Year of the Water Rabbit

Feb 20

— CC Message in a Bottle

It’s Monkeyshine Season and time for a treasure hunt. To partake in the Lunar New Year fun, each of these pieces is inspired by the Water Rabbit. Please enjoy flash fiction, poetry & micro essays that explore themes of peace, hope & longevity.

Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge

by Carol Sunde

Hoping to find “peace like a river,”
quiet myself among alders, owls, and blue-eyed grass,
I ease my car from thick afternoon traffic into the protected estuary.

By the brackish visitor pond,
a little girl jabbing her finger this way and that,
whispers, There! There! They’re everywhere. Look! Look!
My frown erased, my eyes softening, I see by a log near the cattails,
peering from lily pads, blended in as still as stones—red-legged frogs.
Love them frogs, I murmur, thanks for sharing.

Heading toward the Twin Barns,
I stroll through a soft rain of cottonwood catkins
as a loud low moo rises from a bog. Noticing my what-is-that face,
a bald man setting up his bird scope explains, Bullfrog.
We listen, watch a red-winged blackbird ride a reed down to the water to drink.
Exchanging smiles, we sigh, Yes, yes, oh yes.

In an avian air show near the barns,
with breakneck speed, swallows zoom and zig-zag, scoop insects from the air,
swoop to mud nests tucked under eaves—to feed babies
before performing a sleek-feathered rush skyward again.
Ever so slowly twilight slides this day aside
preparing for the moon’s arrival
and a ladybug lands on my shoulder with
a greeting, a recognition, a benediction.

Driving home I hum,
“It is well,
it is well with my soul.”

Carol R. Sunde (she, her) lives within a walking distance of the Pacific Ocean (what a joy to her). Since retiring from a college counseling position, she has delved into a lifelong love of poetry through reading and writing poems as well as involvement in classes, workshops, writing groups. Her work has appeared in Passager, Shark Reef, Raven Chronicles, and elsewhere.

Ode to Second Chances

by Katherine Van Eddy

When I was young,
paths felt infinite.
All that time to choose.
As I made choices,
the options narrowed.
I’ve seen these people
who get things right
the first time:
college, career, marriage.
I am not one of them.
But I like to think I’m learning
something here, not simply
bouncing from idea to motion
and consequence.
I’m done with ricochet.

I cannot tell you
how many times I’ve moved.
I can tell you how many times
I tried one place for a short time
and left, which I used to think
meant failure, or surrender.
Now I know it’s not about the leaving,
but the traveling toward something.
It’s not returning with the white flag.
It’s showing up new, and changed,
with a milk carton of memories,
which you can pour when necessary,
but one day, put out with the recycling.

Katherine Van Eddy (she/her) is a California-born poet who now lives in Washington State. Her poems have appeared in journals such as Creative Colloquy, Goldman Review, Cirque, and Clover. She has a BA in Creative Writing, MAT in Elementary Education, and an MFA in Poetry Writing. She currently works as a middle school English/Language Arts teacher and loves her two kids and cat, Dexter. She'll always feel most at home near water.

On the #1 Bus

by Mary Bradford

Whatever happened to unobstructed views?
Who decided it was a good idea to slap advertisements on bus windows?
Will it ever stop raining?
As the #1 bus trundled down 6th Avenue
on a soakingly grim Sunday,
passengers were few,
the air was thick with moist, shared breath,
and I had questions . . .
questions that were abruptly interrupted
when the bus lurched to a stop
at 6th and Stevens.
The doors swung open, and our driver announced
that there was a vivid double-rainbow
hanging just behind us.
We should all hop off to take a look, he said.
And so it was that an improbable Holy Trinity gathered that day:
a silver-crowned crone, a testy teen with a nose ring of gold,
and our mild-mannered driver ~
transformed for an instant into our High Priest of Awe ~
all standing next to the #1 bus on 6th Avenue,
savoring the unexpected,
the fleeting hues of mystery,
the arcing brilliance of colors split . . .
before they dissolved back into the drear
and the bus ride continued
on a Sunday that was no longer grim.

Mary Bradford (she/her) is a retired hospice social worker who loves exploring Tacoma on foot, by bicycle, and on the bus. She got rid of her car two years ago and never looked back. She blogs at www.gringavieja.blogspot.com.

LIFE CYCLE

by Judith Works

The dirt under my fingernails is thick enough to grow its own garden. Dark, rich soil, but oh so cold in March, lies beneath my rubber-booted feet. My nails are cracked and jagged from pulling the stubborn weeds that wintered over so successfully while the tender plants of the previous summer have long been reduced to their original elements. I should wear gloves but I need to communicate directly with the earth and sun that give us life.

I hold my hands up to that still-weak sun. It is growing in strength every day. Not so my hands with their knuckles gnarled from arthritis and rheumatism. A soft glint attracts my eye. It is the dented and scratched gold circle that confined my left hand for too many years but now rests loosely on the third finger of my right. The inscription wore away long ago but the ring remains a record of life’s challenges and changes, defeats and victories, and perhaps of those still to come.

My skin is dappled with amber spots, the sun’s seal of approval. Their pattern reminds me of a meadow glade when the light shines through saplings to make golden circles on tender new leaves. But when I focus on my blue veins, the tangled webbing stands out as if it is the sky’s roots anchoring my hands between what is above and what is beneath.

I turn my hands so that palms face upward to the sun in salutation. The lines of life are etched in shadow by the sun’s still low rays. What do these lines tell me? Of a long life, of more love for me to give and receive? Or to lose? Maybe a palm-reader would know but I don’t. All I know is I am a creature connected to the sun and the earth. I must continue to go forward and immerse my hands into the fecund soil to sustain the ever-recurring cycle of decay and renewal dictated by the seasons of life.

I kneel to pay homage to forces I cannot control. My knees ache and my back hurts. Tomorrow will be painful but I will soon have a reward when the seeds I plant spring to life to begin another round of joyous renewal.

This flash fiction is by Judith Works, author of the memoir Coins in the Fountain - stories about living in Rome for ten years while working for World Food Program. It should be titled Innocents Abroad but instead it is A Midlife Escape to Rome. Her short stories have appeared in several literary journals as well as the periodical Wanted in Rome and the Alaska Airlines inflight magazine. She is active in the literary community centered in Edmonds, WA.

Mere Manifesto

by Kristy Gledhill

Sovereign over the lands of myself,
dominion of one, indivisible, free,

I decree a cease-fire, I sign the treaty
proclaiming peace all along all my

disputed borders. I slash defense
spending, free the prisoners languishing

in my forgotten dungeons, order the walls
torn down to build a boat, which I load

with the rich fruits of my lands—pure joy,
deep friendship, containers bursting

with fresh lovingkindness—and I set
a captain’s course for your distant shore.

Kristy Gledhill creates poetry in western Washington on unceded Coast Salish land colonially known as Gig Harbor. She is a writer, yoga teacher and activist working for racial justice and collective liberation. A graduate of the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University, her work has appeared in Terrain, Dunes Review, Creative Colloquy and Sweet Lit, and she won first prize in Lakewood Gardens' 2023 Litfest poetry contest. Kristy is currently working on a full-length volume of poetry.

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CCMessageInaBottlePoetryProsePromptmicroessayKristy GledhillJudith WorksCarol SundeMary BradfordKatherine Van Eddy

CC Message in a Bottle

Tacoma loves a treasure hunt, and we love to add our own spin. The CC Message in a Bottle project asks for short pieces on a theme, creates lovely prints, and tucks them away in bottles all around the city, just waiting to be discovered. Keep your eyes open for a missive of literary love around the City of Destiny.