Author: Veronica Hallissey

  • The Explanation

    It was with stony disbelief they watched as I slowly lifted the strands of hair at the back of my head. And when they blinked,  I smoothed the disarray and said, did you see them? I, of course, had grown another set of eyes on the back of my head. But only after the children…

  • In Consort

    I seek solitude in that part of mind in consort with the ancient gods. We whisper great truths and often chuckle at the simplicity of man’s complex thoughts and of the complexity of the simple word. It all must do with the feelings of the times. For in ours, when our time was, we laughed…

  • The Leader Coach

    I was thinking of our son's disappointment in the baseball tournament.  He coached the team and they lost.  He poured himself into them and it just did not come together.  Another place, another time, I told him.  It will happen I should have said. His disappointment was keen and I could not take it seriously…

  • Rest well, Sailor

    So in this night when you lie still and listen for the rain, listen for the wind, listen for the stars moving about the sky, listen also for your heartbeat. It is steady and it is sure. It beats for all your commitments, both loving and lovable. You are an important adjunct to this world…

  • The Beginning

    There is a mountain top sitting on the edge of nowhere eager for attention.   Eager for those with a need to know to start the journey.   Eager also to dispense knowledge where there will be help. We ask with great hope for the kind of help given by those who have been driven by a…

  • The Healer

    The storm clouds gather and fear mounts, harnessing power which once were emotions struggling for expression. Like the great god Zeus, brandishing his hot irons, lightening arcs across the night sky. Thunder, like rolling kegs of dynamite, flatten systems of tarnished beliefs, leaving in its wake, profound silence. Forgotten are the thoughts heavy with the…

  • Her Advocate

    The doctor was thoughtful as he asked, `is she in pain?'  And I said that she takes the stairs quite slowly and has difficulty in the morning.  I felt as if I was describing myself.    He touched her head lightly and said, `take her home and love her.' The walk home was longer than the…

  • How Hot The Night

    The still air stifles even the act of breathing. The hot air forged in the steel furnace of daylight is nowhere a relief. My eyes droop with heat heavy fatigue and I take refuge between bed sheets locked beneath the pristine spread all day. My naked legs scissor kick in their coolness, like swimming in…

  • A Lesson In Strawberries

    I was a young girl, about 12.   It was our first summer on The Farm and it was a hard one.   But it also was filled with good food straight from the warm earth. My mother had a talent for growing things in the city, despite its polluted air that even 70 years ago people…

  • CROESUS, MY COUNTRY

    Croesus stumbled and laid back a war torn skin for public autopsy. With bruises bested by emotional welts too deep to be visible,  he wept. In the eye of the cyclone, the earth's erratic heartbeat was his heart; the blood drenching the soil was his blood and the screams of the mothers came from his…