Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page. Mycorrhiza* by Patricia Morris I live under the canopy of a grandmother valley oak. It grows in what is now called “my neighbor’s yard,” due to the way we white settlers swept through this what-is-now-called a nation over the past 300 years and took over everything. Massacred people who were living here, infected them with deadly diseases, tried to re-make them in our image. Declared that we “owned” the land, bought and sold it; built structures to live in, structures that got bigger and more permanent as time passed; built fences to delineate MINE. But before all this, there was the valley oak. Like all oaks, it began as an acorn, scrunched into the dirt next to a small seasonal creek. Its roots sank deeper each year, reaching for the water. Its mycorrhizal fungi spread wide,…
Tag: Patricia Morris
One Wish Now, or Three In Ten?
Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page. One Wish Now, or Three In Ten? By Patricia Morris Patricia’s response to the writing prompt: Would you rather have one wish granted today, or three wishes granted ten years from now? Given that my dear friend of forty years died last week after a fast and furious 6-week illness, I will take my one wish today, please. No waiting for ten years for anything anymore. There are no ten years guaranteed, especially when, in ten years, I will be six months shy of 70 years old. That is a shocking thing to write, but that is my reality. Having only one wish, the pressure is on. To make it the “right” wish, the “best” wish, the “greatest good for the greatest number” wish. I could game it. I could make my one wish be to…
California Winter
California Winter By Patricia Morris (with thanks to Ted Kooser) The wind turns the pages of rain As drops splatter on the skylights, beating a rhythm punctuated by the cracks of unmoored oak limbs hitting the roof. The rain chain dances, brass acorns jingling, water swooshing through its cups. The creek rushes over rocks, gushes into the culvert and out again, making its overground / underground way to the river. The thirsty earth soaks it in, filters it down into empty aquifers. One chapter ending, another beginning. Freewrite inspired by the poem, A Rainy Morning, by Ted Kooser Patricia Morris misses the summer thunderstorms of her rural Midwestern upbringing, but enjoys observing and writing about the California rains from her home in Petaluma. After careers as diverse as…