Tag: nature

Call for Submissions: Places to Stand

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Saw Palm, the University of South Florida’s literary magazine, is calling for submissions for its series Places to Stand.

I found this call for submissions while working on my Submission Bonanza!, an attempt to submit work to thirty literary magazines in the month of July.

Since a huge part of my interest in writing and words is place-based, I am in love with this project and I wanted to share it with you all and encourage you to submit too!

Even if you don’t have writing about Florida, it’s a really lovely prompt.

 

What Is It?

Places to Stand is a literary map of Florida, using words instead of photos.  Each pushpin marks a point where a contributor has written a short nonfiction piece about what it’s like to stand at that particular place at a particular moment in time.  Some of the Places to Stand pieces are memories.  Some are written on the spot.  Some are written as poetry.  Click on the pushpins and take a literary tour through Florida time and space!

 

Places to Stand in Florida   (appears on sawpalm.org)
Please tell us what it’s like to stand at a specific place in Florida at a specific time of day in 500 words or less. While we enjoy the unusual, locations should be public and accessible (so not your bathroom!) Please include GPS coordinates.

Unlike other categories, current or recent USF students and faculty are welcome to submit pieces for the Places to Stand series.

Poems submitted as part of the Places to Stand series are welcome but should be justified left and otherwise not have complex formatting and spacing. This is due to technical limitations in Google Earth.

 

You can submit here!

 

 

 

Bahamian Prism (Eleuthera. Summer 2013)

Jaclyn18 Comments

The day started lazily enough, perched on a cliff overlooking a rainbow bay.  From the shore the water reached out in gemstone tones: amber to emerald, jade to aquamarine, turquoise to lapis lazuli, sapphire to amethyst.  All shining in mid-morning light.  The progression of treasures made me wonder if just over the horizon amaranthine gave way to garnet and ruby: a hidden red ocean just further than my eyes could reach.

But before long, the sun was gone and the colors muted. In Hatchet Bay Caves, we became explorers.  Bats hung in the mouth of the cave, twitching as we disturbed their sleep.  The guano on the ground flagged the territory as theirs.  Along the walls of the caves, visitors before us also marked their places as well: in guano, in spray paint, in mud, in tar, letting us know who “wuz here” in a desperate attempt at immortality.

We pushed further into the cave, where even bats and tourists did not go.  Stalactites cried tears at their separation from their partners, as the stalagmites reached up to caress and comfort them.  Ribbons of rock adorned the walls and mimicked the waves of the ocean above.

In the silent darkness, skulls and bones hid.  Lucayan remains playfully ducked out of sight, snooping around corners for a better look, but not wanting to scare off the livers.  Femurs shushed collar bones and trails of spines lined up to take a peek.

Above our explorations, brittle stars hugged tightly to the sea bed, feeling the rumblings from underneath.  A large, maroon crab scuttled out of its own cave, afraid it had woken something beneath.  Scallops jiggled on the sea grass and tulip shells paused in the sand, listening to the tremors below.

A lightless sunset of golden lines, tawny rays, tangerine grooves, copper streaks, and crimson stripes gave way to amber.  In these caves, the rainbow was complete.  As we made our way out, our eyes were shocked with all the colors at once: a hot white light in a cloud white sky.

 

First Day of Freedom (Eleuthera. June 2013)

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 We headed north, or ‘down island’  as it’s called on account of the flow of the Gulf Stream along the Atlantic coast of this giant sand bar.  We floated in the direction of the current, along the lone road, over 100 miles from whale’s tail to sea horse head.  We stopped to ogle an out-of-place-out-of-time limestone castle in Tarpum Bay.  Its white, bleached surface reflected the sun and shells of thousands of years, so different than the grey-stone castles of kings.  Instead it was brittle and crumbling in the tropical sun, as if the rays had been laying siege to it since time could remember. The ghosts of junkanoos past and funeral processions marched silently by.

Further up or down, depending on how you looked at it, we ran into a farm stand.  The passion fruit swung languidly and low, heavy but still green with expectation.  The passion flowers had fallen away and left pregnant sweetness in their wake.  Guava jams nestled up to spicy jerk on the shelves and rocket leaves poked their heads from farm baskets to watch the sweet and spicy tryst.  It was too hot for cilantro.

We passed airport after airport after airport, past cars and boats and planes.  With luggage strapped to the roof, we passed miles of aquamarine waters.  Atop Glass Window Bridge, we paused on limestone cliffs to say hello.  To our left, the Caribbean frolicked, a playful turquoise-peacock-chartreuse.  On the right, the Atlantic deepened to a cobalt-navy storm.

We pressed on, bent on finding a beach that would rival the southern tip of the island.  Lighthouse Beach had always been an old family favorite, but we were greedy for more: for pinker sands, and clearer waves, for brighter fish, and palms that sashayed to the beat of breezier winds. “The one that looks least like a road,” were the instructions we had been given and we found the reddest, most fertile dirt on an island of sand.  Mango and avocado trees pushed up against fences to see what the intrusion was all about.

Hidden behind the orchard, we found our prize.  It was nestled in a tiny cove, carved out of coral skeletons.  It was as if the land were looking back at itself, marveling at the way its body contrasted with that of its lover, the sea.  Along the beach were the remains of island barbecues and romantic sunsets, chairs and tables set as if the ghosts of explorers past still sat in them, soaking up the sun and caressed by sands in the breeze.  A steady parade of yachts sauntered by, en route to Harbour Island, oblivious to our splashes in the waves.

Thundering clouds winked lightning as they passed and left us to swim.  Beneath the waves, the island began.  Amongst grass and trees, baby sergeant majors were schooled.  Damsel fish picked daintily at their dishes of afternoon coral and bait crowded around, clouding the water.  Further on, shallow forests of fluorescent sea fans undulated in unison, enticing the waves to grow.  It wasn’t long before the afternoon sun had us beat and the heat of the air overpowered the once-were-iceberg waters of the Atlantic.

We left five sets of footprints in coral-pink sand and five shadows of sitters-on-stumps.  Like those who came before us, we became ghosts on the shore. 

Cicadas (Thailand. Rewrite)

Jaclyn9 Comments

 

 

 

She could hear his abdomen, even from eight stories above. She knew he waited for her, dressed in new skin holding the bark of a mango tree. For thirteen years, she had dug and hid, dug and hid, a pale pearl of a nymph sheltered in flooding clay. Prematurely buried. She had fed on rootjuice and waited.

And now, the time for burying herself had gone. She no longer wore the tough soil skin of the past. The brightness of being was nearly unbearable. She was green and larger than herself.

She sat exposed, mesmerized by the equatorial sunlight and the sound of his clicking ribs. She could see him from here, just a speck, but she could tell even at this distance that he looked back at her. Through her ten eyes, he was a kaleidoscope of rounded cicada flecks, mirrored and moving in unison, calling her to the ground.

And then a closer sound. Behind her, ten of the same dark-haired girls with lightning eyes and cloud-colored skin reached a catastrophic finger in her direction.

She heard him again, dry-fly ribs rubbing together to blot out the sounds of metropolitan traffic and children. The vibrations called to her.

She looked down at the expectant mango tree and imagined the future she would create: millions of shimmery nymphs sprinkling from the branches, raining onto the soil below, christening the ground with their sparkling selves.

There was nothing for her to do now, except let go.

 

 

Back in the day, I wrote about submitting some of my flash fiction to Flash Frontier.  This rewrite of my original post was published in Flash Frontier’s November Issue, Eye Contact.

 

Also, I’d like to reiterate my Creative Commons love to Flickr user Roger Smith for the amazing photo!

My First Alaska (Summer 2005)*

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It started with the lake

and the spruce trees leaned

in for a better look.

My toes wandered

into the water,

which threw out

glacial-silt blue

and reflected a grey sky.

Toes exploring further,

ahead of myself so that

the snow-born water crept

up my legs and I was soon

on my back.

Mushrooms popped tops

of heads up through

moist dirt to peep.

My toes led the way,

becoming glacial themselves

as the Alaskan current

carried me out of the lake and to

the river.

I flowed.

Mist began to fall

and I became

a blue totem:

beaver knees,

eagle mound,

moose-antler breasts,

grizzly-bear hair.

My skin crystallized,

forming snowflake stars

over my fingers,

shins,

then finally

my middle.

Cracked.

As a close summer sun

came out

my blue star

skin melted

and I became the Kenai.

*As I was packing and preparing for my move, I found this little number that I had written my first time in Alaska.  Revisiting it after 8 years, I can see quite a few revisions I would want to make, but I wanted to post it in its original.   I’m wondering how my impressions and experience of Alaska this time around will compare with my memories.

Writing Challenge: When the Goddesses Come Out

Jaclyn12 Comments

 

 

Nymphs, goddesses, apsaras, maenads!  It’s May.  There’s a fresh exhilaration in the air.  Mother’s Day is coming up.  I have been incredibly inspired by all those bloggers who did the A-Z blogging challenge in April.  These things all fit together nicely in a little challenge that I am setting for myself.  This month, I am endeavoring to write about 26 strong, creative women from mythology.  So, the goal is to write 26 short stories, one based on a female mythological figure for each letter of the alphabet.  Feel free to join me, or to set your own goal for this month.  New growth and new beginnings are in the air!

 

A special Creative-Commons “Thanks!” to itjournalist from flickr for the photo!

Full Pink Moon

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It’s the golden hour, and all the plants are glowing as I make my way up the hill.  The sky is shocking, pink and blue and purple, as if suddenly bruising from its collision with the earth.  I want to reach up and comfort its throbbing beauty.  The turning leaves soak up the last bits of sun and radiate as if they were autumnal lanterns.  They light my way as the air turns dark.

The turning of the season and my northern-hemisphere body are at odds.  It’s nearly Beltane.  My blood wants to dance around fires throwing the cozy scarves and mittens of hibernation wantonly to the wind.  My skin is expectant with the warmth of new beginnings, and yet the gusts here are becoming harsher.  I push on.  It’s not fall for me.

As the final rays of the day tuck themselves in behind clouds and hills, I reach the well.  The very sight of the clearing tugs at something inside me.  I finger the stones, making them melt and turn to sand, as if they were an old lover who’d been waiting for my touch.

In response, I remove my shoes and socks.  My toes dig into the dirt and rocks dig back into my soles.  The breeze lifts my shirt and grazes my belly.  It’s all the impetus I need.  The wind keeps nibbling at me, encouraging me, and so I tie my clothes to the hawthorn tree.

It’s cloudy tonight and I know it’s no accident.  The moon is hiding in the shadow of the earth, tucked in the darkness of her cave as if in hibernation.  She’s just waiting for her moment.  It’s an up-side-down celebration here.  The leaves are beginning to saunter away from their branches.   The night is still pregnant with the potential of sprouts and seedlings, even as Antarctic winds raise mountain ranges of goose bumps on my skin.

I start a fire and I know you will be here soon.  I wonder how many logs and how much kindling we will need to last through the night.  The moon is flush and full.  Beneath my feet, the phlox creep further and further from the well.  The pink moss stretches its feelers toward unknown lands, testing whether those grounds hold lives that it can live.  The dainty flowers look up to the moon and howl, reflecting her full, surprised face back in their flushed cheeks.  They beam on a night like tonight.  They gather in such numbers and their blushing blazes so brightly that even the moon blushes back.

You come with logs for the fire and no words.  Before long we have our own sun flickering before us. “Ne’er cast a cloot ‘til Mey’s oot,” they warned us.  It’s not quite May, but it is time to cast our clothes.  The cold of the April wind nibbles at our skin and makes it blush, in brazen mimicry of the pink moon.  The light is deafening, and I am exposed, as are you.  The heat of the fire makes my frontside glow.  The cold of the April wind turns my backside pink.  I am round and glowing, a perfect salmon moon.

We dance in circles, falling into orbit around the fire.  I am drunk on the pollen wafting through the air, and red, yellow, and brown leaves swirl around me.  I can no longer tell whether I am surrounded by flames or trees or both.  Stars leap from the fire, embers fall from the sky.  I collapse into the embrace of the infinite.

Lost in space like this, there is no north and south, no spring or fall, only the endless expanse of new fires being lit.

 

 

Creative Commons love to phil dokas from flickr for the stunning photo!

Fall in the Long White Cloud

Jaclyn9 Comments

It’s a wet kind of cold, the kind that still allows things to grow.  The cloudy sky and diffused light makes the green of the plants more striking and they glisten with the drops of rain.  Actually, the rain doesn’t quite drop.  The air is so thick with water that it falls in a mist, mot even heavy enough to be a drizzle.  It makes me feel like I am walking through a long, white cloud, as if I am so far above the earth that I am inside the sky.  Only the moss reminds me that I am at sea level.

The tree outside my window has been dying all summer, but now, in the cold of the autumn rain it has begun again to grow.  It also seems confused by these antipodean seasons.  It lost its leaves in the shining sun of the summer drought, and now that it’s fall, it’s sprouting new life.

The koru seem unsure about whether or not to open.  I am sure I’ve seen the ferny tendrils on my path tentatively stretch open, and now they’ve closed again, as if pulling back from the abrupt, damp, winter.  Their spiral fractals seem to contract and breathe, opening timidly and closing again.

It’s on days like this I long to be outside, to feel the growth and life.  The plants and ground feel full with the potential that the rain brings, bursting with possibility and expectant growth.  I want that potential, that possibility, that growth.

 

 

This is a little birthday present from New Zealand for my awesome, amazing, inspiring cousin, Janelle.  

 

Also, Kiwi Creative Commons love to Brenda Anderson for the photo.  Thanks so much!

Agaonidae (Thailand. Summer 2006.)

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Part I

It began with the fig. It will end with the fig as well. She was my mother, the womb from which I was born and she is my home. She gave life to the forest, feeding gibbons and hornbills, civets and barking deer. But only I am of her.

Before my time, she attracted a body swollen with eggs that soon would grow into me, my sisters and brothers, and him. This swollen wasp body forced her way home, losing antennae and wings in her struggle to enter the fig. They danced together, a dance which would end in death; which is to say, a dance ending in new life. The wasp would not make it out alive. She implanted her eggs into the flesh of my mother, knowing all along it was only a trap.

Part II

I had barely opened my eyes and he was there. It was my lifes first movement to reach for him, tiny legs reaching for his tiny gentle body. Though the fig was our womb, it was he who gave birth to me. He had eaten through the walls of the egg holding me in. For now, I could stretch my wings, and now I knew of a world outside of myself. My wings wrapped around him, enclosing us both, creating a tiny screen to shield from the hundreds of other wasp bodies performing the same frenzied ritual. The flowers of the fig caressed us and showered us with pollen, the holy water of creation. There was no such thing as close enough.

and i left him there

Part III

And just like that everything came undone. My whole world exploded in spirals of starry pollen, glistening with the reflection of a sun I had never seen. The powdery gold coated my abdomen and legs, turned my black hair blonde. Rattan palms turned their fanned gazes upward. Macaques tilted curious heads in my direction. The butterflies all were still. The whole forest held its breath as it watched life’s fairy-dust rain down from my mother fig.

Under these vigilant eyes, my sisters and I fly skyward, the new dilettantes of the forest, in a synchronized ballroom-dance search for purpose. Fig-pollen for lipstick and rouge, we shine. Our lacy wings make us the angels of new life. Drip-tip leaves offer their hands in marriage, strangler figs try to tie us down. But we know we are meant for more than that. We are swollen with the children of the forest.

Creative Commons love to http://www.flickr.com/photos/jingleslenobel/ for the amazing picture!

Dry Flies (Thailand. Summer 2011.)

Jaclyn5 Comments

Dry Flies

Ten eyes blink
in an unfamiliar brightness.
You both almost remember
seeing this sun before.
Some time before the darkness,
before you slept with roots and grubs,
before your premature burials,
before the prime number
of years spent waiting.

The temperature is right.
It’s your four minutes, the soil urges.
Take it. Take it.

Seventeen years this moment has
grown and molted, hid and sighed,
waited and waited to sing.

It’s not time to store for winter.
It’s time to leave empty selves behind,
clinging to bark and dust.
It’s time to shed golden skins.

Vines pause their swaying,
mangoes hold their breath,
leaf corpses don’t even rustle.
The dog day is silent.

It’s loud at first, furious and brave,
drunk with the newness of light.
It’s not a matter of legs or violins.
Bodies resound as ribs rub together.

The song becomes a whisper
as you near each other,
gentler, like a snake in the leaves.
It’s no longer for coaxing,
no longer for the eyes of the trees.

Branches are split.

Later, much later,
buttressed trees will burst with children,
nymphs will rain from their twiggy fingers,
speckled-dust life and the promise of song
will fall to a summery, shimmery floor.

But now, it’s not time to store for winter.

Creative Commons love to http://www.flickr.com/photos/pennstatelive/ for the photo of “Cicadas” etching by Marilyn McPheron.