Solitary Creature

Solitary Creature

By John W. Vander Velden

Moving fluid like…silent …sleek…beautiful.  Leaping effortless always upward to the highest points…visual advantage.  There content, soon comfortable, it remains.  To the unfamiliar, the motionless mass seems inconsequential, as it lies high upon the curio.   Asleep it seems, yet fully aware, watchful through lid’s slits with cunning eyes that can pierce the night and ears no sound escapes.  Hours pass scarcely it moves.  Though at times easily distracted, now showing patience Job would envy.  What can be said about this amazing creature of tooth and claw?  That it moves as comfortably in darkness’ cloak as day’s brightness?  Throughout its life, humoring those claiming the ownership never surrendered.  Perfectly willing to share its home with those that serve…providing demands met, yet of its own kind often less tolerant.   Happy to allow the human touch…when in the mood.  When pleased, emitting a rumble from deep within.   Other times, when attention demanded, a familiar call given…then its actions inspire immediate response.  So loved yet never truly devoted.  Emotionally warm one moment…cool the next.  Few creatures are so common, yet have nothing common about them.  None can fathom what those slit eyes see or hidden heart considers.   Such a solitary creature…the cat!

(203 Words)

Thunderstorm

Thunderstorm

By John W. Vander Velden                 

The dusty land many days beneath the intense summer sun, a hot wind had blown all week.  Small whirling demons of dust, visible, crossing the scorched land, beneath the cloudless sky, only two days before.  But today great clouds rise high above, approaching from the west.  Great masses of white and gray…tumbling and mixing they seem, as quickly they march, closer.  The east breeze, shifting to the north and then west suddenly gusting.  The weather will change.  Far off a rumble more felt than heard warns.  The wise take their cover.  Heavy clouds blot out the sun…It grows dark.  Wind intensifies as brilliant flash leads thunder’s sound.  Large drops pelt the thirsty earth, as countless solders coming from the sky driven on the fierce wind.  Striking with such force, splashing in the new puddles and bouncing off the hardened land only to fall once more.  Kaboom!  The world seems to tremble as flash and sound now simultaneous.  The moist air filled with the scent of the storm, envelopes all, as the pounding increases.  There is water everywhere.  Thick in the air, forming pools wherever land could grasp, and rivulets the thousands of places the land could not.  Kaboom!   Brilliant air shattered.  Wind and rain intensifies.  The sound of huge drops crashing into water and mud fills our ears.  Suddenly the driving rain ceases…Suddenly the burdened sky vanishes…The storm has past.  The bathed world seems fresh…renewed.  Moments later a great arch seen…colors crossing the sky and we know we have survived another thunderstorm…

(256 Words)

Morning

Morning                                      

The soft early morning slipping through the sheers of his bedroom did not wake him.  The soft and quiet way his beloved left his side, did not wake him.  Nor the sounds down the hall as she worked in the kitchen.  The aroma of fresh baking, muffins, blueberry, that slowly filled the air did not wake him.  It was the sounds of laughter…familiar laughter…that drew him from deep slumber.

Rolling onto his left shoulder smiling as he listened to gay voices, certain he had been allowed to lay too long.  A luxury rarely his, blinking as his mind yet foggy slowly grasped the new day’s beginnings.  The doorknob turned slowly, the latch clicked softly not two feet from his face.  Slowly the brown varnished wood began to move.  Joyous eyes and smile peaked through the crack…the door’s slight opening.  Bright and blue the eyes beneath the knob. His daughter quiet, though a giggle came from behind.  The door pulled shut firmly with a squeal.  Feet thumping down the hall and away.

Michael stifled a laugh as he remained, confident it would not be the last of Josie’s   It was not long.  The knob jiggled a bit…a little one way then the other.  “Let me do it.” Came the familiar sound, Josie’s voice, young yet assertive. 
shenanigans, and knowing little Billy would not be excluded.

“No…I can…” Yet the latch remained resistant.  Michael reached, opened the door slightly.  Two faces…small and smaller pressed side by side peering in.  Sharp eyes, naughty they seemed, one set bright blue the other deep brown.  “You awake daddy?”  Billy’s eyes dancing, his voice tentative.

Josie pushing the door aside shouted over her shoulder.  “Daddy’s awake.”  As the children quickly climbed onto the bed tickling their father.  It was morning!

(302 Words)

Country Road

Country Road                         

By John W. Vander Velden

The dirt led onward through wood and along open fields.  A pathway traveled by few, leading to places known only by locals.  A quiet road reminiscent of a times past, it is here I walk…alone, far from city with its lights and noise.  Far from the heavy traveled ways.  Far from the rush of men and women, bound headlong on journey’s demands and hasty time tables.  Those bound for other places near and distant.  Too busy for a lonely dust trail, too arrogant for an earthy connection, too modern for true realities of sky, tree and earth.  I am richer at their loss.  The quiet way made quieter by those refusing to hear its call, to feel its peace and the breath of soft breezes of air unstirred by exhaust.  I hear only the crunch, crunch, crunch of shoe step by step.  Time proceeds here as elsewhere, but here I have time…time to notice…time to think…time to find the very beginnings of understanding.  In this hectic world, how do we find ourselves?  Where do we look?  Here on an old country path…alone, surrounded by life’s realities, laid bare beneath sun and sky.  I can think of no better place… No better place to think than a country road…

(212 Words)