Dream-land

Dreamland, wonderland,

A pale hand sent from afar,

Inside it, hidden, a treasure,

 A secret message,

 Wrapped in many layers,

Of soft rustling paper,

Careful, so not to tear

The overlapping layers,

I unfold them, one by one,

 And hold my breath,

Kaleidoscope of colors, erupts,

 Moving round, and round,

I pain, to sort out the images

So difficult to decipher,

Dreamland, land of wander,

Send me a sign,

A straight, pointed arrow,

To highlight the way

Shiny, illusive images,

Strewn around, lost to me,

Amidst heaps of torn paper,

Like horses in a dead carousel,

Their colors fading, one by one

Slipping softly out of my mind

Dreamland, land of wonder,

I wait, I listen,

If you are a dreamer

End of the Road

 

Journeys,

Some stories begin with sparks and fireworks,

Others with the dull light at dawn

Shadows fleeting between the trees,

Birds chirping quietly in the twigs,

As the world yawning, extending its arms.

Softly as butterflies hardly making a mark,

We can glide like liquid, shaping our bodies to match.

While we watch others sculpting their form,

Forceful and coarse like sandpaper on glass,

Leaving their inscriptions for others to surpass.

Some journeys come to an end before they even began;

 Others last for eternity and never collapse,

Whose to say which kind exceeds the other,

A journey to the end of the land,

Or just a mile up the road.

 

My basement as a metaphore

Under my house, almost a separate entity, detached from the daily life above yet breathing with it, and in so many ways maintaining it. It clicks, it clacks, it hums and it whispers while mysterious apparatus opens and closes performing mysterious duties.

The water rolling in the pipes, the electricity flowing in unknown directions, without warning the furnace comes to life shaking the whole house above. It is a working, living machine with shortcuts and extensions, with living parts and dead parts, and those still in question.

Behind all the noise and the frantic activity, in the dim, quiet corners, spiders weave their webs. Elaborate, delicate creations, grey soft puffs moving slightly with each wisp of air.

I walk underneath with my ominous vacuum cleaner and its long black hose in search for these delicate silvery formations of dust and silk hanging from the ceiling, my head up in the sky my legs knocking tools , and nails and  electricity cords.

Rust of all colors, it covers dead electricity lines, that no one needs no more, and pipes, so many in all width and shapes and ages some still in use, some forever clogged and their use forgotten.

My head up, I am on a mission to find them all, in their hidden corners where they grow and grow and wrap themselves around till they smother everything.

The clink and the clunk, the hum and the air leaving the furnace, the vacuum huffing and puffing and the quiet, crafty cobwebs in the corners, It is a working, living machine, my basement.

Home

From time to time, I get homesick, and when that happens I search for the Google Earth icon, on my computer screen, tucked way back in the right corner. I press it and within seconds the entire planet fills up the screen. Gently I maneuver, with my mouse, rolling over oceans and continents until I find it.

Where Latitude 37N crisscross longitude 122W, lays my hometown, where I lived for twenty years.

I zoom in, amazed every time by the barren landscape, and how small the town looks, almost entirely camouflaged by the desert around it. Not more than a dozen of streets, claiming an existence on a plateau, hanging onto the edge of a steep cliff, overlooking an ocean of rolling hills and deep canyons. It seems that any tiny shudder of Mother Nature will toss them right into oblivion within seconds.

I hold my breath, and sigh with relief when I spot it. My home, still there, facing the long narrow street and backing against the deep ravine. With a flash of memory I picture myself standing next to the large dining room windows, in the morning, watching the sunrise, flaming hot sphere, rising above the Edom mountain range, lightning the monotonous browns with million shades of orange.

One moment of precious memory, and with a blink of an eye I am being transformed back to my desk, looking with a slight resentment at the blue and white, striped icon, blinking...