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Saved by a Scott's Oriole by Amy Sugeno

11/1/2019

1 Comment

 
Picture
Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren, Wildreturn, [CC BY 2.0]
My sanity hangs from a single, brilliant, dew-soaked spider thread.
 
I did not ask for this. You did not ask for this. These hurricanes of fury and passion and wreckage and fear which have no end. Ahead of the eye, walls of gray rain march forward, fierce and unrestrained. Behind, tornadoes and bolts of fire descend from the angry sky, shocking the land and its overflowing waters.
 
In between the storms, the sun shines, and we rebuild.
 
Standing behind the big chair in our living room, I watch, through little pools of tears, as the raging hand of mania strangles you. And I curse the sadness I know will follow and try to drown you. The shadowy, gnawing beast has come out of hiding and has swallowed you whole.
 
I have lost you again.
 
As despair pulls me under, a bird catches me and lifts me back up. Through the window next to me, he lands at the feeder. A sun-yellow body draped in a night-black hood. His beauty is so stunning, so perfect, he is all I can see. My eyes fill again with little pools. How can there be so much beauty in the middle of so much pain?
 
Yet here he is. Right now, in this moment, with this pain.
 
Having had his fill of sweet nectar, he disappears over the tops of the trees, carrying the bright ​sun and dark night with him as he steals away.
 
And leaves a little piece of sanity behind.

Picture
Amy Sugeno is a mental health therapist, mindfulness teacher, and former wildlife biologist. A life-long outdoor-lover, she has tracked rattlesnakes in dusty deserts and taught people to meditate in fields and forests. Amy lives outside of Austin in the rocky and rugged Texas Hill Country. She is currently working on a collection of creative nonfiction essays about nature, mindfulness, and adoption. Visit her online at www.amylsugeno.com

1 Comment

    FLASH GLASS: 
    A MONTHLY PUBLICATION OF FLASH FICTION, PROSE POETRY, & MICRO ESSAYS


    Categories

    All
    A Grave Duty
    Amy Sugeno
    Atlas Sweating
    Audrey DuBois
    Christina Harrington
    Consider/A/Caretaker Of The Dead
    Cori Bratby-Rudd
    Daniel Dagris
    Davis-s-osgood
    Dennis-finnell
    Directions-lost-and-chosen
    Dreaming-of-the-netherlands
    Elisabeth-preston-hsu
    Flash Fiction
    Gingko
    Hammonasset-mica
    Heidi-richardson
    Howard Nemerov's After Party
    I-find-my-death-in-a-corn-maze
    Jennifer Companik
    Jimmy Hollenbeck
    Lenny Dellarocca
    Lisa Romeo
    Micro Essay
    Poetic Entanglements
    Prose Poetry
    Resurrecting The Warbird
    Robin Lewis
    Sandra Cimadori
    Saved By A Scott's Oriole
    The Day My Tia Maria's Face Fell Down
    To Be Wrong Or To Be Whole.
    Vanessa Zimmerman
    What I've Drawn And What You've Done
    Winded


    Cover Image: "A Peaceful Coexistence Part II" 
    Laurie Borggreve
    ​Issue 18


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