Green Windows Writing

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Excerpts from writing done in
Green Windows workshops.
 

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So why must old situations

trap themselves in new oxygen and cause more contemplation

I blow them out just to inhale

you again

Am I here today?

I feel like I got lost in the midst of last week

...

I love you too like

bone loves off-white

& I want you like

life needs light

Excerpt from "Voices" by a 17-year-old who holds the copyright. Used with permission.
Written in the Green Windows workshop at Youth UpRising, summer 2008. 




The Coin

By Catherine Parker


When I was much younger my older brother attended the College of Magic so that he could learn to be a magician. Each Wednesday afternoon he’d ride his bike from school to the college where he’d learn magic tricks from older magician teachers. He’d come home afterwards still wearing his tuxedo with a red bow tie and cummerbund and the bag on his shoulder would be brimming with new magic props.

The ritual was the same each week. As soon as he’d ride through the front gates of our house, I’d run up to him in the driveway and follow him to the garage where he parked his bike. On the way I’d nag him continuously until he’d show me his latest trick.

One particular Wednesday, I was, as usual, pestering him to show me what he’d learned. He ignored me for a while, as was customary with us, but eventually he replied with mock exasperation.

“Oh alright,” he sighed, stopping outside the front door. “Today,” he paused dramatically as Houdini might have, “today, I’m going to read your mind.”

I followed him inside, riveted.

We sat down on the lounge carpet. From his pocket he pulled out his wallet: a bright blue, velcroed affair that he’d received from the bank a year earlier with his “eight and over” Autobank debit card. I had the same one, only it was the junior version for younger kids under seven.

The Velcro fastener crunched as he opened its coin pocket. He held it out to me.

“Now,” he said, “reach into the coin section and take out a coin. Any coin. And don’t let me see which one.”

Eagerly, I reached inside the pocket and gripped one of the coins with my tiny pink-nailed fingers. Watching him carefully to make sure he hadn’t seen which one I’d picked, I concealed it tightly in my fist. I withdrew my hand and put it behind my back. The coin felt cool and comforting.

“Good,” he said. “Now, I want you to turn around, and look at the coin in your hand. But whatever you do, don’t let me see it.”

I stood up and turned around (doing a ballerina twirl so my chiffon ballet skirt would flair) and carefully peered into my half-opened fist.

“Ok, I know what it is,” I said, looking back at him over my shoulder to check that he hadn’t seen it too.

“Good,” he said. “Now, turn around, sit down, and put the coin back into the coin pocket. Don’t let me see it.”

I did as I was instructed. I sat back down and carefully placed the coin back into its pocket, my six-year-old hands struggling with the dexterity that this task required.

Closing the coin pocket, my brother picked up his magic wand that had been lying next to us on the carpet. He waved it over the wallet, declaring, “Abracadabra! Abracadabra!” After a few seconds of spell-casting, he set the wand back down on the floor and emptied the contents of the coin pocket into his hand. About six or seven coins lay in his palm. They were all different and I could see which one was mine. One by one, he picked them up, examining each one carefully before discarding it on the carpet. Then he picked up the coin I had chosen. I watched him closely, and saw that he began to study it more carefully than the rest, turning it over and over in his hand. He looked up at me, triumphant.

“This is it. This is your coin.”

The admiration was obvious on my face, and he basked in it, even if I was just his little sister. Even though years would pass before I’d learn that he’d detected the coin from the warmth my little hand had transferred to it, the trick remained, to me, magic.

Written in the Green Windows weekly group, fall 2008.
Copyright held by the author. Used with permission. 



Where Color Leads

By Peggy Simmons


I grayed my anger to appease your
violet gladness, so rare without
the black tinge of regret.

I led my confusion into a turquoise sea
and asked it to just float,
just wait for the red-orange
glee of sunset, without drifting
into blue-green depths of anxiety.

I wear my jeans into holes
like I wear my depression
into action, into reaction,
into an everyday comfort
that compares only to itself
and to desire.

Written in the Green Windows workshop at Youth UpRising, summer 2008.
Copyright held by the author. Used with permission. 











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