What's the Question?

I've already confessed I don't care much for the conscious development of theme and such here. It's on my list of current 'failings', I'm sure. I've gone to various writing boards and pages to ask questions. I've finally decided I'm a "special snowflake": I don't choose a theme before I start writing a story.

Oh, it isn't that I don't have a clue. OK, maybe I don't have a clue. But what I always have is a question, which leads to another question then another. The story begins.

For example, here are some of the questions I asked with some of the projects I'm working on.

1. Rain: The initial questions were: Is a one-night stand or getting picked up at a bar always a bad idea? Does anything like love ever come out of them? What if was romantic destiny? Yeah, pretty much very stupid, very risky questions to answer realistically. But why not?
2. Snow: This one came right out of Rain. What if Cheryl's old boss was not the kindly silver-haired gentleman so frequently associated with the job title of judge? What if he were young, unmarried, and attractive? How would Gerry respond when this man shows up? Why/How would the judge? What is he looking for?
3. Familiar Strangers: By this time I'm sure some of us (if not most) have met someone in real life (IRL) we first met online, both in a romantic sense and a friend sense. Can the 'friend' become a romantic partner? What happens when it's discovered they are not what they first appeared to be?
4. Dani's Song: Let's just ditch this worn-out cliché that only a woman can be the Beauty and only a man can be the Beast. Really! What if it was the other way around?

No, none of them will end up answering all of the initial questions. One question leads to another---always. Sometimes---OK, quite frequently--- the question becomes irrelevant or morphs into something totally different. One of the things I've discovered about questions is one must learn to ask the right questions. It makes all the difference in getting the right answers.

I sometimes think I ask too many questions but my characters seem bent on answering them.

Poetry Yet Again: How Strange . . . in Summer

I said I wouldn't do this often and I meant it when I said it. I didn't lie. Summer isn't the season for poetry to me but yet, here I am---posting poetry again. It's an anomaly. It has to be.

Coming into New England

Gliding above the clouds

And there below . . . hills and valleys
Festooned with gray-tipped tree streaks
An ice blue horizon bright with reflected sunlight
But oh, the green hills and mountains
All huddling close to the road
Soft rain falls in tiny clear drops
Air so cool and sweet, inviting intoxication
Along side the road a river meanders
Staining stones and spreading its arms wide

I know this place

                    It seems to know me.
                    Oh, mercy. . . I know this place.
                    Hello. . .hello? Remember me?
                    I think so. Didn’t we meet once?
                    No--- But yet, I cannot deny

I know it and it knows me.

Oh, mercy. . .

 

 

Always Coming Home

 

Windswept grasses

Blue haze in the distance

Sand dunes sculpted in wind

Rainbows crowning mountaintops

Turquoise water lapping at sugared sand

Dark green fir and spruce

Burying their heads in soft gray clouds

A winding wet-black road

Where redbuds peek

Wide, muddy rivers and sparkling streams

My heart always says

I’m home—I’m always coming home.

 

Falling Rain

There on the tips of my fingers—the tips of my eyelashes

Tiny, clear drops of rain

More than mist—less than showers

Miniature prisms unlocking rainbows

Simple, fresh—glorious.

 

 

 

And for something just a little darker:

Revenants

Makeshift days and cobbled nights

Of faded sun and fractured stars

Looking for something

I’m sure isn’t there—a phantom, a whisper

Perhaps only an echo gone now and silent.

And the air holds no memories.