I forgot to freeze time . . .
My baby is 17 years old today. I swear when I tucked him in just yesterday he was still my baby boy, but when the sun rose again today he stood before me, almost a man. He still smiles at me with the same precious grin, his eyes still twinkle the way they always have, and when he puts his arms around me, they still wrap around my heart. It’s different now though, before, it felt like I was holding him, now it seems he’s holding me.
I still look at him and see the little man he used to be, I’m sure I always will, but I also see the young man he has become. He is smart and kind, gentle and generous. He fills me with pride and joy and the purest of love.
He is his own person, unique and courageous, forging his own path rather than following one well-worn by others. His wears his faith for all to see, he leads instead of follows, and he takes every step with confidence.
He’s always been the baby brother, but he somehow knew in his earliest years he would sometimes have to gently guide his older brothers every now and then. He learned patience and compassion before he could understand the concepts of them. His brothers taught him many things while he was unknowingly teaching them. I know it isn’t easy to have siblings with special needs, but he embraced the role with grace and love.
I respect the young man he has grown to be, I admire him. I know there will come a tomorrow when I awake to the simple silence of an empty home, so today, I will cherish the fullness it still holds.
Crystal R. Cook
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The Chaos by G. Nolst Trenité
They say if you can properly pronounce each word with proficiency, you’ve mastered our marvelous language with honors . . . Read it aloud and see how well you do!
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation — think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough —
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!
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What if we chose?
It begins within, listening to our hearts, not the world around us. I choose . . . we all have a choice.
How much of how we feel about our fellow man has been dictated by the prejudice of others? Resentments from the sins and sorrows of those who have come before us remain, festering and growing in their absence. We feed them, we nurture them and we pass them on.
We copy and paste them into our own psyche, we adopt them without question. Sheep following an unseen shepherd to the slaughter. I too often hear people trying to justify and defend their attitudes and opinions with false arguments and phony indignation.
The thoughts they think are not their own, merely recycled resentments inherited from family, friends and foes of people they may have never known. Willingly passing on these ideals to the next generation without questioning why.
If we stopped to think for ourselves, would we see their experiences are not our own? Would we realize we have shaped our world based on the broken model of theirs? Would we notice we’ve damaged it even more in the name of progress and change? Would we see we can’t look at our own experiences through the tainted lenses of the past?
Our country is more divisive and separated and prejudice than it was before many of us took our first breath of life. Our society has managed to twist the dreams that once were, we have found new ways to undermine each other, to build walls of separation as we pretend to tear them down.
We say we want equality in this country but equality is just a concept, it can never be achieved, especially when everyone who cries out for it seems to want more than the rest. There can never be equality while there are those who have no means to even stand in line to receive it.
We use the word acceptance when what we really want is applause. We fight for what we call human rights when we have forgotten what human rights really are. We fight for freedom of expression but place restrictions upon it. We right for freedom of religion but we really want everyone to agree with our own beliefs . . . at least that is what we accuse each other of, slowly molding it into a reality.
The needs of the some have become more important than the needs of the many. We champion the criminals and forget their victims. We shout platitudes to placate the masses in a cacophony of false hopes and empty promises. The ones who fight for our country are now second in line to those who invade it.
We are broken by the choices we’ve made . . . Soon, their won’t be enough to mend.
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Not for self, but country . . .
A debt we cannot repay . . .
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All gave some . . . Some gave all.
Honoring our fallen heroes . . .
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In The company of Angels
I seem to run a cross these words whenever someone needs to hear them, I have learned to never ignore the small voice that gently urges me to share. If this is meant for your heart, I hope it brings some comfort.
I know you cannot see me, but I’m hoping you will hear,
the message I am whispering, so softly in your ear.
I know I left too quickly, there wasn’t time to say goodbye,
for when the angels came, I simply had to fly.
I caught a glimpse of Heaven in the twinkling of their eyes,
and I couldn’t help but follow, as they began to rise.
Heaven is so beautiful, how I wish that you were here,
I would hold you close, and softly wipe away your tears.
I’m in the company of angels, for eternity I’ll remain,
free from earthly sorrow, from fear and doubt and pain.
In the company of angels, I will stand and wait,
I’ll be keeping watch, near Heavens pearly gate.
I know the day will come, I will see you enter in,
as angels sing in praise, we’ll be together once again.
I love you oh so much, please try not to cry,
I have the softest wings, oh how I love to fly.
Maybe you will feel them, wrapping round you as you sleep,
I will live forever in the memories that you keep.
I am in the company of angels now, please do not despair,
I’ll meet you at the pearly gates, I’ll be waiting there . . .
Crystal R. Cook
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Always Have Faith
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You are enough
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Inspiration
Inspiration . . . the often elusive treasure every wandering muse searches for. Inspiration is the heart and soul of a writer’s world. Inspiration breathes life into the written word. Without it, a writer could not weave a work of words into a beautiful tapestry for a reader to behold.
Inspiration generally finds me when I am not seeking it. It may rise from the ashes of heartache or drift in on the wings of a gentle spring zephyr. I have been inspired by the innocence of a sleeping babe, by the perfect sound of a child’s laughter and by sadness seen in the eyes of a grieving widow.
Often, when I am looking for inspiration, it seems there is none to be found until it sneaks in and surprises me in a quiet moment. Inspiration likes to wake me in the dark of night and steal my slumber, my sleepy eyes blur the words I pen to the page by the light of a midnight moon. I know too well if I wait until the morn, the moment will have passed and what could have been written will never be wrote.
Many find inspiration in the world around them, some find it within themselves. I have been inspired by questions asked and by answers given. I have found inspiration in the breathtaking beauty of a butterfly’s wing and in the clouded eyes of an old man on the corner, sitting in silence as people pass him by.
An American flag tattered yet proud, flowing freely and strong. The image of a soldier kneeling in faithful prayer, not knowing what tomorrow will bring, and watching trees gently sway as they dance with the wind. The sound of raindrops on a rooftop or the softness of skin, aged gracefully with time. The worn binding and soft pages of a treasured, old book. These are but a few of the many things which have inspired me.
I’ve been inspired by once forgotten memories that somehow found their way back to me. There are times when pain is my inspiration, instead of letting it fester, I let whatever words come bring healing. Unexpected inspiration can be born of anger and angst, I’ve found healing in these moments as well.
I have learned inspiration comes when it will. I have also learned to look and listen and feel everything within me and around me, so when it comes round it will not easily pass me by.
For some time now, I’ve not heeded the call to write when it beckoned and begged me to spill new words upon a page. I’ve once again opened my eyes and my ears and my heart to the inspirations that have long been crying out in effort to be noticed.
This blog, this new chapter is strange and exciting. Until now I’ve kept so much of what I have poured onto the page for myself. I’ve been my own worst critic. I’ve let self-doubt take my hand and lead me astray. I’ve limited myself to paragraphs and chapters here and there, tiny samplings of what I hold inside. I’ve published randomly around the web, articles that merely left me aching to write more, stifled by word counts and subject matter.
Perhaps, in part, this was the reason I stopped clicking away at the keys and jotting down thoughts and dreams. The reasons why are meaningless now, I’ve taken this leap of faith and as sure as God gives me the words I share, He will continue to provide inspiration . . .
Crystal R. Cook
The Qwiet Muse 