An armadillo leaned on a fence,
too wilted to muster a proper defense.
His cowboy hat slouched
like a biscuit overbrowned,
his dignity having long since left town.
The relentless sun blazed down with cheer,
roasting the pasture for the fifteenth month this year.
Grasshoppers staggered.
Mesquite trees panted.
Even the buzzards looked disenchanted.
The dillo squinted west and sighed,
I reckon I'm medium-well inside.
One more degree
and y'all will see
roadside jerky where I used to be."
A bead of sweat rolled down his snout.
He watched it fall. He watched it sizzle.
"Autumn," he grumbled,
"has missed her exit.
She's probably lost near Abilene."
The fence post offered little aid.
The shade was merely shade-adjacent.
He tipped one claw
to his hat and said,
"If anybody spots October,
tell it I'm awaitin'."
Through lenses cold and ground from mountain glass,
We watched the dying worlds of iron pass.
For generations, every spark we found
Was tethered to a bleeding, broken ground—
The sudden flash of silo doors undone,
The brief, horrific birthing of a sun,
Then ash that drifted like a heavy shroud
To lock a planet in a toxic cloud.
We turned our mirrors to the northern sky,
Expecting just another world to die,
To see Vaeloria’s final signature
Be etched in fire, black and premature.
We braced for the familiar, sudden glare
Of empires burning down their final air.
But what we found across the cosmic deep
Was not the final, static-riddled sleep.
The planet did not burn; it started glowing,
A quiet, silver respiration growing,
As if a willow made of starlight grew
And drank the poison till the sky turned blue.
No high radiation tore the night,
But pulses of a deep, organic light.
A lonely mind had stitched the broken spheres,
And washed away a century of fears.
We leaned into our sights, amazed to see
A world redeemed by a single tree.
I wandered out beneath late-summer skies,
a blue so wide it felt like open thought.
The road before me stretched in quiet sighs,
inviting me toward places wonder sought.
A compass rested lightly in my hand,
its needle trembling as if it could feel
the pull of distant paths across the land~
those whispered routes the heart keeps half-concealed.
I followed where it pointed, mile by mile,
past fields still holding sunlight in their seams,
each turn a question, each new step a smile
that rose like wind through half-remembered dreams.
And when the day leaned softly into night,
my wandering felt shaped by blue-tinged light.
The strongest rise with
Echoes behind them; no
Legend ever truly won alone.
Every victory carries
Fingerprints of those who
Refused to let them fall; no
Won alone.
When uncertainty tried to rewrite
Their name, someone
Whispered strength back into
Their bones; they never won
Alone.
Even giants leaned on quiet
Warriors, the ones who held
Them steady when storms won
Alone.
Greatness is a rapport, not a
Solo; every step forward was
Carried by hands that won
Alone.
Michaela speaks truth to legacy:
No hero, no survivor, no Legend
Even won Alone.
Our eyes met I said hi and then goodbye
But you stayed in my head all night
There you were like a dream out of the blue
Fate’s hand weaving me closer to you
I threw my arms around you tight
Where have you been I asked with a smile
You looked at me and froze in place
What the who hurt your face
And in your gaze I felt brand new
We sat down talked like the world stood still
You leaned in close listened to every spill
You made me feel like I was worth the stars
Fixed my cracks and healed my scars
Our first kiss knocked the air from my lungs
Like every song I’d never sung
You held me like I was your world
A mess of a heart you gently unfurled
I threw my arms around you tight
Where have you been I asked with a smile
You looked at me and froze in place
What the who hurt your face
And in your gaze I felt brand new
…The magic carpet had been…
She played with the book, read
the doll, put the flower in the air,
the plate on her hair; she ate
the fan and waved the grapes,
put nothing in the tin, leaned in.
…unfurled; it’s Hollywood red…
An envelope rests on the windowsill,
its flap slightly lifted
as though a breath passed through it.
Inside, a small drift of cloud~
soft, unsettled,
holding the shape of whatever message
has not yet been read.
Outside, the sky carries
the same quiet weather:
clouds moving with deliberate calm,
as if they know
their likeness has been folded
and left waiting.
I do not open the envelope.
Some messages arrive
only when the heart is still enough
to hear them.
So I let it rest~
a pale reminder
that heaven speaks
in small, unhurried ways.
By evening, the cloud inside
has thinned to a faint whisper,
yet the window remains bright,
as though the sky
has leaned close
to finish what it meant to say.
she stands
inside a hush of gold
a shimmer thinking itself awake
patterns breathe
slowly
like ancient symbols remembering their names
her gaze
steady
unblinking
holds the room
the way light holds dust
without touching
I feel the air
tilt
just a little
as if the painting leaned closer
to whisper
a secret made of metal and memory
and somewhere
beneath the gilded quiet
a pulse
soft
persistent
keeps rising
like a small bright truth
trying to be seen
Thet called me a Clerk Typist,
But handed me casework meant
For a higher pay grade.
Families leaned on me, and I carried them
Growth came from fortitude,
Not classification.
I did the job first,
Earned the title after some time
Public Assistance Specialist,
Proven by service, not paperwork.
Lesson: Your role is shaped by what you
Rise to, not what they print on your hiring form.
In early spring, I wake again,
soft rain along my bark and skin;
I feel the world breathe out and in~
I stand and keep the seasons’ memory.
I’ve watched your footsteps come and go,
your whispered joys, your hidden woe;
I hold the echoes soft and slow~
I stand and keep the seasons’ memory.
You leaned on me when life felt thin,
your losses heavy, sharp as wind;
I kept your secrets deep within~
I stand and keep the seasons’ memory.
And though you’ve changed, as humans do,
I still reach out with limbs toward you;
your presence feels like sunlight through and through~
I stand and keep the seasons’ memory.
I wore my longing like a coat.
Kept the sharpest words in my throat.
I leaned in close; the blues just knew,
I would let them bent notes come through.
Bare boards beckoned worn-out shoes.
Slow feet shuffled with the dues.
One heel circled, one stood still,
As the lights turned round like a windmill.
While the dye brush waited by the wall,
I heard the blank canvas start to call.
I held back each splash just enough,
To leave a white whisper, in the rough.
I let my feelings rise up halfway,
Enough to ache; then to fade away.
My heart was folded, tied up with care,
To glow with all that is left hidden there.
The blue kept curling into the white,
Like the Milky Way deep in a velvet night.
The spiral nebulae all slowly grew—
To tie-dye the sky, with an ancient hue.
The tighter the bind, the brighter the bloom.
Stars need darkness, to brighten their room.
Hold back the colour—let just enough take flight.
Raindrops can teach sunlight to shape its light.
When the last slow glow chorus ends,
Twilight mends what that daylight bends.
One lone blue spark escapes the seam,
Just far enough to light the dream.
The first fulguration stooped to kiss a shard,
Not the thunderhead that boasted of its flame;
A broken bottle in an orchard yard
Held one white filament no night could claim.
The beech unlocked a thousand argent leaves;
Each fern leaned nearer, listening through the rain.
A kestrel loosed the wind from both its wings;
The granite seemed to soften in the plain.
Then lightning missed the heavens altogether.
It entered quartz, wet lichen, antler, thorn;
The river halted underneath its weather,
While moss recalled a coastline never born.
An oak drew brightness downward through its roots.
The fox stood still beneath a hawthorn's breath.
One acorn opened, showing not its fruit,
But rings of summers harvested from death.
When morning searched the hills, the sky was gone.
The birds flew lower, as though nothing changed.
Only the broken glass kept filling with the dawn—
Until the sun looked in, and turned away.
When I leaned over the aquarium, the water shifted~
a small blue fish rising as if to greet the surface.
Its fins flickered like tiny pennants,
sending ripples through the glass world
where everything moved
with the calm certainty of stars.
For a moment it hovered beneath the surface,
a bright thought I hadn’t yet had~
then vanished into the quiet drift
of its own deep sky.
In the beginning,
the world flickered in black-and-white
shadows behaving, light staying in its lane,
stories told in grayscale grammar.
Then came the inventors,
the engineers coaxing color
out of electrons and hope.
Phosphors bloomed~
tiny red, green, blue lanterns
glowing on the inside of a glass cathedral,
each dot a seed of awe
waiting to burst open.
And suddenly
the living room became a futuristic sunrise.
Technicolor spilled across the screen
like someone had finally remembered
to turn the world back on.
Children leaned forward,
their faces lit with wonderment,
and parents whispering
that nothing would ever look the same again~
and they were right.
Because color didn’t just arrive;
it unfurled like a miracle,
bright with promise~
and we huddle together
in that warm electric glow
watching the future
teaching itself how to shine.
You may read the accompanying memoir vignette at: poetrysoup.com/short_stories/technicolor_13892
something shifted
not loudly
just a thin bright seam
opening between seconds
a glimmer
uninvited
but welcome
like a thought remembering itself
today leaned
sideways
and the air
held its breath
a pale shimmer
slid across my hands
soft as dust deciding to glow
and I stood there
in the middle of the room
feeling the world
tilt
ever so slightly
as if it wanted
to show me
the underside
of light
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