Stella Pierides

reaching for the sky

the Shard of Glass,

mast on a proud city

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This post can also be seen in Stella’s Stones here

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Leaves and branches rushed past, a spade, buckets, a car, crates, tyres, a barrel. She clung to the rough, furrowed bark of the Eucalyptus, terrified that it might not hold on to its place for long.

She felt the torrential rain lashing her and the waters indiscriminately, feeding the swollen rivers. A desolate water land covered fields and low-lying areas. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a book floating past, opened upside-down, then another, then several specimens, as if the entire Amerold town library was being carried away by the flood. Her heart tightened. She had spent her youth in the library, growing up through its books. She used to wash her hands before opening them. She had become Miss Bell’s preferred reader, and she had even been allowed to stay on reading during lunchtime.

Scrunching up her eyes, she tried to make out the titles floating past, as if her life depended on it. The water kept rising. Brushing past, a raven flew to perch on the tree’s highest branch. She felt her hold loosening.

Feeling the bark for a better grip, she remembered the story of Noah’s Ark, the raven and the dove sent out to see if the flood waters subsided; and the book she’d read about ravens’ intelligence. She sensed the storm lessening. The bird was scanning the vast expanse; she was not alone. She sighed with relief and dug her nails into the tree bark.

This story was first published on 52|250 A Year of flash here

Pink-footed geese circling the fields,

 dot the golden sky

fill the air with their harsh calls

for home.

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This post can also be found in Stella’s Stones here

The new edition #3 of > Language > Place blog carnival is out!

Hosted by Michael Solender, of “Not From Here, Are You?” it is a feast of stories, personal accounts, poems, photographs. In a number of excellent contributions, several bloggers explore what it means to feel at home, be at home, or indeed, where home is: the theme of belonging.

For information on what the blog carnival is all about, how it came into being and instructions on how to join, please visit Dorothee Lang at Blue Print Review and she will tell you all about it.

In addition, there is a special place to go to for information on the contributors and what they are blogging about http://languageplace.blogspot.com/  

The next edition, issue #4, will be hosted and edited by Jean Morris of “tasting rhubarb.” Jean is inviting submissions during the period from the 5^th to the 20^th of February 2011. For details and also the specific theme of the edition see here

I am happy to report that links to two of my stories are included in edition  #3: “Ariadne’s Thread” and “Where Home is.” Both stories first appeared on 52|250 A Year of Flash here; they can also be found in my blog here

Diamond doves are small, beautiful birds, which can be kept as pets, ‘Wiki-Marion’ told me once. Since I knew she enjoys dispensing information, I did not think more about it, until she invited me to see her new pet, “Love”.

A bird of beauty! Light blue-grey head, neck, and breast; dark bill, spotted wings fringed in black; orange eyes. I fell in love with Love. He kept bow-cooing, fluffing his wings, strutting, kissing Marion’s hand. I felt jealous, knowing I could not compete with my friend for the bird’s affections.

Walking back home, I stopped at the park, looking for doves, ducks and this winter’s migratory birds. None had the exquisite and delicate beauty of the diamond dove. I was heartbroken by the time I arrived home, vowing to stop visiting Marion to avoid the pain.

A few weeks later, she phoned me. “Love died,” she announced.

“What?”

“These birds seem to fall in love with their owner if they don’t have a bird partner. I encouraged his bonding to me. But that was all I could do – I could not let him mate with my hand as if it were a female! He felt rejected and died of love.”

“It was only an animal. Animals behave differently,” I said, breaking into hysterical laughter.

I put the phone down struck by an acute pang of unease. Who are the animals here, I asked myself, my face burning with shame.

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This short story was first published on 52|250 A Year of Flash, January 2011. It can be found here.

For information about the diamond dove, including the dangers of it becoming over-dependent on its owner see here.

Sometimes, like today, with a chilly wind spraying drizzle over grey London, I feel that this city needs the Aegean to be closer.

This post is also in Stella’s Stones here 

Silence has lost its shape today.

A single carnation bursts into song.

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This post is also in Stella’s Stones here

poem–

the old soup bowl

filled with cream

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The moon is kind tonight, bathing the room in milk.

A breeze rustles the Eucalyptus and I realize I daydream.

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This post can also be found in Stella’s Stones here

Picking fishnet tights, a shoe, and a pair of torn jeans, the wordsmith assembles her poem; plenty of time in her workshop.

This post can also be found in Stella’s Stones here

Night

Night

 As darkness falls over the Thames,

a liquid haze swims in from the sea

and the city steels its heart for the night.

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This post can be found in Stella’s Stones  here

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This short story first appeared on 52|250 A Year of Flash

Flint

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flint: / wall or church / rise from the sea

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See also in Stella’s Stones here

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London:

creeping fog on the Thames

reaches for my hair

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This post can be found here

In sun-bleached deserts, in mountain caves, on sea-sculpted rocks

the hermit slept, forgetting that the essence of being can be found in a single drop of rain.

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This post is also in Stella’s Stones

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When I started learning to crochet I thought of it as a relaxing, stress-reducing act, like counting the amber beads of a komboloi.

Now, looking at my hand holding the crochet hook, the wool, at the next stitch to pick up, the stitches I travelled and the one I have to travel to next, I think it is more than that. It is a process like meditation, without however the religious connotations and significance often associated with it: like counting prayer beads, but without the religion.

I was interested to see that, according to Wikipedia, there are two ways of counting the komboloi beads: “a quiet method, for indoors, and a noisier method that is acceptable in public places.” While crochet is quiet, knitting with two needles is not! I wonder whether there is a way(s) of knitting indoors that keeps the noise down!

http://stellasstones.tumblr.com/

blackbirds

pecking red rowan berries  

sing to themselves

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Read about the Rowans here. In the Wikipedia Rowan entry, mythology and folklore section: “It was said in England that this was the tree on which the Devil hanged his mother.”

This post can also be found here

By the river Lea and Hooks Marsh.

Swans

Yesterday’s photographs, today.  What is left of the walk, of the slow river Lea, of the smiling sun, of the day?

(Tapping on the computer all day today!)

See also Stella’s Stones here and  here

Hooks Marsh

And Aeolus, the god of winds, gave Alcyone seven days of warm weather to lay her eggs.

Halcyon Days in Hooks Marsh, Lea Valley, in the outskirts of North London.

This post also appears here

beached tree

Metamorphosing

Lying on its side, landlocked, this tree trunk dreams of being a frog, a fish, an alligator, a whale.

(In Trent Park, North London, in January 2011. For more pictures of Trent Park see here)

This post can also be found here

As darkness falls over London,

the thick, grey curtain of rain

that drowned the city relents,

leaving behind shimmering haloes

of street lights — the night’s rainbow.

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This post can also be found here

Festival of the Trees, issue 55, on the theme of 2011 UN International Year of the Forests, has been published by Jasmine, of Nature’s Whispers. It is an informative, as well as entertaining post, rich in text, visuals, and creative energy. The links are well worth exploring too, covering a plethora of work about nature, trees, forests, gardening, art, and other fascinating topics!

It also includes an alert about the UK coalition government’s plan to sell off many of the best-loved ancient forests and woodlands, and a link to an online petition to save the UK forests.

Jasmine writes:

“In the United Kingdom, the Conservative Party plan on selling ALL of our ancient forests. Once they are gone, they cannot be redeemed. In order to carry out these environmentally unpopular sales, the government is rewriting laws written in The Magna Carta that have protected woodlands and ancient forests since 1215”

 For more information about this issue please see The Guardian here, here and the campaign site here

If you enjoy walking in the forests as much as I do, if you care about the environment and the preservation of woodland, then this is the time to voice your concern and support the petition.

 You can sign the petition online here

My short story and post appear here

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waking up:

waves of traffic roll into

daylight

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This post appears here

cold wind sweeps the street, deposits leaves, sweet wrappers, a juice carton, and a chocolate box on my doorstep.

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 This post appears also here

dark morning –

Vivaldi pours into

waves of sleep

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This post can also be found here

To read my stories published by the writers’ project  “52|250 A Year of Flash” please go here

“twentysix,” the second anthology highlighting short stories from a quarter of “52|250 A year of Flash,” is out. The editors of this writing project, Michelle Elvy, John Wentworth Chapin and Walter Bjorkman, challenge writers to produce a short flash of 250 words every week for one year. They provide a different theme each week and the resulting creative work is amazing: wonderful stories, and poems, of high quality from a prolific, creative, friendly, and excellent community of writers.

Each quarter, the editors pick and highlight in an anthology the best of the stories written on each week’s theme. The current edition also includes art work, readings, and reflections by some of the writers on their creating a particular piece and the ways they went about developing their take on the theme.

Beautifully and professionally edited, assembled and illustrated, it is well worth visiting, and reading. As you will see, the editors have put an incredible amount of work into “twentysix.”

I am honored to have two of my short stories included: on theme #25 “A private person” and on theme #26 “A hair raising story.”

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You can read the anthology here

My stories in 52|250 can be read here

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the eucalyptus

swishes and sways

singing in tune

with the wind

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This post can also be found here.

Spiritual Stones

behind the stonework

a spiritual space filled with

calm and stillness

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Isn’t this exactly what we are trying to achieve with our stones?

Photo:  St. Nicholas Church, Blakeney, North Norfolk.

This post can be found on Stella’s Stones

For more pictures of the area see here

Happy New Year’s Day!

Remember though …

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a river flows

into a new year

every day

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In a sense this micropoem plays on the theme of Heraclitus‘ Fragment 41:  ”You cannot step twice into the same river”

Δεν γίνεται να μπει κανείς στο ίδιο νερό του ποταμού που κυλάει δύο φορές.

From today on, though, I, along with others, will be entering the river of stones every single day for a month.

For Heraclitus the appearance of stability is an illusion, ”for as you are stepping in [the river], other waters are ever flowing on to you.”  However, consider the possibility of re-entering the river of stones: on the one hand, the river consists of the flowing moments of experience as represented by stones; on the other hand, each time we polish and share a stone, we ourselves change, grow through our attending to and encapsulating the moment of experience.

Happy New Year 2011!

This post also appears here