Thank you to The School Magazine for including my story The Scent of Cinnamon in November ORBIT. A sad Christmas story with a happy ending!
loss
From my Memory’s Treasure
tears roll
as pearls spilled
from a string—
an indigo sky
flashed with lightning
well-rounded vowels
of alto melody
ascending—
swaddled in a shawl
of homemade lullabies
silver-topped
milk bottles dotted
with dew—
winter breakfasts
sunlit with sugar grains
even white loops
of baby-yarn slide
on tortoiseshell needles
pale cakes rising
in the gas oven
a child wakes
to the sound of dishes
and quiet footsteps—
morning hymns
on the wireless
Julie Thorndyke
Each burnished leaf
does a tree notice
when each burnished leaf falls?
all around me
the world carries on
. . . as if you weren’t gone
© Julie Thorndyke
first published Eucalypt 15 2013