September 2023Bay to Ocean Journal Spotlight Writers |
Emily Decker Reflections on a York River Oyster I. Top Photo by: ben stern/Unsplash.com
| Alice Morris Riding With Bees The swarm is in a bag in the back of their station wagon. As her father drives, nine-year-old Stacy wonders how many people would willingly ride across town with thousands of bees in their car, windows rolled-up to muffle outside sounds, which helps keep the bees calm. Stacy thinks about the dangers of riding with bees––if the bag isn’t tied off tight enough, if the queen finds any hole, wanders out, every bee will follow––and attack. There could be collisions. Someone could die. Stacy looks at her red-faced father staring straight ahead, hands gripping the wheel. She knows not to speak to him. Knows he is tense. She needs a breath of fresh air; hopes he will soon crack his window. She doesn’t dare open hers first. From her beekeeping father, Stacy learned about bees as he used the tip of his putty knife to point out workers––drones––queen. With hive opened, she’d watched and learned about the cooperative, efficient, hard-working ways of bees, which she greatly admired. She knew if she could have one wish it would be for her father to run his own home like a colony of bees––instead, he was the long-clawed bear that ripped their hive apart. Stacy learned to keep her distance, except when it came to bees. Always she went along when he collected a swarm. Beforehand, she watched him prepare the new hive. At the swarm as her father puts on white overalls, veil, and gloves, Stacy tells terrified onlookers to keep voices low, stay back in the shade––tells them the bees don’t want to sting, but they will protect their queen! Purposely she doesn’t say that before swarming bees engorge on honey, so most are too doped-up to sting. By making her father look brave and heroic Stacey can earn a few precious days on his good side. All eyes on the beekeeper, her father brings out the smoker, gathers a handful of dry grass, gets a fire going inside the metal canister––first smoke seeping from nozzle. Pressing the bellows, he sends sweet-smelling smoke floating. Walking slowly towards the swarm, more smoke puffs as guard bees attack this invader. Just beneath the beautiful buzzing mass, Stacy’s father lays out a white sheet, evenly, flat. Ladder against tree he climbs, smokes the swarm, then gave the branch one fast snap. En masse the swarm drops to the sheet, lays two inches deep on a sea of white. Her father then gathers the four corners, shakes the bees toward a single opening, and as if they’ve become liquid he pours them into the waiting bag like water. With a piece of cardboard, he whisks away any bees clinging to his clothing, then scoops up clumps of strays, flicks them into the bag. Then the knot tied tight. Only when off the highway does her father crack his window, glance at Stacey, allow a smile. Stacey then cracks her window knowing she has earned a few safe days. Top Photo by: wolfgang hasselmann/Unsplash.com
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July 2023Bay to Ocean Journal Spotlight Writers |
Russell Reece Stolen In the fall of 1967 I was finally home after a difficult tour in Vietnam. But disconnecting hadn’t been easy. My mind often wandered back and gruesome images left me anxious and unsettled. Uncle Jack had offered me a weekend at the cabin on Bear Lake. “A good place to chill out,” he’d said, “shake off the willies.” I took him up on it. Before going to bed that first night I walked down the wooded lane and onto the road. The evening was cool and comfortable; starlight peeked through the trees. It occurred to me that for the first time in months I was out after dark and actually felt safe. I let that sink in as I walked along the pine-scented road, listening to the night sounds. Then I heard a siren; a few seconds later the roar of an engine. Ahead, at the bend, the tree-line lit up. Headlights jumped into view as a car slid through the turn and tilted over. Sparks flew and the mass of steel bounced and rolled toward me at high speed. I couldn’t lift my feet, wasn’t sure which way to go. In the frightening chaos of car-lights twirling and metal bashing, a pin-wheeling body flew into the air. I scrambled out of the way as the car brushed by, slid on its top and plowed into a tree. Dust particles and branches fell through upturned headlight beams, thumped onto the glass-covered road. I gathered myself and caught my breath. A police car rolled to a stop, siren winding down, red light flashing, headlights illuminating the silhouette of a twitching body. A police radio crackled as the door opened and a young cop got out, flashlight and pistol in hand. I froze at the sight of the gun. He momentarily trained his light on the man lying on the road then ran to the battered car. The flashlight beam moved over the front and back seats and the grass surrounding the crumpled heap. The cop holstered his pistol, hustled back. Breathing heavily, he stood over the guy for a moment then turned and retched into the grass. More sirens wailed in the distance. The cop glanced up, eyes widening as he spotted me. He fumbled for the pistol and pointed it at me, his drawn face and the weapon eerily highlighted by the flashing red light. I fell to my knees and raised my hands. His gun shook. “Don’t shoot,” I yelled. “How many others?” he yelled back. The sirens were closer. “Just me… I was out walking.” He stared for a few seconds then lowered the pistol and wiped his face. I slumped down on my hip, braced myself on the road and tried to settle my racing heart. “Hang in there, buddy,” the cop said to the man. “Ambulance is coming.” Still breathing heavily, he offered me his sweaty hand and helped me up. “It’s a stolen vehicle,” he said. “Don’t leave. I’ll need you as a witness.” Another trooper arrived; still more sirens on the way. In the haze of flashing red lights, I dusted myself off. The injured driver was on his back, eyes open, murmuring. His khaki shirt and head bloodied; his right arm and legs twisted grotesquely. A familiar sense of heaviness and gloom came over me. It was something I thought I’d left overseas, something I was done with forever. I sat down on the grass beyond the gravely shoulder and looked up through the trees, surprised for a moment stars were still there. Later that night, after I went to bed, images started coming. There were new ones now: the pin-wheeling man, the shaking gun, the sound of bashing metal as the car bounced and rolled toward me. I flinched each time it slid past. Fifty years later I still do. Top Photo by: jakob rosen/Unsplash.com
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Caroline Kalfas An Egret and His Property During
my childhood, the marsh across the sound appeared impossible to reach
without a motorboat or the skills of a bird. But the land’s slick,
emerald blades waved for me to come and explore its exposed shores. I
wanted to wade in the channel waters and step over shells like its
resident white egret. The
measured distance grew more manageable in my young adult years. With
access to a bright red kayak, I answered the long-standing invitation
and paddled with strong strokes in the scorching sun from my sandbar to
the edge of the knee-high grass growing in the wetlands. I
expected a soft arrival and a glide upon the sand. But thick, mushy mud
stopped my boat at the habitat’s edge, and the majestic bird I had
hoped to befriend took flight at my landing. His outstretched, pleated
wings and dangling stick feet navigated toward the very dock from which I
had launched my vessel. I
have often thought I should not have encroached upon the stomping
grounds of the three-foot-tall bird without his permission. Innocent
invader that I was, he fled from me with suspicion. And in seeing that
we couldn’t share the verdant space, which I admired and he roamed, I
looked to end my trespass. Releasing
my boat from the sticky swamp sludge, sweat upon my forehead, muscles
stiff from my struggle with the oars, I retreated toward home across the
green, choppy saltwater. Sea spray slapped my reddened face. The afternoon wind rushed my ears. Rocking swells threatened me with seasickness. And
sure enough, my elusive friend the egret met my arrival. The aloof,
feathered ambassador paced among tidepools on the sand at the foot of my
cottage, which stood in the center of a row of ostentatious houses
along the waterfront. I saw from afloat what the exotic loner witnessed daily from his prime property across the way. The
line of dwellings were not nests hidden in the landscape. They were
monstrosities overgrown with cement driveways, tidy carpets of thirsty
Bermuda grass, and, at my house, a two-story oleander with green, pointy
leaves and enticing fuchsia blossoms swaying next to my rickety steps.
The flirty, toxic bush beckoned the elegant bird to wander closer. I made my way up the yard, giving my boat several strenuous tugs. The
sleek egret skipped through the air and landed a few cottages down on
the sandbar. He studied the nearby shallow water, and, as if using
chopsticks, captured a floppy minnow in his pointy yellow beak. The bird
swallowed the catch down his agile, thin neck, followed by a second
helping of fish plucked from the tide. The well-fed fowl shook his head
in satisfaction and paused as if in thought. Winning
my full attention, the bird uttered a series of throaty clucks that
sounded like the slap of a playing card against a child’s bicycle
spokes. And before lifting his wings and heading back to his place in
the marsh, the creature poked his threatening mouth in my direction and
released a raspy call. Witnessing
his frustration, I came to an unspoken understanding with the bird: I
will stay on my property so he can continue to live on his. top Photo by: David Clode/unsplash.com
| Ann Bracken Problems with Diving Sometimes she’s afraid to jump. No, not on the blacktop playground, where she’s mastered Double-Dutch and excelled at Chinese jump rope. That’s solid ground. No, she’s afraid of crashing on her head when she tries to hit the diving board, spring up in the air and slice through the water, arms and legs aligned in arrow-like perfection. She freezes the day her father puts his arm across the board, a tan, muscled lever, a foot up in the air for her to clear. Tears well in her eyes, messengers of her failure, then shame rocks her body as her baby brother executes the dive like a dolphin. Failing, failing in front of everyone at the pool that day. Yet in the woods with friends, she’s fearless. Standing atop a hill, grabbing the coiled metal ring on the end of a bristly rope, swinging out over the rocky gorge, she moves in time to an inner metronome—then lands on beat, dropping down on the only patch of grass. Years later, she freezes at the thought of stepping onto a stage. Seeking out the feel of success from her quarry-jumping days, she finds an extravagant mall that promises an indoor bungee jump. As if buoyed by an invisible parachute, she launches, unafraid. top Photo by: Jess Zoerb/unsplash.com
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