Share your truth
Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women" portrayed the challenges and sisterly love of the March girls as they were growing up during the 19th century.
The novel also details the growth of Jo, the main character, as a writer.
The ups and downs Jo experiences often mirror those Alcott faced as she emerged as an American writer.
"I don't understand it. What can there be in a simple little story like that to make people praise it so?" she said, quite bewildered.
"There is truth in it, Jo, that's the secret. Humor and pathos make it alive, and you have found your style at last. You wrote with no thoughts of fame and money, and put your heart into it, my daughter. You have had the bitter, now comes the sweet. Do your best, and grow as happy as we are in your success."
"If there is anything good or true in what I write, it isn't mine. I owe it all to you and Mother and Beth," said Jo, more touched by her father's words than by any amount of praise from the world.
- Louisa May Alcott, "Little Women"
Let us share your truth, your humor and pathos, with the world.
Send your Writers Corner submissions to Maureen Dolan, mdolan@cdapress.com.
We prefer e-mail submissions, and we ask that you limit the length of your stories and poems. Please include your hometown with your submission.
You can send hard-copies by mail to Maureen Dolan at The Press, 201 Second St., Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, 83814.
And now, we present more poems, stories and essays written by you, our readers.
THIS MORNING
By Michel Lee King
I look to the west on a crisp clear morn' feeling a breeze on my face and hearing the laughter of the birds in the trees. I feel the warmth they give, see the peace and love all around me, know the lives that stir, smell the sweet dew of morning; I savor this brief, but beautiful definition of spring. I see the deer crossing the meadow, signs of innocence in a sometimes wicked world. The moose in the mountains remind me of the strength and endurance of the heart. The doves' adoring songs remind me that love is upon us. A new and revitalized hope comes soaring through the skies on the wings of robins. Their presence brings with it the assurance that Winter will soon be but a memory. The rays of sun hitting my face arise in me the memory of sweet mornings past and I know that today will be great, productive, and blissful so long as I capture this morning's song in my heart. "Good morning!" I call to the world around me. "Remember to make it a wonderful day."
I WAS WRONG
I was wrong about the unknown
Paltry walking everywhere
Floating in this biosphere
My ceaseless time now lapses slowly
Mortals persist while some grope blindly
Vibrating rhythms hidden and absurd
I heed the clamor I have been transferred
Choirs abashing from these stars singing
I was wrong about the unknown
Wrong about angels
Wrong about vessels
I see none here amongst this vacant space
What am I? Pondering while I undergo no waste
Neither mortal nor angel, demon nor ghost
Tonight is soft while sleep do most
Quiet is the silence, loud is the absence
I was wrong about the unknown
My vapory legs flowing
My new awakening with bearing
Amongst somber houses I glide
Through the slender walls I slide
A heat sears my inner sore
You were all I wanted and all I adore
You lay blinded to my dismay
Unerring features lit by golden ray
Death was done and love had won
I was wrong about the unknown
You see, in this time I realize certainty
There were no guardian angels, only those like me
The ones who gave up the treasures of heaven
To comfort one that was inevitably interwoven
Your face, my bias eyes see far from ordinary
This gift is why I desired the contrary
"Have you felt me disappear?" I ask, inhaling your cashmere
I was wrong about the unknown
Never did I imagine sorrow
Indifference converting to hollow
Cryptic grief submerged and kept with grace
Tossing, turning, you lay alone with no embrace
My hands in your hair, lips to your ear
"Someone loves you," every night I whisper, longing to appear
My voice feels thrown, watching as you transform to stone
Whether you hear me or not is the only left unknown
- Natalie Linna
TODAY RECLAIMED
In the darkest night
You spared my soul
With light.
The glow was soft and fine
With only half a moon
But you were mine.
Yesterday is gone
Today reclaimed.
I'm not alone.
- Ramona Hollenbeck, Pinehurst
When the wind is whispering in the trees I hear your voice.
When the sun warms me in the morning I feel your smile.
When I watch a sleek stallion race across the field, I can
see you walk through the field.
When I sink into my warm quilt, I wish it were your arms
around me.
When I hear the birds sing I hear your voice.
When I see a brook rushing over the rocks, I hear you laugh.
When I smell the hay in the barn I feel you close.
But I see a butterfly floating from flower to flower, I know
you are gone.
I cry silently into my pillow.
- BilleGean Grant, Post Falls