THE LEGEND #1

Character. That one word exemplifies her. Character: 1. a distinguishing feature or characteristic. 2. The group of ethical and mental characteristics that mark a person or group. 3.  Moral integrity. 4.  Reputation. 5. Informal: an eccentric person. 6.  A person portrayed in a play or novel. 7. A symbol as a letter in a writing system. Synonyms:  Complexion, disposition, make-up, nature. 

The problem with Webster’s definition is that it can’t adequately describe what I mean when I refer to her as having character. Yes, she has many distinguishing characteristics and features, such as the pursing of her lips right before she elaborates upon a topic bursting within her. Or the way that she moves her shoulders at the same time she smiles with her mouth, giving her a body style that is as unique to her, as chewing through cement is unique to the naked mole rat. Certainly, certain ethical groups maintaining defined mental characteristics mark her. 

A case in point would be the BYU free speech protest she organized and led at the campus between the library and the student center. Two hundred student protesters lying on a cement sidewalk with duck tape over their mouths with the initials BYU/SA (Brigham Young University Student Association) is without question enough to satisfy that definition. As was her diapers for the desperate fundraiser, on May 20^th 2006 an adequate example for moral integrity. But there is more then her protesting or volunteering for various non-profit organizations. 

Keep in mind the world is full of good willed advertising programs claiming to be the world’s moral staple to lead integrity, if not all of sub-par humanity into the next righteous century and beyond. Scott lay the owner of Wal-Mart professes annually at the corporations conference, that his bulging massively wealthy company. Is a community home grown business that supplies jobs, economic growth, employee self-esteem, environmental concern, and corporate communism, er I mean company consideration to everyone. The reputation of Wal-Mart was something that she was willing to shed some new light on (with a flash light and two double AA batteries purchased at Wal-Mart for only $9.99!!!) in evidence of her showing the brave new film:  Wal-Mart the High Cost of Low Prices.

Eccentricity is difficult to define only because today that term is typically applied to Mercedes Benz driving doctors who have a quirky knack for fixing cars, or to bulky weight lifters who have an obsessive-compulsive habit of washing their hands. But if you get beyond the orthodox usage of the term, you find that really everyone is eccentric in their own way. Then the point becomes finding the individual eccentricity instead of limiting the scope to bearded monkey scientists with bifocals and Hawaiian shirts who are capable of speaking seven different languages, but who still maintain a guilty pleasure of watching reruns of the A-team.

Characters portrayed in movies, plays, novels, or scripts seem to be more along the lines of what I am referring to, when I speak of the term character. Through the ages, civilizations have told story’s about great people, in great lands, who did great things, for great reasons. These stories were told not as weekend entertainment or coffee shop conversation but to employ the sense of imagination within the collective culture. After all, there were little boys, and little girls sitting in the audience, wide eyed, and open eared to the tales that were being told to them. And what could the future of that civilization hope for, but the collective individual ambition of those little awe inspired wonderers? Who were caught up in the story’s telling contemplating what they would do, when they were old enough to greet the great land, and do great things, for all the people to take notice in. 

This is what is meant by character; someone who does something that is worth telling a story about. Or someone who is interesting enough, ambitious enough, or unique (eccentric?) enough to take notice in, and pause for a moment just to reflect upon the rarity of their nature or imposition. 

It simply isn’t enough to say “that someone sure is a character!” In a land where our 15 minutes of shame is somehow worth our time and attention, to watch others willing exploit themselves into a new form of predictable absurdity.

 It becomes all the more imperative to find those such as HER, who are able to strike us in such a way that we are truly captivated. To be truly taken in by the wonderment, and possibilities for what may happen, what has already happened, or perhaps most important of all WHAT IS happening right now. Like all the greats, she will not force herself upon anyone’s recognition or consciousness. The legends of which the tales told, were not people who stood upon a stage, and boldly proclaimed themselves the new magnificent, next best thing. They were characters who went and did, and thus in the process became legends. They did for the sake of doing, not for the sake of being noticed. Their legendary stories were told only to allow their legacy a verbal life within the community, so that their essence might last onward, and benefit continuing generations. 

Perhaps our social longing for “reality” TV can be traced to an unconscious wish for people who we can watch and take notice in. Those who can captivate our minds and imagination while we observe in spell bound silence, the real-ness of what is taking place. 

                                                                JUST IN CASE

Just in case I see a stranger whose opinion merits mine,

I put on heels to look presentable

As if my legs were extensible

I drink up societal stereotypes like they were sweet sweet wine.

Just in case the masses might take offense

I prance carefully around my point

Always mindful of the unknown sensitivities I could disjoint

I guess and cower and apologize, in advance making recompense.

Their eyes look up with a steadfast gaze, looking into the camera as if to ask rather than to say. The large wall sized poster hangs from her wall, not nearly as much a piece of decoration as simple evidence of world awareness. It is a poster of the sudanesse-darfur genocide disaster in the northeastern corner of the African continent. With such a gaze coming from the posters occupants (one mother and several children whose ages are probably between 5 and 10), one is left to wonder who can afford to look at them with a clean conscious? 

When you are in this person’s apartment you get the idea that somewhere within her being, is a harbored sense of the disease. As if her blood runs, clean but with the trace elements of certain rebellious cells, that are as much apart of her image as her genetic DNA strands. As if greed, ignorance, and cruelty were waging war upon the world’s immunity to inequality and unhealthy existence. And part of that cure, or at least the resistance towards the destruction, resided within her own invisible code that was silently mapping out her life’s fate. 

The reality images of conflict going on within the world of her body are hidden to the world around her. It is a reality as invisible as her fate, and remains unmentioned to those around her. Partly because of her character, partly because of the sensitivity of it’s nature, and perhaps partly because not even she recognizes the magnitude of it’s working within her.

Just in case you ever decide you want me

I try to be magnanimous despite my pain

And nonchalant about the feelings that spin so feverishly around in my brain. 

I acquiesce and maniacally attempt to minimize the parts of self that make you flee

Just in case “Mr. Right” comes along

I relegate my dreams to a backup plan

Apparently hoping that there is such a Man

I shy away, sliding lower, from the high notes reached in my hearts song        

        While she goes about her business saying what she needs too, and doing all that she can. It seems that there is another business that is doing its work in her. As if the leukemia of the worlds disproportionate economical disparity is quietly circulating within her body’s code. If the world is plagued by the empirically rich money hungry, bloodthirsty red cells, who are attacking the passively poor money starving, water thirsty white cells of the lower class distinction. Then it could well be said that this is also taking place in her. As if by caring and getting to know, and getting so close to the dis-ease around her, that in the process she too has contacted a contagion, and it has now begun the process of working her down to the very fabric work she was meant to be. 

If the disease of the world is indifference, apathy, and overall totalitarianism of what should be easily obtainable natural resources. Then the contagion affecting her would be the struggle of making a difference, the empathy of circumstances, and the understanding of what Ghandi called “enlightened anarchy and pure democracy.” Which means taking only what one needs; and thus allowing for prosperity and equality of the earth’s natural resources.       

One of the most riveting legends told was that of the alchemists, who would search for precious metals, and then would go about the deconstructive work of melting, refining, chiseling, burning, or otherwise breaking down the substance into it’s base state at it’s most pure level. 

In a subtle leukemia like sense the poverty, suffering, and importunity’s of the social hierarchy appear to be melting, refining, chiseling, burning or otherwise breaking down her substance into it’s base state at her most pure level. 

There is ancient alchemy in her soul: her caring seems to cause a melting of emotion, a refining of the heart, a chiseling of her time, work, or effort, and the burning of her compassion, is the breaking down of her being all too human. 

Just in case there is a God above

I plead every night for forgiveness and to be understood

Asking to be upheld, sustained, and motivated by eternal good

I obey and plod-along hoping to redeem a little of His boundless love

But

Just in case no one else EVER shows up,

I will choose to live to understand my life, and soul, and youth

Decorate my garden in with snapdragons of truth

I must not preemptively surrender my will to sip from the Unknown’s tranquilizing cup.

Her Diapers for the desperate fundraiser was prompted by her role in the community as a gleaner, where she was able to pick up valuable ideas from people such as Myla Dutton at community action. Myla is one who tries not to overlook the commonly sad situations that come her way, by becoming desensitized by the constant poverty and misfortune, that come before her. Or there is Brent Crane at the Food and Care coalition who prefers people’s abilities over free bees. For example, car mechanic service is considered better than a plain cash handout, simply because it allows for community involvement rather than impersonal Governmental assistance. And then there is the author of Wealth & Poverty written by Richard Johnson, who’s idea’s helped shape this person’s view’s on rightful stewardship.

When she graduates from BYU with a major in Political Science, she wants to be able to help fight for the rights of immigrant women, (she already speaks Spanish.) or possibly work towards the stamping out of pornography. 

Her lasting impression may be found in the silent implications of her body as she lay with 200 other students outlined in chalk. Inspired by one of her university’s founders her image became his written words:  “I shall never leave my (chalk) circle after giving my word.”

Indeed Kate Kelly’s word and her legacy shall not be soon forgotten.

Legend # 3

The Swan

“Why does it have a human face?”  The sculptor sigh’s at the residual question, which forever sounds like a fingernail being scratched across a chalkboard.  If she had a dollar for every time she had to tolerate such an unimaginative response to her artwork she might actually make enough money to survive on.  As it is she is left to give coin less answers to people or predators who don’t really care anyway. 

Elegantly white as snow and curved into a graceful arc.  One would not expect that such a delicate creature could break a limb, or explode in a fury of protective violence.  Ah, but that is nature so full of mystery and so many different surprises. 

They are birds made of myths, such as the story of the Greek hero Cygnus, who was turned into a swan as he mourned the death of his friend Phaethon.  In Tchaikovsky’s ballet, Siegfried falls in love with the beautiful Odette, who spends part of each day as a swan. 

How is it that they have made themselves known unto us through their characteristics of beauty, purity, grace, and fidelity?  Or maybe a better question is this: Why haven’t we recognized her upon her own self-displaying portrays? 

The birds that we call swans, are also the creatures within her texture sensing hands.  If we do not take the time to notice the differences by which a thing manifests itself, then it is the fault of the observer rather than the obscurity of the unobserved. 

In a world where family values are cliched and monogamy is popularized into a commandment, while hiding behind a toothy smile of deceit and white lies.  She appears to be more of an eagle aloof and alone, rather than an earthy creature who spends it’s entire life mating with one partner, and taking care of it’s baby’s in joint parental nurturing.  However like the dysfunctional rich kid, or the broken spirit of an adolescent youth, under the tyranny of a conservative fundamentalist father and mother, there is always more than what meets the eye. 

For example besides being loyal, swans also like to travel, flying thousands of kilometers at a time, only to return to the same location that they departed from.  Besides being behaviorally paradoxical, they are also geometrically paradoxical.  In the physics of wing to body weight ratio, and with the theoretical implications of flying, swans should not even be able to lift off.  But they do, and she does too.

Italy, India, and Canada to name a few of the places she has been too.  And while she may seem silent, calm, or reserved there remains a wing span that will crack the face of any predator that is foolish enough to get to close.  Yet behind the unapproachable mask is a woman as soft as the feathers of a new born cygnet.  And within the face of a human, there is an angelic creature that is a swan. 

But this isn’t a figure of speech, to say that just because she “likes” swans that she can also pretend to be like them.  Is to say that just because swans can fly they are just like any other bird.  If a swan is a swan because of it’s characteristics, such as it’s long arcing neck, or it’s wing tips that will return even when clipped.  Then Amy Robinson is Amy Robinson because of her characteristics.  And if those characteristics are those of a swan then, Amy Robinson really is a swan, not just a blurry human imitation. 

Consider this: She used to drive some fifteen miles every morning to see her husband who was in jail.  Beyond any social or moral code, that is more like the loyalty of a partner, than the behavior of a monogamous human.  Or consider this: there is the fact that she lives in her mother’s basement.  Again to interpret this as a mother complex or worse yet a daughter duty, is to place a zoo outside the perimeters of swan nest.  After all upon closer examination is not her desire to leave a dysfunctional marriage a sign of loyalty, rather than a proof of failure or a corrosion of family values?  Would a swan lose it’s instinct to fly, simply because a domestic zookeeper clipped her wings?  And what is loyalty if it is not seen as such?  Can a partner be true to someone who cannot respect the truth?  Indeed swans are monogamous not out of morality, rather they are monogamous out of self-interest. 

However this is not to be confused with selfishness.  Swans remain with one partner because of the logistics of it.  The time it takes to give birth and raise their young, combined with the limited distance the male swan can travel to protect its territory make it only plausible.  Besides how can a swan be loyal to anything other than a swan?  If a partner does not recognize that they are living with a committed being, then loyalty would be the wind beneath those wings that flew away.

But perhaps this is all too presumptuous; maybe we need a closer investigation, into the myth of this reality.  What if we looked at the closeness of the sculpture that her own hands made?  Could anything other than a swan create something so swan like?  How else explain the exact replicas, the justifiable images of the large wild and white birds that rest like home, outside of her own sanctuary?  What else could explain the story of her crawling to within five feet of one of the living breathing, majestic animals?  Would a swan allow anything other than a swan, to get so close?  Remember these are not cuddly golden retriever puppies we are talking about.  These are vicious and mean birds if approached by a large mammal of another species.  It seems doubtful, if not impossible for just anyone to get within five feet of such an experience. 

Still for any remaining pessimists, there remains one final bit of evidence, that will solidify the certainty that she is one of them.  But it is not easy to detect; in fact only by observing the natural movement of her body can one ever hope to catch a glimpse of this amazing phenomenon.  It happens so subtly and so unconsciously that there is no way to capture it other than by imagination. 

It takes place in her neck, at certain times when she turns her head, either to sit down in a chair, or to look out the window.  It is then that the curvature of her arc can be glimpsed in the swan like movement of her neck.  It is then in that brief instant that the observer realizes that angels do not always live in the heavens, sometimes they walk among us, as a delicate swan who has taken the form of a human body with the name of Amy Robinson.  

LEGEND #4 

They never made it big, they never signed an autograph, or stared in a movie.  They never made it on a record label, nor had anyone recognize them in public.  They never became famous, rich, or well endowed with prestige, charisma, and charm.  In fact they never even made it out the small town in which they grew up until the age of 50.  A town so tiny that with the gross population of approximately 400 people, it is small enough that everyone knows everyone else’s laundry list, and dish soap detergent.  With so little notoriety, you would think that perhaps this person might have succeed in a small market enterprise such as being a memorable school teacher, whose students return after 20 years just to say thank you.  Or perhaps they were a 70 hour a week, hard working attorney, who was dedicated to preventing even the smallest of social injustices against the underprivileged and financially downtrodden.  However this is not the case, they did not even make the smallest impact when it came to employment or professional memorability. 

Why then is this person a legend?  How can someone who was virtually unknown, internally hidden, and achievmently underdeveloped ever make it into the ranks of being heroic?  Someone who spent the majority if not the entirety of their life in obscurity, seems more destined for an unnoticed slot in the obituary section than for a spot on the front page of any newspaper headline.  Indeed it seems that this someone is more likely to draw a yaw, rather than merit a teardrop or increase a heartbeat.  They certainly appear to be in complete contrast if not total anarchy to the concept of what a legend is.  And yet here we are speaking in respectful tones, and honorable resonance about the way in which they did what they didn’t have to do. 

No they didn’t leap into any flaming fires to save any small children from incinerating in a house fire.  No they didn’t tame any lions or swing from any trapeze.  They didn’t even posses an odd hobby of bathing in cinnamon oil, or turning old antiques into modern glory.  However despite the outward appearance of glum humdrum melancholy repetition and day to day existence.  They still found a way to become remarkable.  It is perhaps even more remarkable when you take a closer inspection of their life.  For if their life could be summed up in a single caption, the title would read: A Lifetime of Regret and Missed Opportunities. 

They never did pursue their dreams, reach for the stars, or straddle the sky.  They never dove to deep depths, or soared to new heights.  They didn’t sweat and bleed for their own Holy Grail, and they didn’t fight for a cause that they believed in.  They missed their chance at intimate mouth watering romance, and they denied a once in a lifetime opportunity to dance with the majestic king in the hero’s courtyard, while the night glittered, and the on lookers gasped in awe. 

When they were little, they knew that their soul belonged upon the bare back of a sleek, slender, elegant white mustang.  Their defining image was in a meadow, or on a beach, hair flowing in the wind, body bouncing in rhythm to hove beats, eyes looking out toward the horizon, hands clasped upon a fist full of wild mane.  And a face that reflected the evening dusk as tranquilizing peace settled its way into a pattern of bonding between human and horse.  But for regretful reasons that horse never got to flare its nostrils and run with wild abandon, because it’s rider refused the ride. 

Like broken dreams upon the rocky cliffs of the stormy sea the raging waves of reality crushed and crashed their little ship into a smithering of hopeless and helpless futility.  Like a lighthouse with a flickering beacon of hope, the dim shine in the distance fluttering then faltered, and finally went out completely.  Leaving them desolate and destitute with nothing more than a salty sea taste, of a confused sailor aimlessly drifting about, remembering the memories of the past, in the nostalgia of the present and the future-less future. 

If potential was a summer breeze upon a mid-night white wedding dress, with soft fine wine and toe teasing sand.  Then reality was a smelly smudgy island, with a ship wrecked crew consisting of a cannibal and a starving sailor who fell asleep on board as the water spilled in like currents from an under world intent.

While it seems pathetic that someone lives a life under the sub-heading of: If Only.  It is important to remember that more often than not, it is circumstances that choose us, not we who are graced with the luxury of choosing our own circumstances.  Such is the case of this woman who on a night over twelve years ago, was picked by the gods of misfortune and tragedy to deal with a brutal hand of misery. 

It began as any regular evening with a rebellious teenage daughter who wanted to stay out too late.  And it ended with the sound of broken glass, screaming metal, and the cries of neck shattered fears.  Seventeen is an age of youthful exuberance, and playful days, not an age of wheelchairs and incapacitates.  Yet such was the case of the happenstance, in a startling flash of fragile proportions, more than one life was competently turned upside down forever. 

This is where our legend comes in, not as a saving savior, or a spine curing doctor, but as a mother torn and devastated by her daughters youth being ripped away mercilessly from her protective grasp.  While you might be able to relate to the devastation of the news that your daughter will never walk again.  It is unlikely that you will ever know the inner pains and silent halls of torture because of what went on behind the scenes and deep within the sleep and consciousness of this person’s world.  You see the night before her daughter was to become paralyzed for life this woman had a dream.  A vivid dream with the startling details and shocking implications of things that were soon to come.  Did she try and warn her daughter, did she tell her about the disturbing dream?  Of course she mentioned it, of course she cautioned her, but did she insist with fervor and steadfastness that her daughter should remain home and safe from harm?  Did she do all that she could to prevent what eventually happened?  To what extent did she allow her daughter to dissuade her from her intuition?  How much did she listen to the critic in her head telling her: “it’s only a dream.”  What if she had been more convinced of her own gut instinct?  What if she had trusted her mothering knowledge that trouble was in the wind?  Would her daughter still be able to walk?  Could she have prevented what happened if she had insisted with the insistence, of a certain self-conviction that her daughter NOT venture forth at least for one evening? 

These few thoughts and questions stung with the efficiency of a swarm of angry hornets.  Doubt and guilt raked through her like hot coals being drug over a burning blister.  Regret like knifes cut through her abdomen, slicing her spleen, liver, small intestine, and kidney.  Sorrow in every part of her gut seemed to be ripping through her like a chainsaw tearing through flesh and stomach tissue with blood starting ease.  After all it was her gut that warned her, so of course it would only make sense that now it would be her gut that would cause her to suffer.                                             

It is at this moment that she gains her legendary status.  Because it is at this precise instant that the moment of fate presents itself like a daunting ominous beast billowing forth black clouds of smoke into the face of the tiny human.  She could of course just walked away, after all she was the one still standing, the one still capable of simply walking out the door.  It would have been so easy to pacify herself with religious or social cliché’s such as:  “Just leave it in god’s hands.” Or “it will all work out in the end.” Or “this is just a test to strengthen you.”  Or “sometimes bad things happen to good people, you just have to make the most of it.”  Such simplistic rationalizations would have been a flimsy band-aid upon the reality of a confused and devastated life.  Such hollowed out reasons might have acted as an anesthetic, numbing out the shearing pain of it all, but the flip side effect would have been the loss of her daughter’s soul. 

For in all honesty no one knows why the dice rolls out crushing odds, or why the lightning bolt strikes upon the spinal column, only to debilitated and not to compassionately eliminate.  Of course death would have been a more just reward, of course there is no legitimate reason why such an accident would befall such a bright vibrant future.  Of course no man can adequately describe or define the harsh brutality of a paralysis cutting so dramatically into the framework of what life really should have been like.

It would have been so easy to just walk away inside, to emotionally turn off, and to just go through the mechanical motions of care taking for a paraplegic.  She could have justified and rationalized her way into taking a flight from what was now beneath her; crippled and unable to walk. 

People would easily have agreed with her excuses.  Yes they would say, this isn’t your problem, no you are not the one who is responsible.  Yes you have the right to live your own life.  No you shouldn’t have to be stuck with another person’s wrong choices.  It would have been that easy, to walk away from the misery that she never signed up for. 

And yet in the face of the shearing pain, and the blinding raging inferno.  She held fast, she did not let go, and she never walked away.  This women, this mother, when internal torture was at it’s most wicked point of unbearable suffering, stood her ground, and held her daughters hands.  She listened to her endless midnight plea’s and ignored her own sleepy needs.  She mourned and offered no answers because she had none.  She screamed and shouted at the heavans, cursing the naïve, and doubting god for what could never be undone.  She fought and she cared, she consoled and she dared, to do what only a legend could do.  To walk into the midst of a dying life, and stay there unable to alter or change a damn thing.  This is what makes her so remarkable, not that she took care of her daughter, that much anyone could see.  But that she didn’t walk away from her heart when she had the feet to do so.  That doesn’t mean that she didn’t want to quit, or that at times she probably surpassed her own point of burnout. 

But in the internal vistatude of the soul’s perspective, Donna Daniels Mathews, stood by her daughters side, with no remedy, no magic potent, and no way to rewind the clock of time.  She did this partly out of circumstance, partly out of pity, partly out of fear, and partly out of duty.  But there was another part of her a deeper part that did this out of bravery, out of free will, out of instinct, out of loyalty, out of antiquity, and out of eternal love.  Because it was in her character to be there side by side and spinal cord by spinal cord with her daughters nightmare of an existence. 

In order to fully appreciate what she has done, it is absolutely necessary to realize what was also lost, so that something else might be held onto.  You see part of this women’s nature is much like that of a crab, holding, grabbing and never ever letting go.  Obviously any well-oiled shrink can tell you the co-dependent back-droppings to such unreasonable behavior.  However I have come to realize the amazing qualities and unconscious divinities of her crab like ways.  For there have been many people who have come into her life, who have tried to convince her to let go.  Shrinks and “wellness” groups included, she has also been tempted by neighbors, family members, close friends, and lovers alike to let go of her grip upon her daughter’s hands. 

And like a lighthouse being beaten upon by the 50 foot waves of well wishers, and 3 hour storms of optimistic howling winds, she has stood her ground every time.  These people who were just trying to help, and who meant no harm, could not understand, nor could they perceive the beacon of light that this women must remain, for a lonely little 30 year old paraplegic daughter, who’s tiny ship is void of engine, paddles, or mast.  And so like a crab holding on for dear life, or like a lighthouse that is tired of the storm, but is never weary of standing steady, this legend is a reminder to us all. 

That sometimes life is less about pursing your dreams, and more about giving up those dreams for a greater cause.  That sometimes life is less about heroic feats, and more about daily struggle.  That sometimes life is less a courageous battle to be overcome, and more of an accepting truce to undergo.  This legend seems to be reminding us all in a crab like way that sometimes it is better to hold on and never let go, rather than to always go forward moving onwards and upwards.  That sometimes it is ok, to not know the reasons of why things happen, instead of quickly spilling forth easy answers that seem to come from a cookie jar of surface thought. 

I believe more than anything else in the universe that if we could all have an epihifany, concerning this woman that the world would instantly become a more dedicated, loyal, and steadfast place to live in.  For in the defining image of this legend there appears to be something so profoundly everlasting that the viewer can say nothing, nor give any advice.  But can only drip with the salty tears of admiration and penetrating respect.  For in the final image of her nature is a pair of hands holding on, tighter and tighter, unwilling to change, and refusing to let go.  It is in this image of her hands, that the fleeting sight of her genius can be seen.  A person who is willing to give up on everything: social standing, the esteem of neighbors, a marriage, a religion, and all the therapeutic counseling and cliché advice that the world can offer.  Even their own hopes, dreams, and aspirations all so that a daughter shall never have to utter the words:  “Mother why have you left me?” 

It is in this essence that a seemingly ordinary life takes an unfortunate accident, and turns it into an extraordinary display of incredible character in a committed backbone.  For in the tumultuous and stormy sea’s there is a lighthouse.  And at the bottom of the ocean floor there is a crab who will not let go.  And upon the sandy beach there is a wild white and elegant horse, running with nostrils flared and flanks glistening in the moonlit night.  Just waiting for a rider who will someday take a hold of it’s free flowing mane, and ride and ride and ride until once more all feels right, and there is tranquility in the world once again.

*For literary comments or contributions please contact Ben Bingham at:   290 West 300 South apt. #2 Springville, Utah 84663.  (Email: christydiablo @yahoo.com) (Phone: 471-8164.)