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The Thrush Who Left Home to Live Among the Starlings.

September 30, 2016 by Exangel

by Rose Jermusyk.

Mother Thrush had four daughters; Fair, Proud, Trembling, and Loud. Fair was a clever creature who happily left the nest with no intention of turning back, except to smile to her mother. Proud took great strides to stand on her own when she left the nest, and often sang to her mother. Trembling – however – could not bring herself to leave the nest even as the youngest sister Loud quite stormed from the nest, continually singing for all to hear.

While her sisters had been able to just do it, to just leave the nest and start new lives of their own making, Trembling knew she could not do so without seeing where she might land.

One day, Trembling heard a constellation of starlings chipper-chittering among themselves in a maidenhair tree not too far from Mother Thrush’s nest. The sound of them filled Trembling with longing to live among them in the maidenhair tree.

“Have you room for a thrush?” she cried, but they answered none.

“Room for a nightingale?” she tried, but they answered none.

“Am I not Philomel?” she sighed as she lighted on a branch of the maidenhair tree where they might see her better. Being face-to-face with one so in need of freedom and companionship, the starlings felt they loved Trembling at once.

She was most happily welcomed, and most happily lived often singing when there was no reason. The starlings were marvelously kind and showed her how to live among them.

Still, Trembling was Trembling. No matter how she ruffled her feathers, she could not shake the uneasy feeling that came to her in the stillness between the songs.

Sometimes, she sang to hide from it. Often, she tried to befriend it as a part of growing up. Mostly, she held quite still.

In time, the stillness grew as all fires grow by consuming whatever is in reach, however small. Her songs were the first to perish. Next, that little wisp of wind that follows each bird to help them fly. With her little wisp gone, Mother Thrush was called upon to take Trembling back to the nest.

With nothing else in reach, the stillness went after Trembling’s heart. No one knew til it was too late.

The starlings all wanted to kiss Trembling goodbye; but, Trembling’s heart was on fire for fear of the future and their tender touch – so refreshing sweet – too quickly cooled her heart.

“Name the day,” she cried as her heart quite burst within her breast, and they named it Sorrow. Under the maidenhair tree was she buried, and forget-me-nots did grow.

Filed Under: EAP: The Magazine, Fall 2016: Animals Are Us.

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In This Issue.

  • Who Was Dorothy?
  • Those Evil Spirits.
  • The Screaming Baboon.
  • Her.
  • A Tale of Persistence.
  • A Conversation with Steve Hugh Westenra.
  • Person Number Twelve.
  • Dream Shapes.
  • Cannon Beach.
  • The Muse.
  • Spring.
  • The Greatness that was Greece.
  • 1966, NYC; nothing like it.
  • Sun Shower.
  • The Withering Weight of Being Perceived.
  • Broken Clock.
  • Confession.
  • Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse.
  • Sometimes you die, I mean that people do.
  • True (from “My Life with Dogs”).
  • Fragmentary musings on birds and bees.
  • 12 Baking Essentials to Always Have in Your Poetry.
  • Broad Street.
  • A Death in Alexandria.
  • My Forked Tongue.
  • Swan Lake.
  • Long Division.
  • Singing against the muses.
  • Aphorisms from “What Remains to Be Said”.

In The News.

That cult classic pirate/sci fi mash up GREENBEARD, by Richard James Bentley, is now a rollicking audiobook, available from Audible.com. Narrated and acted by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio, you’ll be overwhelmed by the riches and hilarity within.

“Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges is your typical seventeenth-century Cambridge-educated lawyer turned Caribbean pirate, as comfortable debating the virtues of William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, and compound interest as he is wielding a cutlass, needling archrival Henry Morgan, and parsing rum-soaked gossip for his next target. When a pepper monger’s loose tongue lets out a rumor about a fleet loaded with silver, the Captain sets sail only to find himself in a close encounter of a very different kind.

After escaping with his sanity barely intact and his beard transformed an alarming bright green, Greybagges rallies The Ark de Triomphe crew for a revenge-fueled, thrill-a-minute adventure to the ends of the earth and beyond.

This frolicsome tale of skullduggery, jiggery-pokery, and chicanery upon Ye High Seas is brimming with hilarious puns, masterful historical allusions, and nonstop literary hijinks. Including sly references to Thomas Pynchon, Treasure Island, 1940s cinema, and notable historical figures, this mélange of delights will captivate readers with its rollicking adventure, rich descriptions of food and fashion, and learned asides into scientific, philosophical, and colonial history.”

THE SUPERGIRLS is back, revised and updated!

supergirls-take-1

In The News.

Newport Public Library hosted a three part Zoom series on Visionary Fiction, led by Tod.  

And we love them for it, too.

The first discussion was a lively blast. You can watch it here. The second, Looking Back to Look Forward can be seen here.

The third was the best of all. Visions of the Future, with a cast of characters including poets, audiobook artists, historians, Starhawk, and Mary Shelley. Among others. Link is here.

In the News.

SNOTTY SAVES THE DAY is now an audiobook, narrated by Last Word Audio’s mellifluous Colby Elliott. It launched May 10th, but for a limited time, you can listen for free with an Audible trial membership. So what are you waiting for? Start listening to the wonders of how Arcadia was born from the worst section of the worst neighborhood in the worst empire of all the worlds since the universe began.

In The News.

If you love audio books, don’t miss the new release of REPORT TO MEGALOPOLIS, by Tod Davies, narrated by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio. The tortured Aspern Grayling tries to rise above the truth of his own story, fighting with reality every step of the way, and Colby’s voice is the perfect match for our modern day Dr. Frankenstein.

In The News.

Mike Madrid dishes on Miss Fury to the BBC . . .

Tod on the Importance of Visionary Fiction

Check out this video of “Beyond Utopia: The Importance of Fantasy,” Tod’s recent talk at the tenth World-Ecology Research Network Conference, June 2019, in San Francisco. She covers everything from Wind in the Willows to the work of Kim Stanley Robinson, with a look at The History of Arcadia along the way. As usual, she’s going on about how visionary fiction has an important place in the formation of a world we want and need to have.

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