Tag: Life

Honey Wine – A short – short story

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Honey Wine – A short – short  Story

Serena knew that beauty had an ending that all things fade and die; now she was in the winter of her years. All her friends were gone, as was much of her family, some forgotten like goldenrods falling to dust upon the wind. Her eyes yearned, her heart bled for love, frustration guided her thoughts, and she kept repeating the words…

“Old, old, old.” Serena hated to eat from a plate made of paper; if she was younger, they may let her dine on fine bone china.

“Now you come with me Ms Serena, its supper time.” Lucas had a special bond Serena. He did not mind that she lived in the past or the present.

Satiation, that was where Serena was in her mind, then she thought…it is necessary that people should feel wants beyond the want created by mere hunger.

The clouds of time have spun away like the seasons; she now waited for the last leaf to drop. All that was left was the sweet memories, like the taste of her father’s Honey wine. Please she whispered let it go quickly…

“I am so tired of time”. Serena looks at the setting sun, as it melted into the lake next to where she shared a room with a stranger
©elizabethannjohnsonmurphree

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When will the Earths Lights go out…#15

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In the world that we know we cannot see, yet it is floating, suspended in the dark hole of life. The earth turns floating, and she is tired by the changing of time, seasons, inhabited by those who bring wraith to her. As humans we look for things that will turn out in a magnificent way, we dwell on how things will unfold. Yet, as humans, we keep interfering with her growth, her peace, her beauty. She weeps, the tears fall, trickling, sprawling into the depths of hopelessness.

We, as humans stand still doing nothing to save her, if we have made the wrong choices it is the children who must pay, so why do we care? There is no gain for the earth of today, caring is left in the past, the yesterdays of our own childhood. We show no wisdom, and the great “Sayers” who say nothing, sit and let her be destroyed. A few fight for Earth, but they are too small in numbers.

There is no help from those who can the President and other lawmakers who could make a difference, they do not care. They will not admit that there is such a thing as Global Warming. I have been here for many decades and have witnessed Earth’s decline. There is no victory, we will not leave her as we found her, slow dank waters will form swamps as the rivers dry up, in the woods the cedars’ will soon be like winter bones. EARTH, she will stand for many eternities, but then she will die and her light will go out.

©elizabethannjohnsonmurphree

 

 

AUTHOR’S NOTE: We cannot think about the “seasons” without bringing Mother Earth into the fold. She has served us well, beware she made not be here forever, be good to her.

 
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God Will Judge – #9

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God will Judge – #9

 
Life is uncertain, a race where most people do no more than run in place, there can be happiness, sadness, and around every corner a surprise; yet hope blooms. Life is what one must create within their allotted space, or sit on the sidelines, leaving their journey to fate.

Life is not all joy, as we float upon the winds of time; there are rights and wrongs; and unknown quandaries, setbacks, and living means moving forward. Life quickly passes, fair and cloudy days, laughter and tears, and then the warmth of the sun subsides ones fears.

Life may mean walking in the valleys of despair until fate starts an upward climb, living with happiness, or grief; always trust the heart and mind. Life lived in harmony with others, loving, caring and expectations met; seeds of livelihood sown, atonement locked away for God to judge; we strive and labor as time passes on.

Life waits for no one, your parents teach you the lessons to get you through those uncertain days, and you leave the nest filled with a quest; now living as an adult, it is your own mind that you must trust. Life is a learning ground, you stumble and you fall, the lessons you were taught at time can take effort, then you find that you do not know it all.

Life when you were a teen you found that you were filled with adventure, you move forward in the quest; you soon find that you have tried to do your best. Life has turned dark hair into gray, the pains of just living will never go away; you will visit the small patch of ground that will be your last resting place.

Life gave you the spirit to live, when things went wrong you never ask why; age is now running, no longer in place; you can see the light that you will travel through. You grow silent, it is time to say goodbye.

©elizabethannjohnsonmurphree

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Revenge – Script – #13

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Revenge – Script #13

Doctors looked down at the young girl in her drugged sleep; her pillow wet with tears shed before the medicine took effect placing her in a coma. Her face innocence even though she had lived a nightmare: she would sleep until her broken body and mind could heal. Her attacker had taken her for self-indulgence and pleasure. Andrew “Stubby” Bodine’s type was always on the prowl; always taking from others; especially young girls. He did see the angry mop coming in their flatboats. Mary Jane Ayres would heal while her abductor hangs from a Swamp Oak in Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Swamp.

Author Note: You have just read the beginning of my script, one page into a new book.

©elizabethannjohnsonmurphree

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Earthly Cycles – #6

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Earthly Cycles – #6

January was cold and depressing; it’s February, and until the sweet girls birthday is here; we do not celebrate it as we use to, as young girls they make more adult like plans, for me I just sit and remember those cherub face and hands.

February is drenched with the beginnings of winter thaw; two more sweet children celebrate while shivering in the cold. March rushes in with the winds drying the earth; getting ready for springs daffodils’, another sweet birthday comes and goes, like the sweet girl I use to cuddle and hold.

In April, the birds begin to sing bringing to life the flowers of May, sunny June comes another birthday, with it comes the longest day of the year that brings the winter lovers to tears. July is yet another birthday along with the scorched days of summer’s heat. In August the earth gives its children acres of corn, September comes the fruit the trees and vines have born.

October earth removes her summer cloaks as stars shoot across a November sky; the nights become long, cold with early frost. The strong December winds begin and soon comes, January the seasons have gone through their Earthly cycle with cold and snow all over again.

 
©elizabethannjohnsonmurphree #6

 
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Dancing in Sunbeams – #5

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Dancing in Sunbeams – #5

Rose could visualize the little country church, the chorus of Crows flying back and forth over the gabled roof; its white washed siding. The hand hued two-pin cabin stood alone at the edge of a pasture. Not too far away stood a row of Birch trees beside a shallow creek, winding its way through an open field green of Johnson grass. She pictured a group of black feathered Angels following a funeral hearse down the old dirt road. The rocker on the weathered porch of the cabin sat unmoving, the sun would be glowing through tattered curtains and dancing in the nearby cracked mirror. Rose felt empty and that childhood was dead as was her beloved Grandmother.
©elizabethannjohnsonmurphree

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Death a Saving Grace…#2

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Death, a Saving Grace

At dawn, the life light went out of the woman’s abused body, it lay in front of her the children she tried to protect…she was a mother, she was a woman, and she was a wife.

A coal oil lantern glowed against rustic rough boards, shadowing the fragile souls left behind in the damp shanty where, she was a mother, she was a woman, and she was a wife.

Laid to rest in a shallow grave in the Louisiana heat, dug by a man with moonshine seeping from his body; the moon glowed upon soft damp earth holding, what was once a mother, a woman, a wife.

Tears burn hot upon the dirt-streaked faces of her six children as relatives who heard the shots from the long arm barrel of hate ring out into the night took them to their homes, she was their mother, she was a woman, and she was wife.

Drunk with evil spewing from his tobacco-laced mouth the skeleton of a father had shot his wife, because she was pregnant again; she was a mother, she was a woman, and she was a wife.

No one will ever know beyond the borders of Bayou Gauche, that mother, woman, and wife will never return, her death for her, a saving grace.

 
©elizabethannjohnsonmurphree

 
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The Journey – Monday – Day 14, 2019…

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The Ticking Clock…

A weathervane stilled under a glowing moon bares to the moon its raven wings, in predicted circles it swings. Fishing boats rise and fall behind the jetty wall, the old man mending his netting can hear the sea call.

Ghostly snowflakes cover the seaweed floating among the rocks, the fisherman’s mind rushes like the tick of a clock. Time for one more catch before winter freezes the shore; the nets have taken too long, an overwhelming chore.

He sits remembering his world, its ghosts that the ocean has taken, the young men that God had forsaken. In the beginning the ancient winds brought the fish to earth, they filled the sea to give birth.

Our ancestor’s footsteps imprinted upon the pier, late in the night their sorrowful cries we can hear. Hurry, hurry the time is growing near, soon your boats will freeze in their moorings, the winter winds are what you should fear.

Look upward at the weathervane and its circular world, around and around it whirls. The daybreak will quickly be gone and you will ask God…where did I go wrong. Ghostly snowflakes cover the seaweed floating among the rocks, the fisherman mind rushes like the tick of a clock.

 
©elizabethannjohnsonmurphree

 
AUTHOR’S NOTE: We cannot think about the “seasons” without bringing Mother Earth into the fold. She has served us well, beware she made not be here forever, be good to her.

 
AUTHORS BOOK AT AMAZON.COM
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The Journey – Sunday – Day 13, 2019…

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I  recently spoke to an acquaintance who told of her husband living in a nursing home, he was unhappy and so was she. Being ten years his junior placed such a burden on her shoulders. What can one say about growing old? The loss of shape, hiding beneath many layers of clothing, sparkle gone from one’s eyes. One is no longer beautiful in the eyes of others, not my belief. The function of one’s body grows weaker, sitting in that doomed place with little human contact. The sunset-glow in the beginning of each day is gone. Dreams escape the demented mind, as does the ordinariness of each day.

There is certain knowledge within this fog in the mind of the aged; at times, they remember of those long ago youthful days. They may flitter across the closed mind like an open window. Nonetheless, the prison door of the mind never opens; it is walled-in unknown to most what thoughts lay buried deep within. It is the last stage of life, frozen within and quite, a phantom of themselves, a hollow ghost.

No longer, a figure of delight, no longer surrounded by the sweet smell of one’s self. Like the snow-covered winter landscape, life is stilled, a shadow of one’s self. Life from the womb begins a painful story, a stormy world like summer winds and rain. Beauty spent and done, despite Hells rage now silenced by the passing of time. With the eyes looking past what lays ahead, bondage no longer a threat as the mind realizes it will only end in death. Whom can we blame? No one!

Mindfulness provides a simple but powerful route for getting our selves unstuck, back into touch with our own wisdom and vitality. It is a way to take charge of the direction and quality of our own lives, including our relationships within the family, and to the larger world and planet, and most fundamentally, our relationships with our self as a person. Begin now, to become aware of what lies in the future our future. The key lies in the works of Emerson and Thoreau, Whitman and Native American wisdom. Read and become aware of what your future might be, the words of these great people will pave the way to your tomorrows.

Do not fall prey to the thoughts of those who would harm you. Hold on to your opinions, expectations and the many possibilities that will open to you as you age. Mindfulness is simply an art of conscious living. Be yourself, keep in touch with your deepest feelings, and let greatness flow from you. This will go a long way to keeping you young.

 

©2019.elizabethannjohnsonmurphree

The Journey – Saturday – Day 12, 2019…

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Being sick during the Holidays is no fun, my children did not seem to mind the delayed Holidays, January; in all actuality they were quiet delighted, it would be one less relative to visit making it less stressful. If you had asked me the question, “Let’s move Christmas into January”, I would have said no. Since it was I, that was sick, I was going to miss the Holidays anyway.

I had for months in 2018 trying to reinvent myself, reading the books on various  religions. I began with present day Christianity, those who “sermonize” from the Bible in most cases picked and chose the “parts” from the Bible that they want to use to put fear into followers, and it worked.

Christianity is  first ranked in the list of most popular religions around the globe with more than 2.1 billion followers , the highest ranked are the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant. Islam is given the second rank in the list of major religions of the world having more than 1.5 billion followers; it is one of the fastest growing religions. Hinduism in one of the major religions of the world with 900 million worshipers, it is considered one of the world’s oldest religions. Buddhism is also considered a leading religion around the globe with more than 376 million followers; Gautama Siddhartha founded it 2500 years before in India. Sikhism is the world’s fifth largest religion having more than 23 million worshippers; this religion combined the beliefs from Islam and Hinduism.

What does all of this have to do with the Holidays and me being sick? What does it have to do with “missing” Christmas? What does it have to do with the reinvention of Elizabeth Ann Murphree?

It was the best way to lay a foundation for the change that I am trying to put into practice within myself. Do I believe in God, yes? Do I believe every word written in the Bible, no, why? Men and their perception of the events of their day and time wrote it. One must pull away the layers of the stories much like pealing an onion, and then you may find the written truth within the book. There are, I find some reasonable truths in all religions, I sway toward that of Christianity fed the need of my living a life of “goodness” and Buddhism, gives me additional guidelines to grow, and if we are to believe in God, then we must believe in all of the religions he has created through the man and women of this world.

I have read many books throughout 2018. I believe the practice that I need in my life at this time is “mindfulness”, if I can master that one, I will have a better understanding of life and I will see growth in myself and be aware of it in others. I try every day to be mindful of the difficulties that lay ahead of me. I try to actively be attentive, keeping the complexities of my life in mind.

Mindfulness an ancient Buddhist practice that has profound exposure in my present-day life.  In truth, it has nothing to do with Buddhism, but it does have everything to do with living in harmony with myself and with the world around me. I have examined who I am and I have educated myself with the practice and now have an appreciation for each moment that I am alive. It also helped to survive the many health issues I have had these past three years.  Do I fall away from mindfulness, of course, but the teaching of mindfulness quickly brings me back in line to what my life needs.  It prepares me for the next part of my life, as the journey grows shorter.

This practice is not an easy one. One has to be continually mindful about the present moment and not be judgmental in what is going on around you and the world in general. One must be aware of the greater reality. I believe with this concept I can continue to grow, we as world inhabitants can continue to grow if we are aware of the happenings within our own realm and that of others.  Have I mastered this concept, no, I must be constantly aware of what is truth and what is gossip within my realm.  I have more work to do, but isn’t that growth.

 

 

©2019elizabethannjohnsonmurphree