As Mourning Doves Persist

Some years ago a sister living in Northern California sent me a small slip  of laminated paper she'd retrieved from a box of Cracker Jacks - remember those? "A prize inside every box!" On the fortune cookie size slip  was a pictogram riddle  "Name this major city in the State of New Mexico",  a string of short syllables, and a blue and black pencil drawing of a turkey with a personified grin. On  the flip side was an annotation of the word it was after; t he designer was referring, of course, to Albuquerque - which really doesn't, but does, rhyme with turkey. This late, lazy Saturday night my husband and I are holed up in a hotel. He lies beside me lightly snoring. I've braved the pool's adjacent, lukewarm Jacuzzi in, you guessed it, the "Duke City" of Albuquerque, New Mexico. We needed a getaway and hit the highway headed due south for our select, mini-vacation main attraction, the city’s Bio Park hosting a lulling garden...

Bowerbird Chronicles III, Patricia Pearce You wait there in your Mary Janes, your black strap tap shoes and sassy cream colored capri pants. The bus has yet to come. Snow still caps the mountains all around you. Your smart silhouette assures me that in waiting, the ride will arrive.  Arms not crossed. A bag of books on your right shoulder. I imagine inside, short stories of fiesta by someone's daughter; feminism in four short lessons; the poems of Lorca with no translation.  Readied for debate. Your lipstick one shade of winter fade, spring's first tulip, electric crimson. Earring hoops gifted by a friend.  Behind you, the weathered parking lot of abandoned roasting tumblers, broken tail lights, red splinters on the blacktop. Before you, a slow snaking road of autos idling toward downtown's plaza where vendors spread small blankets topped with turquoise. The smell of caramel corn spilling from a metal cart. Obelisk in the center naming the dead. Your casual ...

I'm going to draft this post, for a change, without referring to a former journal entry or widget of a dream snippet and simply talk about what's been going on around me this week. For it's been a week of daughterhood and care taking my mother who generally needs very little oversight. Daughterhood, something that should roll off my fingers, yes, after being the oldest daughter for, dare I say it, 59 years. These days I'm more sister, mother, and wife. But, my mother had a surgery at the beginning of this week from which she will indeed need to recover, slowly. If you knew my mother you would grok that she is not an easy one to bring to a full stop. In fact, don't even try. She is the opposite of Queen for a Day; she is a workaholic through and through. Her mother used to say "She's just like her father; she just can't say no!".  And then there is always someone else in need that she's gathering time for - she's the girl scout in my ci...