a mountaintop view
wind rushes in and lifts me
feel like I can fly
I recognized the handwriting on the envelope. My aunt’s Ps look like fancy musical notes. The letter inside told me she was desperate for me to bring a batch of beigeberries to Hutchinson, Kansas. Was it really time for the Kansas State Fair already? Every year she competes in the choose-a-berry pie-making contest. She loses every year, and every year after she loses she vows that next year will be the year she’ll finally win. Last year her blueberry pie didn’t just lose the contest, it made one of the judges break out in hives.
“I’ve tried strawberries, raspberries, and huckleberries. I even made a pie with grapes,” she cried. “Next year you’ll bring me beigeberries and I’ll be sure to win.”
Beigeberries are rare. The only place they grow on the entire planet is in the town where I live, in a little field behind my house. You’d think a berry named “beige” would be boring and flavorless, but beigeberries are delicious. They’re also tiny. Very, very tiny. A whole pie will need at least a million beigeberries. I’d better start picking.
I’m Violet and I’m going to tell you about a book that is about seven pieces of paper that are different colors and different shapes. The book also has a chicken and a fish and a bird and a snail and a frog. And do you know what? The chicken and the fish and the bird and the snail and the frog are all made up of the seven pieces of paper that are different colors and different shapes and that probably sounds strange but when you see the pictures in the book you will understand how the shapes can be moved around to look like different animals. At the end of the book the wind blows the shapes into a pile of shapes for the reader to use to move around to make other animals or toys or cars or food or houses or whatever the reader can imagine the shapes can make up by being put together in different ways.
Swimmingly haiku
Cool and refreshingThe water surrounds me nowI float blissfullyTreading, head bobbingSquinting in the midday sunI feel so weightlessI am so happySwimming in a crisp, clean poolAt peace with the world
The lightning bugs are out all day fluttering about on the patio, hopping from shrub to lawn. It’s not until it’s finally dark outside that I see their yellow-green lights. I wonder if they glow in the day, too, but that their lights don’t show up in the day. They flash slowly. I follow one as it lifts in the air, glow slowly fading. I can see the bug’s silhouette hovering and try to follow it until it winks on again. Against the backdrop of a border of evergreens, the bugs look like Christmas lights. I see the bugs flicker in the neighbors’ yards, too—a galaxy of stars in the suburbs.
“Can you help me?” he asked.I wasn’t too busy, so I agreed. Plus, I was curious what an elephant would want from me.He showed me a string he had tied around his toe. It was supposed to help him remember something, but it wasn’t working.I tried to jog his memory:Is it to remind you to get milk at the grocery store?No.Return a library book?No.Do your homework?No.Wish your best friend happy birthday?No.Walk your dog?I don’t have a dog.Feed your fish?No.Practice your ukulele?What?Is it to help you remember to practice your ukulele?Is what to help me remember to practice your ukulele?That string.What string?
