Blue Bard Forget-Me-Nots

The fifty something man lifted his head off the wooden table; his brow was creased with sleep and time. He had woken suddenly to the smell of rot coming from the garbage. He pushed his hands up on the table and got up. His body ached and he felt the effects of last night's bottle. Whiskey was expensive these days, so he had taken to drinking the stuff mixed with vodka. My god, it was the worst, but it helped him pass out; he didn’t really care if he went to bed anymore.

His mind was lit on the desire for what was past and, try as he may, he could not stop seeing ghosts everywhere he looked.

He peered into his toothpaste spattered, plastic rim mirror and felt the heaviness of a life of memory which now seemed distant. Instead of warm musical days of warmth and sun, he was in the place called grief. As he washed his face and added more spatter to the mirror, he decided that today would be a different kind of day. He was finally going to burn the pear tree. He put his boots on, grabbed his ax and went to the old barn space to get some lighter fuel. It was so hard for him to go in. For the past 2 years, he had to drink in order to feel anything.

Today, he decided to listen to his wife’s voice and go through the cleansing process, as she would have calmly reminded him. He found the lighter fuel with the other flammables that so many artists need in order to work with oil paint. He studied the painting on the easel: a blue, barn owl. He had never really understood her fascination with the color blue. His wife would make anything blue. Twas a true mystery to him, but at least he always knew her favorite color. He grimaced at the thought and wished they had the last part of this life to be together.

She looked at herself through the misty, blue veils of time. Her hair was dark, long and curly. The moon was woven into her locks. Blue feathers swirled about. She had participated in a musical house party the previous eve and had awakened to a scene like a 1960’s boudoir space. Daisies floated on the curtains in the morning sun, and she marveled at the dust bunnies glistening in the new light. String music buzzed in the background and the energy in the house felt like a grand yawn followed by a raucous party. As she looked into the plastic mirror, even though it had been gilded with a new layer of golden spray paint, she remembered white toothpaste splatter.

She needed a cigarette. The owl had returned in her memories, and she needed to ponder. She opened the door to her short-lived home for the previous evening and walked through the living room. The record player was still, albeit more quietly than last night, spinning tunes for the unconscious individuals on the couch. She shook her head as she tiptoed through the living room and giggled quietly to herself. As the booze had flowed last night, she had wanted to feel the energy of something like home but knew to back off the booze. Alcohol only brought her memories she didn’t wish to process, and she remembered closing the door behind her last night to a man who had red in his eyes and disrespect in his heart. Why did men now think it appropriate to wait to express interest at the exact time they were so messed up on any and all substances? At least she could practice some moderation and keep her wits about her. She had learned this over time. After two years of couch surfing and working odd jobs, she knew how to navigate the slippery slope of addiction, because everyone wants to get the pretty, traveling girl drunk for a good time.

She lit the cigarette and allowed her heart to remember. Her mother had placed owl feathers in her crib...even now, at 33 years old, she could remember the feather sweeping over her baby cheeks and prayers being spoken over her life. Perhaps she was crazy to remember such early memories? Perhaps the owl feather had been a kind of magic to remind her of the immense journey this life can be with its many twists and turns. Only wisdom would dictate which road she chose next. She sighed as she put out her cigarette in an ashtray shaped like a dragon, curled up on its side, sleeping as it accepted humanity’s fiery refuse. What being could be better at transmuting the dank, dusty energy of past memories?

She smiled at the dragon and sang it a song, “May your fire be bright in your belly. May you swoop down and be justice for those who feel powerless in their lives. May you soar on wings of thunder and may your fiery breath be a protective hedge for those who walk in spirit and live close to Earth.” She hummed her tune and decided to gather her things and get down the road. She had some friends to visit and a lake day sounded marvelous. She wanted to jump into the water and allow buoyancy to cradle her till memories didn’t feel so painful.

He remembered how proud he and his wife, Aponi, had been. When he had met her, all he could see was the twinkle of hope in her eyes and the steadfast resolve to build a better life for herself than the one she had been born into. He would never forget how she preferred earthen colors and almost always wore blue. She had meticulously researched the local habitat for all the critters in the area. He had to admit he was a silly country boy with little knowledge of homeostasis, as she would have reminded him, but he did know how to wield an ax and he hoped to be a very good lover of her. He would never understand how their little, beautiful life had been shattered so quickly by powers outside of themselves and they had been too weak to overcome, at least, this is how he felt as he picked up the bottle and took a swig. Spittle dripped out of the left side of his mouth and his bib overalls smelled of stale tobacco and grief. He remembered the smell of freshly baked pear pie before he had taken off on the road again. Oh, and remembered his rage as he took an ax to the pear tree in the back of the farm by the creek.

The owl had chosen a favorite place. For the owl, the old, dilapidated barn made of maple and cedar slats was perfect for protecting and raising its young. The mamma owl had raised so many broods in her short life. She looked over and hunted mice in the barnyard. It had been a perfectly chosen space to adequately feed her young and protect them. The sounds on the farm had changed and now, instead of humans acting like birds, she could hear the silent weeping into a pillow. The nights had become quieter, the weeping had been replaced by drunken snores. The barn owl felt the wind shift under the midday sun. Mothers know when their children are coming home. She swiveled her head to better hear a car pull up in the driveway. A feather fell from her cozy neck and landed on the barn floor amidst dust bunnies and paint splatter.

Amelia lit an incense stick and poked it into the cigarette holder in her car. She rolled down the windows and put on some salty, dude music. Oh, those country singers who speak of loving a woman’s heart. She hummed along and imagined jumping off an imaginary houseboat into the water and swimming like a mer-lady with a suntanned man she had yet to meet. She wondered if she was crazy to dream now...she felt her father’s broken heart and what had happened. She had spent the past two years protesting oil pipelines, pesticide laden vegetables and hoped that humanity would soon see who it’s true adversary is: chemically laden food, ruined countryside and water contaminated by not-so- invisible monsters which permeate our daily lives in insidious ways.

The thing about slow poisoning is that we don’t realize it’s happening until we are too tired to fight it.

Her mother would have said that fighting was for people who wanted to throw their energy at swine and would have said it while throwing paint at a canvas. Aponi's tinkering shed of delights, as she said, was speckled with bright paints, decorated with stick figures of silly creatures made of cast-off car parts. An old record player was in the corner and an easel was propped up close by which proudly featured whatever cartoonish picture she was conjuring. The old barn was more her mother's space than the house had ever been, and she was known to disappear into it's tinkering delights for hours on end with only the barn owl for company.

She remembered the day her mother had passed out after commenting, for a couple weeks, she had been so tired and that her bones were hurting so much they felt on fire. Aponi had laughingly passed it off as being nothing more than a symptom of old age. Amelia had found her in bed after long past the time her mother would have normally been up, making coffee and singing with the new birdies of the day. Her mother’s breath was shallow. She called an ambulance and waited. Amelia knew in her belly that her mother was very ill. Hot tears poured down her face as she remembered pear pie and songs sang while baking.

That had been a good day. Oh, mamma, remember the good days in your sleep, right now, and, please, may you heal and come back to me. We have so many more songs to sing. Amelia took an owl feather from the bedside table and put it in her mother’s hand. She didn’t know how to tell her father, yet. He was states away, in his semi-truck, delivering his current haul of chickens from the neighboring chicken farm. The girl abhorred the sight of that chicken farm as she knew that the stench emanating from it did not equal a good life for the creatures under its long roofs. Her mother didn’t like the fact that her husband made money by transporting the contaminated meat, but, where they lived and to keep the farm, it was a necessary thing to do. Someday, their plan was to be totally self-sustaining, but, first, the farm had to be paid off.

When the ambulance arrived, Amelia picked up her sketchbook and swung her purse over her shoulder. She would not allow her mother to be alone through this and she would write every bit of her memory down.

Aponi woke very slowly in the nearest town’s hospital. Amelia had brought the owl feathers with her and made sure that one was still safely in her mother’s hands. When her mother opened her eyes more fully, she took a deep breath of air and then shuddered from the exertion. Amelia waited for her mother to come into more present awareness. She saw her mother tighten her hand around the owl feather and then peace pass over her face. Amelia knew that her mother's mind was back home with her barn owl and paints.

The doctor entered shortly after her mother awoke. He had a very solemn look in his eyes. He seemed to take his job very seriously and Amelia was grateful for his calming, sincere presence in the room. He instructed Amelia to sit down and reassured her that they now had answers as to her mother’s condition.

“Aponi”, the doctor spoke her name very calmly and reassuringly, “I have some news after your blood test came back. At least, now we know what the problem is, we can focus on solutions and help you get better.”

Amelia felt her body tense up as she awaited the news. She looked into her mother’s face and saw that Aponi already knew what the doctor was going to say.

Her mother looked into the doctor’s eyes, sighed and held the owl feather tightly in her hands, “Doctor, I already know. It’s cancer. Just spit it out. You know, I was never one to drag my feet around when it comes to the truth. You already know that so many in our community have been affected by this particular disease and I am just another statistic.”

The doctors' eyes widened and then he took a gulp of air, “Yes, Aponi, you do have cancer and the cancer is already in your bloodstream. I am so very sorry.”

Amelia studied her mother’s reaction and swallowed her own. She had to be brave for her family. She could cry later.

Aponi closed her eyes and stroked the owl feather. She took a breath and then looked at the doctor, “Doc, my people have been saying for so long: if we do not take care of what the Earth needs, then she will rid us from her. Remember, I may be another statistic in medical journals, my body will return to Earth, and she will judge humanity for their irreverent behavior. Do you know what kind of feather I am holding?”

The doctor calmly looked at his patient and simply nodded his head to affirm he was patiently listening. The woman whom he was looking at was right, but who in the medical industry would listen? He knew she was right; even after years of valiantly supporting his own medical profession, he had to acknowledge his lack of foresight when he was a young medical student. Now, he was, on the side, growing marijuana plants in his basement and secretly giving them to his cancer patients. He kept these thoughts to himself as he studied Aponi and Amelia. They were such beautiful women. He sighed and said, “No, Aponi, I do not know what kind of feather you have in your hands. How does it help you?”

Aponi smiled and answered, “Oh, doctor, this feather helps me to create and see even in the dark. It helps me remember the birds eye view life is very circular in its expanse. This particular barn owl has been screeching in my ear for the past 3 years. She roosted in my old barn of a work studio and has been raising her brood in there since. I realized that she was seeking safety as we all are from the little unseen monsters which leach our life force in this world. I kindly welcomed her and she has been dropping feathers for me ever since.”

Amelia closed her sketch book and gasped. She heard all of her mother and the doc’s words, but her heart had started beating so fast that the sound of their words was muffled. All she could hear in her mind was the sound of rushing water and heart beat...dum, dum, dum, shhhhhhh, dum, dum, dum, shhhhhh. She listened to the beat and felt her heart steady. She looked at her mother and breathed.

They were sitting in the middle of a vortex of destiny and none of them could fight this.

When Amelia got home, she called her father. He always called every night to check on her mother and the farm, but she wanted to make sure to communicate with him as soon as possible. He needed to know now. When he picked up the phone, there was country music in the background and the rumble of tires on paved road, “Howdy, Amelia, baby! I am truckin’ along! Home soon! How are things on the farmstead?” Amelia gulped and hated to be the one to take the shine out of her father’s voice. “Oh, Dad, I gotta tell you something...it’s about mom...” Her voice started to crackle and she told herself not to cry, “Dad, mom is in the hospital.”

She heard her father take a deep breath and pull over to the side of the road. After some moments had passed, she heard him turn off the truck with a gurgle. Then, his voice came through the speaker on the phone again,

“Amelia, what’s wrong?”

He was trying to be strong.

She understood and finally spit it out, “Dad, Mom has cancer.”

She heard his sharp intake of breath and then he said, “I will be home as soon as I can. Give her a tight squeeze from me. I know she will be stubborn through this. Tell her, I will be there to make her smile with some banjo pluckin’.”

Amelia silently cried and said, “Ok, Dad. I love you, Please, be safe and I know mom will be so happy to see you.”

Amelia walked out to her mother’s workspace of a barn and opened the door. The place smelled of dust, incense, dried paint and engine oil. She sat down on the floor, right in the middle of the space, and closed her eyes. The barn owl screeched midday above her head. Amelia found herself transported to another space where death was not real...just part of a circle. She opened her eyes and saw three feathers on the ground and then gathered them very calmly. As she looked up into the rafters, the owl looked at her with a deep, intense knowing stare. It was like the bird could see her soul. The owl majestically covered her nest and just kept looking at Amelia. Amelia stared back and saw stars with a flash of her future. Maybe her mother couldn’t fight, but she could.

She walked out of the work barn with the feathers in her hand and meandered to the flagpole. She and her mother had installed it a few years ago. They had proudly hoisted a blue flag as their symbolic way of saying that they would harmoniously live with nature and reminded the outside world that they had sanctioned their farm as a safe space for healing. Amelia had brought some thread and needle with her as well. She pulled the flag down the pole and then started to hum. She attached the barn owl feathers to the blue flag in a flowing display and hoisted it back over the farm.

Amelia looked up into the sky. She was floating in endless azure and felt her entire weight suspended in water. She could hear her friends on the beach, laughing and cracking open beers. She remembered the day her mother had died. After the diagnosis, they had two weeks with her before she passed on into spirit. Amelia smiled as she remembered her mother’s doctor showing up on their property with a gift shortly after Amelia had brought her mother home. The doctor knocked on the door and, upon seeing Amelia, simply offered her a brown paper bag. She looked in it and then smelled the green buds' heady scent, “Um, doc, you can get in a lot of trouble for doing this.”

The doctor looked at Amelia and shook his head at her words, “Amelia, I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t offer you all some way to help her feel better in the time she has left. I so wish that I would have caught her cancer earlier.” The doctor squeezed Amelia’s hand and turned around to walk back to his truck. Before he left, he shouted to Amelia and hoped Aponi was awake to hear, “May your mother heal and may you all enjoy your time together. If you need anything at all, please give me a call.”

Amelia immediately rolled a joint and gave it to her mother. Aponi laughed as she felt her body relax. “Amelia,” she said, “Make some butter with the rest and, please, put it in all the food!” Amelia laughed at her mother’s candor and set to work. Her father came home that night. Yes, there had been many tears, but she would always remember the music from that night. Her banjo playing father was her mother’s personal symphony. Amelia always sang the birdie harmonies, as her mother called them. Bittersweet. That’s one of the words she had written in her journal about the last two weeks with her mother. Aponi Williams passed on two weeks after her diagnosis. Who knows how long she had ignored her symptoms? Her mother had flown away into the grand spirit swirl of life.

The day her mother had died, her father bought a bottle from the nearest gas station. He preferred whiskey, so that’s what he drank on his way back to the pear tree. He knew that the tree was close to a neighboring farm which sprayed pesticides all over their crops and the tree drank from the same stream that was contaminated by the chicken farm up the road.

He took a couple pulls off the bottle and started swinging. The tree fell with all of its fruit scattering on the ground. He turned around and left the tree. Later, on a drunken eve, Amelia would get a call from a neighbor saying that they saw a fire at her father’s house. When she called the farmhouse phone, her father assured her that he had only set fire to the pear tree.

She felt her father’s loneliness, but also knew that she needed to be away from the farm for a while. She had left Kansas and had been couch surfing the entire Midwest while she networked with the Muskogee Tribal Nation and campaigned for water rights and pesticide free environment. The pain of her mother's death had taught her about justice. She knew that without peace, which is wholeness, the world would not know peace. She had left the farm to help others see this. She was tired now. After two years of being away, the girl felt a pulse glide through her body, emanating from her belly, up her spine and then buzzing in her head. She felt the calm sense of direction fill her senses and she breathed in the wonder of life.

Amelia swam to the rocks on the water's edge and pulled herself out of the water. She looked at her best friend and said, “It’s time. I need to go home for a while”. Her friend Hannah reminded Amelia so much of her mother. Hannah was wearing a bathing suit with owls printed all over it and could identify any rock on this big rock we share. Amelia trusted Hannah more than most others.

Hannah immediately understood what Amelia needed to do and pulled her in for a big hug. Amelia gathered her things and called her dad on the way back into town. She threw her pack of cigarettes out the window...yeah, she had littered, but she felt Mamma would forgive her the symbolic gesture and, hey, maybe some hobo on the road would find them.

It wasn’t really that long of a drive back into Kansas. She loved the open expanse of sky. She always thought that the sky was the angelic ocean and she loved imagining her mother surfing with the other angels every day. Lucky them.

She parked her car in front of the house and looked at the flagpole: one owl feather was left dangling from the flag. Storms had probably come and carried a couple away.

She turned and walked inside the farmhouse, “Dad! Are you here?” She walked around. The place was the same, really, aside from the empty bottles of whisky around the trashcan and the smell of rotting compost. Her father had still remembered her mother’s recycling rule: only what you can compost goes into the trash, everything else should be reused or recycled. He hadn’t taken the compost out for a few days.

She walked out of the house and went to her mother’s old barn workspace. She opened the rickety door and found her father inside. He was sitting on her mother’s painting stool and looking at the last piece of art her mother had been working on. It was a painting of a blue owl. Amelia stood quietly and observed the scene. Her father shakily looked up at her and smiled. He got up and wrapped his arms around her, “It is so good to see you. This pappa bear missed you!”

Amelia smelled her father's smell and breathed deep, “Dad, did you know I started smoking cigarettes?”

Her father looked at her and pushed her away a bit and looked into her eyes, “Amelia, the apple never falls far, I reckon.”

That was his way. He would never judge someone for his own sins.

Amelia felt so much like a little girl begging her father’s forgiveness. Then, as she looked into his eyes, she realized forgiveness was never really meant to be asked for in this life: it was given without strings. Justice, on the other hand, needed the gaze of her mother's blue barn owl. The barn owl above screeched and Amelia decided to plant blue forget-me-nots in the space where the pear tree had stood for so many years.