I’ve never eaten a blueberry. I confess I didn’t follow my grandma’s golden rule; don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. They look vile and undignified; like grapes that didn’t quite grape correctly. But my grandbaby is housing those things like they’re nature’s candy, leaving blue and violet streaks everywhere; a little Rembrandt. Every so often, she offers me one with compelling questions of “Uhn? Uhn?” hanging beneath our sun-streaked skylit afternoon. I politely sing, “No thank you!” which always gets a giggle from her before she crams nature’s mess artlessly into her tiny face. She’s more blueberry than toddler now. Maybe I should try one next time she offers.
sea of blue and green bird chatter and child’s laughter we breathe together ***
Reina, destroyer of blueberries, all cleaned up now, focused hard on play. (Image by author, used with permission.)
Wild Flower, or The Wild One as I like to call her, has been on Medium for four years and ever since she appeared, she has been making waves. A familiar face from my days as Editor of This Glorious Mess, I was incredibly happy to have her contribute to ACornered Gurl as well. She answered the call to “Sound Off” with an audio poem and it is truly incredible. I have been amazed by her growth and transformation into this beast of a writer and I hope I am around long enough to see her continue to evolve.
I won’t dote on her any longer . . . Here’s the piece in question, They Call Me Chaos.
A concession less than you planned is often framed at a glance as better than nothing,
as there is nothing less than nothing.
As in an absence of sound where a voice should be,
a musical measure that halts three beats before the melody,
an expected reply to a query of love that is absent unexpectedly.
Nothing is both beginning and end and it is often neither;
it is nowhere we want to be and everywhere, inevitably;
a closed door left ajar;
no closure, just a far-off view of horizon unchanging.
Nothing is not an answer we expect, but often by not getting it it’s the answer that we get.
Nothing is what she said before leaving after leaving I love you’s scrawled in condensation on our shared mirror before evaporating into nothing.
***
I know I said that I would be back to writing more frequently, but I wasn’t expecting to become addicted to the Hamilton musical on Disney+
Seriously guys, every waking hour has been spent watching Hamilton, obsessing over Hamilton, breaking down the amazingly dense lyrics to Hamilton, analyzing the musical motifs of Hamilton, watching YouTube videos of others who’ve been analyzing Hamilton, also watching reaction videos of Hamilton, learning the actual history of the real Alexander Hamilton, and well, you get the idea.
Truth be told, the Hamilton Era is the most entertaining of this global pandemic that has exposed my nation as a failed plague-state. It’s way better than the Tiger King Era, and it’s not even close. At-me at your own peril, but I promise, I have the receipts:
Anyway, yes, I’m still alive. Here’s a poem about nothing. Now I gotta get back to watching Hamilton. See you in a week or two.
Photo by 
Hephaestus’ Waste & Cosmic Rubble 