A Snowflake in Heaven (Revised)

 

About

Shortly after publishing the original version on 2011.05.20 (available here), I thought,

"I've got an extra pair of wings perched in my office, looking all sad and lonely, might as well put them to good use. And in the process, I'll stop the scattering of my papers every time they get restless and flap about my head!"

I'm sure this is a problem for many.

© Copyright 2011 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

In the Moment (Spring 2011)

Waterfall clouds and dandelion forests.
      Immature green blankets the brown.
Billows of bubbles and zippity pests.
      Roses with thorns complete Nature's crown.

© Copyright 2011 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Today's Tendril...

In the bag of tricks for "how to get it all done," there's nothing more useful, or more debilitating, than a to-do list.

© Copyright 2011 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Today's Tendril...

When God asks a question, do you answer? Or, are you like a deer in headlights?

© Copyright 2011 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Today's Tendril...

Fireworks don't hold a candle to the light show of    virgin snow on a moonlit night,       fireflies at twilight,          starry nights at midnight.

© Copyright 2011 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

A Snowflake in Heaven

 

About

I like to believe (wish, hope, dream) that there are snowflakes in Heaven.

© Copyright 2011 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Perspective (a Branch)

© Copyright 2011 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Today's Tendril...

Sin is like rain.

Sometimes it's a slow, steady drizzle.

Sometimes it's a raging downpour.

Sometimes, well, sometimes it's only "cloudy with a chance."

And that's the kind of rain that requires the most vigilance — the kind that looms and threatens.

© Copyright 2011 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Yellow Dot

© Copyright 2011 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

This text composition is a work of fiction. Names, places, institutions, events, incidents, characters, persons, locations, and/or organizations either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Full Creative Writing Disclaimer.

Today's Tendril...

Faith is about the individual. Religion is about the group. Too often, we confuse, blur, and merge the two.

© Copyright 2011 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

A Prayer, of Sorts: Authority

 

About

Authority is not the result of a vote or an appointment. It can only be earned. And revoked when abused.

© Copyright 2011 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Today's Tendril...

Petrified wood is nature's alchemy.

© Copyright 2011 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Today's Tendril...

A life without balance is a palette of grey. A life of extremes is but a brush of black and white.

© Copyright 2011 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Today's Tendril...

Frustration: You feel like you're yelling at/into/within a tornado — and no one cares; or notices.

© Copyright 2011 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Today's Tendril...

For as much as the dark side becomes a part of your whole, and imbues you with wickedness, it feasts upon on you—steadily, greedily—and savors (ever so deeply) each and every morsel of your soul.

© Copyright 2011 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Today's Tendril...

How would you rather be remembered: as someone that made a difference when it was necessary, needed, or vital, or someone that made a difference only when prompted, prodded, or instructed?

© Copyright 2011 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Two Tendrils for Today

Tranquility: A winter's full moon as seen through a row of icicles.

Alternate Version

Tranquility (steeped in the moment): Enjoying a full moon through icicle fingers and observable breath.

 

Anticipation and imagination: Watching the rise of a full moon until it reaches the point where the tip of an icicle—the memory of yesterday's sun—pops the moon, like a needle to a balloon, and a confetti of words alight themselves on the paper of my mind.

 

About

Tendril 1: A true story.

Tendril 2: Also a true story.

Tendril 2 is dedicated to my Notebook Brother.

© Copyright 2011 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Today's Tendril...

Wisdom grows like stalactites and stalagmites.

© Copyright 2011 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Life in a Box (This Pain)

The text forms a slight "smiley" face. 8']

© Copyright 2011 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Life in Transition

© Copyright 2011 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Today's Tendril...

A man that doesn't sense fear in himself, or in others, has no sense at all.

© Copyright 2011 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Lines of Symmetry

     With all but her mouth draped in silken shadows, she whispered, "Follow the lines of symmetry through your imagination, my love, and along the way you will discover balance, clarity, and purpose."

     She smiled.

     I reached out to touch her cheek and she became the tendrils of smoke rising from the candle on my desk.

    A tear splashed into the candle's pool of shimmering liquid wax — and was no more.

Dedicated to my wife, for her inspiration and for never turning into tendrils of smoke.

© Copyright 2011 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

This text composition is a work of fiction. Names, places, institutions, events, incidents, characters, persons, locations, and/or organizations either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Full Creative Writing Disclaimer.

Tendrils 12

How many nails must be driven into the coffin before "the end" is declared?

 

Progress is relative.

    Relative to the producers and the consumers,
       the observers and the observed,
          the waiters and the movers.

 

"The devil you know," said the vagabond, "is as bad as the devil you don't. After all, one devil is as bad as the next."

Alternate Version

Said the clown to the audience: "The devil you know is as bad as the devil you don't. After all, one devil is as bad as the next."

With that the clown bared his long, pointy yellow teeth, then leapt from the stage into the bowels of the shrieking crowd.

 

Avengers have been wronged and so their passion stems from clarity of justice.

Defenders feel anointed and so their "enthusiasm" is fueled by divine right.

 

To knowingly and willingly hold a heart hostage is a touch of evil.

 

Better to prepare for Armageddon, than to laze about in a virtual utopia.

 

Attics and basements are the cemeteries of yesterday.

 

Just because an elephant can hold a paintbrush doesn't mean you should let it paint your house.

 

There's nothing singular about sin.

 

Glorious determination — the state of an individual that's strong in will and driven to succeed.

 

Reality is context sensitive.

 

About

Tendril 1 - It's not enough to recognize that something is over or finished or done; you have to act to put it rest and move on.

Tendril 2 - It's all about perspective. "Reality is context sensitive." (Tendril 11)

Tendril 3 - Has a relationship to the "devil" Tendril in Tendrils 11. The alternate version is definitely the creepy (horror?) angle.

Tendril 4 - Pondering the motivations of others.

Tendril 5 - Sad, but true.

Tendril 6 - Have to stop watching shows about Armageddon, the Apocalypse, and December 21, 2012.

Tendril 7 - One of my favorite Tendrils.

Tendril 8 - Started out as a tongue-in-cheek homage to fortune cookie words of wisdom, but turned into something serious.

Tendril 9 - What else need be said?

Tendril 10 - State of being; state of mind.

Tendril 11 - It's all about perspective. "Progress is relative." (Tendril 2)

© Copyright 2011 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Monarch in the House (Monarchia in Domus)

 

Tendrils

The seemingly haphazard flight of the butterfly is a lack of understanding on behalf of the world that is observing it; judging it.

 

A flood of light and a wing in a dream,
   A thought transforms,.
      from a tear to stream. . .

 

Don't allow your ideas to remain compressed between the image files on your computer.

"Monarch in the House" is dedicated to Captain D.

© Copyright 2010 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Dawn Once More

 

Soundtrack

If DOM had a soundtrack, then it would be Bill Nelson's "A Bird of the Air Shall Carry Thy Voice," from the two disc release, Chance Encounters in the Garden of Lights (1988, Enigma/Cocteau).

I've lost track of Bill Nelson's work over the years, but for a period of time I really got into his instrumental releases, because they were unlike the Metal and guitar-oriented instrumental music that I enjoyed (and still enjoy — I love the shred and furious dexterity of the "guitar gods").

"A Bird of the Air Shall Carry Thy Voice" remains one of my all time favorite instrumental pieces.

This piece is an offshoot of the sessions related to "Monarch in the House (Monarchia in Domus)."

© Copyright 2010 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Life in Too

Life's too short to walk the long path of despair.
    Write your pain on a piece of paper,
       Then tear it into a million pieces.

Life's too precious to cheapen it with lies.
    "Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth;
        Keep watch at the door of my lips."†

Life's too open to box yourself in.
    Lift the lid;
        Let in the light.

Life's too big to go at it alone.
    Be guarded, but not isolated.
        Let someone in, eventually.
            (Other than the undertaker.)

Life's too easily missed trying to "do it all."
    Stop and smell the roses.
        Trite, but true.


† Ps. 141:3

© Copyright 2010 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Too Easy

Too easy to rationalize acts of unkindness.
Too easy to bury the wrongs.
Too easy to forget those that are suffering.
Too easy to dismiss out-of-hand,
      without concern or remorse.
Too easy to blame "they" and "them,"
      from beneath the sanctity of a black veil.
All too easy to pretend that the little things don't matter,
      even though life itself is but a collection of little things.

As we flatten the world,
      we mustn't allow our souls to be flattened in the process.

© Copyright 2010 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Tendrils 11

I would sooner believe in the gremlins of the mechanical world than disbelieve in the angels and demons of this world.

 

Chivalry neither diminishes nor invalidates equality, but celebrates the natural, God-given differences between a man and a woman.

 

It's not the color of someone's skin that you should worry about, but the color of their heart.

 

To teach is to truly learn.

 

A reasonable, sensible, and respectful level of political correctness is tolerable, so long as being "PC" doesn't trump chivalry or romance.

 

Stir the controversy stew, salt and pepper to taste, serve steaming hot in a sugar bowl, and wash it down with a witch's brew.

 

Absolution: A word, a weight (a wait), a wish, a want, a worry, a responsibility, a sign, a cycle, and the soul of serenity.

 

Tension can be a pivot point, a yoke, a gag, or a pair of handcuffs.

Choice separates them.

 

The trouble with deciding between the lesser of two evils is that you're dealing with the Devil either way.

 

We tend to treat the familiar linearly; as just another vanilla point along the highway of commonplace.

 

Beware the long shadows of complacency and apathy, because they often contain predators.

Alternate Version

Beware the long shadows of complacency and apathy, because they hide—in plain sight—the silent beasts of our demise.

 

About

This collection contains a few of my favorite Tendrils: #1, #9, #11.

#2 is dedicated to all those don't regard chivalry as a bad or dirty word.

© Copyright 2010 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Love/Hate

© Copyright 2010 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Christmas Spirits

© Copyright 2010 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.