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Lois Greene Stone, writer and poet, has been syndicated worldwide. Poetry and personal essays have been included in hard & softcover book anthologies. Collections of her personal items/ photos/ memorabilia are in major museums including twelve different divisions of The Smithsonian. NO SKYLINE Lake-effect-snow. Not familiar during my Long Island childhood. ‘Upstate’ meant ninety miles north. Lake Ontario: neither the Sound nor ocean, and extended family is four hundred miles away because of my husband’s job. Toronto, Canada, my nearest big city, became a foreign country post 9-11. Our offspring call this ‘home’; inside myself, even after decades, I’m displaced. Competition for most annual snowfall, among three cities, does little for my want of spontaneous cultural diversity. Fewer calendars are chronologically ahead. I pretend I’ve accepted these surroundings as I’ve spent most years here, but the shell that houses my soul will eventually be lowered in reddish soil of Long Island. ...hobgoblins of little mindsI wanted to teach a person not a course; how could I make one aware of what there is to learn? I searched myself, remembering adolescent yearnings for identity and independence in a society that screams compliance. I felt challenged to reach the slow, unsure, complicated student with the same honor as a bright, secure pupil. Only the principal screamed conformity, course topic not student caring! Punish, don't praise was official edict; instruct group not each student. I struggled but failed faculty obedience. ©1997 Green's Educational Pub. (Canada) Reprinted: Spring 2012 Shemom reprinted: fall 2014 East Coast Literary Review Prestidigitator Healthy fingers
kept hurt away; sturdy nails covered by flaking pearlized polish tickled while soothing childhood fears. Fingers swollen by persistent arthritis continued protection from harm. Unadorned nails, though brittle, smoothed my adult frowning forehead. Lean with waste of terminal illness, those fingers had the slender feel of a young woman. I circled them. Daughter's digits have no magic; her breathing disappeared. ©1995 Skylark reprinted winter 2011 Shemom reprinted July 2015 Whispers
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