Sioux Cycles
By Jim Griffin, Truckee
Aimfully wandering
Rightfully guarding
Lovingly independent
Shamelessly herded
Perpetually in motion
Fearlessly hunting
Honoringly abundant
Wrongfully deprived
Constantly praising
Spiritually free
Respectfully plainspoken
Hurtfully stifled
Rejoicefully hopeful
Acutely discerning
Graciously receptive
Spitefully betrayed
Affectionately caring
Morally shrewd
Indigenously proud
Misappropriately exiled
Harmoniously fair
Compassionately kind
Peacefully reacting
Mistakenly disrespected
The Kaleidoscope
By Marianne Gage, Pleasant Hill
When I was six and he was ten, my brother gave me a kaleidoscope for Christmas. He told me he paid a dime for it, a whole day’s pay he made sweeping out our father’s drugstore. This was a chore my two brothers alternated in performing.
‘So you better appreciate it!’ he said, with one of his intimidating scowls.
I did. It made the prettiest pictures, a different one each time I turned my wrist. The shiny glass pieces and bright colors rearranged themselves unendingly, each image lovelier than the last. How the thing worked I never figured out, but I could sit for long periods of time gazing into the bright green cylinder. Somehow, as with all my dolls and collections of childhood objects, it got lost, but I don’t want to buy another. I want to remember that kaleidoscope, that newfound joy of looking and observing colors, shapes and infinite designs.
Like the kaleidoscope, my relationship with my brother has had its own changing patterns through the years. We have experienced every shared emotion common to siblings: love, hate, jealousy, pride; a sense of at one time being our mom’s favorite, then the perception of being the weak, failed offspring, the one temporarily out of favor. I don’t think our mother at any time contributed to these feelings; they were just there in our heads. We have joked and laughed about it, as we keep turning the colorful, changing kaleidoscope of our lives.
Sister and brother. Brother and sister. Love, hate, jealousy, pride.
