

“I’m half afraid that’s just what she might do.”

“And leave the children?”

“Wait and call again.
You can’t hear whether she has left the door
Wide open and the wind’s blown out the lamp
And the fire’s died and the room’s dark and cold?”

“One of two things, either she’s gone to bed
Or gone out doors.”

“In which case both are lost.
Do you know what she’s like? Have you ever met her?
It’s strange she doesn’t want to speak to us.”

“Fred, see if you can hear what I hear. Come.”

“A clock maybe.”

“Don’t you hear something else?”

“Not talking.”
“No.”

“Why, yes, I hear—what is it?”

“What do you say it is?”

“A baby’s crying!
Frantic it sounds, though muffled and far off.”

“Its mother wouldn’t let it cry like that,
Not if she’s there.”

“What do you make of it?”

“There’s only one thing possible to make,
That is, assuming—that she has gone out.
Of course she hasn’t though.” They both sat down
Helpless. “There’s nothing we can do till morning.”

“Fred, I shan’t let you think of going out.”

“Hold on.” The double bell began to chirp.
They started up. Fred took the telephone.
“Hello, Meserve. You’re there, then!—And your wife?

Good! Why I asked—she didn’t seem to answer.
He says she went to let him in the barn.—
We’re glad. Oh, say no more about it, man.
Drop in and see us when you’re passing.”

“Well,
She has him then, though what she wants him for
I don’t see.”
“Possibly not for herself.
Maybe she only wants him for the children.”

“The whole to-do seems to have been for nothing.
What spoiled our night was to him just his fun.
What did he come in for?—To talk and visit?
Thought he’d just call to tell us it was snowing.
If he thinks he is going to make our house
A halfway coffee house ‘twixt town and nowhere——”

“I thought you’d feel you’d been too much concerned.”

“You think you haven’t been concerned yourself.”

“If you mean he was inconsiderate
To rout us out to think for him at midnight
And then take our advice no more than nothing,
Why, I agree with you. But let’s forgive him.
We’ve had a share in one night of his life.
What’ll you bet he ever calls again?”
Sydney Victoria  Feb 2013
Avery
Sydney Victoria Feb 2013
I Have Never Seen So Much Wonder In Two Eyes,
Every Lash Black As The Zion Hide Of A Horse,
A Greenish Orange Which Mirrors My Own,
And A Heart Big As The Pacific Ocean,
Her Innocent Play Gentle As A Newborn Fawn,
Her Rose Colored Cheeks Blooming,
As She Explores The Trees,
Her Soul Deep,
With Sunken Treasures
Happy Birthday Avo:)

— The End —