I Swear On My Mothers Grave

I went to Iceland and it was so beautiful and kept seeing tons of rainbows. While it is said it is impossible to stand in a rainbow (physics and all), I saw one so solid that maybe...

     It wasn’t a postcard of a day. Postcards are flat, mass produced. They are cardboard depictions that rarely express the grandeur of the place for which they were created. No, that day was a deep dream kind of a day. The kind where you can almost sense a fourth dimension. Like living in the thick of the most vibrant painting, eating the crisp autumn sunshine and creating violent red poppies with the wave of a delicate white hand.

     On the left, the sea was the most beautiful and angry shade of black. Water feathered with white caps riding ribald waves to the stony shores and breaking in voices meant to warn, shouting death threats to all comers. The hiss of the retreating foam, a calmer whisper, seducing the bravest to try if they dare. I strolled the path, zig zagging around coves and small estuaries looking to my right at the golden tundra and the stark line where dark volcanic mountains met creamy white-blue skies.

     Looking to the distance I could see three rainbows. Two half rainbows started from empty ice-cold air and rose to points where invisible resistance reduced them to matching puzzle pieces to be rotated and placed just so in my mind. The third was solid and complete. The colors were bold and opaque. The definition between the Roy G. Biv ribbons as sharp as I had ever witnessed. One end of the rainbow rested on the surface of the sea, somewhere beyond my ability to calculate, propped on the back of a great blue whale I surmised, and the other end disappearing behind the roof line of a small building that stood next to the sea.

     As I approached the building, I could see that the end of the rainbow rested on the ground. I inched my way closer and at first thought I dare not enter the prism of colors that were tangible, accessible, for fear that the minute I came too close, the dream would disappear into vapor. Unable to hold myself back, I walked into the center. The rest of the world took on a yellow-red hue, droplets of mist dancing like tiny mercurial faeries. Although I did not find a pot of gold resting at my feet, the measure of an experience like that was worth more than any amount of treasure could provide. I had been to the end of the rainbow.

Corey Rowley
Copyright 2022

Reviews

[Ken e Bujold]

The mystery of a rainbow can indeed be so inspiring. We see them all the time and take so much for granted until we are gifted with a truly special one, then it's like the heavens opening up to our eyes.
I had a similar experience, in Cambodia after a mid-afternoon rain, looked up to see Angkor Wat framed to one side by an absolutely mind-blowing rainbow. Of course, everyone was snapping pics (including my wife) but I can't look at any of them to this day, prefer the picture I took with my eye.

Great poem, story Crowley

Ken e

[Crowley]

It was amazing as was the rest of Iceland. Crazy wierd and beautiful place. Thanks so much!!

[Ken e Bujold]

yes it is a fun place to visit. Surprising, to me at least, was the fact that even in the winter it wasn't all that cold. Which I hate, being from Canada I have seen enough snow and felt more than enough snow to last a life time. Fortunately these days I get to spend a big chunk of winter in Singapore where the only ice I see is in a glass

[Coyote Poetry]

Some journeys Crowley are hard, and we must do.
"I walked into the center. The rest of the world took on a yellow-red hue, droplets of mist dancing like tiny mercurial faeries. Although I did not find a pot of gold resting at my feet, the measure of an experience like that was worth more than any amount of treasure could provide. I had been to the end of the rainbow."
I liked the above lines a lot. You gave the reader a view of a rainbow. Thank you for sharing the excellent poetry.
Coyote

[Tate Morgan]

Looking out on Waves in the ocean I can’t help but think how beautiful it all is. And yet how deadly it may be as well. How amazing is it that we all are alive? How unlikely is it that we have not been killed by our own environment? Duality of man that you so intimately displayed in your heart. My friend and fellow poet Crowley I tip my hat to you in deference to your talent.: respectfully Tate

[Crowley]

Hey Tate!!! Great to hear from you! Hope you are well my friend. Thanks for the great review!

[Fabian G. Franklin]

Fantastic write! I enjoyed the personal communication touch of the piece, as if reading a letter from a dear friend and the descriptive quality was likewise, impressive. I felt as if I was there with you. I like the Roy G Biv reference to the rainbow colors too, we learned that one early on. The photo accompanying the write is simply stunning! It's amazing that the colors are only refracted light because they almost look solid. I would love to visit Iceland or Norway. My son-in-law's family hails from Norway and photos of the scenery are just jaw-dropping; the fiords, mountains and brightly colored buildings in the small hamlets and villages. My grandchildren are blonde and blue-eyed and look like their dad. He looks like he might have be from old Viking stock himself. They are all living in Alaska now so he's sort of in his historical familial element I suppose. They seem to be thriving there. I can certainly see how a treasured memory like this could be valued more that silver and gold. Great stuff. If I saw this in a travel brochure I'd certainly be inspired to travel there. I enjoyed. Thanks for sharing!

[Crowley]

Thanks Fabian!! Not sure what to think, got roasted and lauded for this one. Such is life. The roast did bring up some good points though. Good to see you my friend!!

[Fabian G. Franklin]

Haters gonna hate, what can you do? Negativity is the pride of life for some folks. Keep up the great writing.

[Crowley]

He wasn’t hating, he had some great insights and good or bad I appreciate that.

[Fabian G. Franklin]

Some people are n love with writing or in love with the spoken word, others are in love with the sound of their own pontifications. I'd venture the latter is the case here, regardless of perceived or actual value. The colloquial expression I employed wasn't meant as literal. I'm aware the review wasn't fueled by hate. But I do believe it fueled by self-gratifying vanity to be eschewed every bit as much as pedantry.

[JayG]

You're talking to the reader as if they can hear you, and know the emotion in your voice. But they can't. Nor can they see the gestures, your eye-movements, body language, expression changes, or any part of your performance. In short, you're using the skills of verbal storytelling in a medium that doesn't reproduce either sound or picture. So what the reader gets is a storyteller's script, minus the stage directions.

For you it works, because the narrator's voice is your voice, and holds exactly the right emotion. And as you read the gestures and expression changes are there.

At the moment, because you're thinking visually, you're focused on it, in a medium that can't show it. So when you say, "On the left, the sea was the most beautiful and angry shade of black," why does the reader care, or feel they need to know? Would the story change in the smallest way were it green? No. And reading words that specify color is not remotely like seeing a heaving sea in a film. So as a reader, I'm left trying to figure out how black water can be both beautiful and angry (and how the seawater can be black in daylight)*.

You spent 87 words in paragraph 2 talking about a sea that no one is sailing on, and which isn't necessary for the plot to work. The story would be unchanged were it in a forest. And as we read those words nothing is happening. So what do they do but slow the narrative?

You’re going for pretty at the expense of story. As Jack Bickham put it: “To describe something in detail, you have to stop the action. But without the action, the description has no meaning.” And in this story, the only thing that has happened in the first two paragraphs, 165 words, is that someone unknown, near the sea for unknown purpose, is talking about scenery. In that number of words you could have placed the reader in time and place, given the protagonist and reader purpose by addressing the short-term scene-goal, and still set the scene meaningfully for the reader by making THEM live it.

Film places us into the scene, visually, and makes it real. In an eyeblink’s time it would give us every detail of what you said, plus the dress, carriage, and appearance of the protagonist. That same thing, minus the character’s persona, took nearly a minute to read, and neither moved the plot nor developed character. That’s why we don’t dwell on the visual unless the protagonist has a reason we’re aware of for noting and reacting to it. But in this case, the narrator notes it but there's no reaction. So other then slowing the narrative what purpose does it serve? Why do we care how postcards are made? or what color water the protagonist is ignoring is?

The thing is, a picture truly is worth a thousand words. But why describe things irrelevant to the action?

Answer: we don't. Instead, we take the reader where film can’t go: into the mind of the protagonist. And we do that in real-time.

Instead of taking to the reader about the scene, we place the reader into the scene, as the protagonist, with their responses calibrated to those of the protagonist, so they’ll react to the things the protagonist will. As E. L. Doctorow put it: “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”

Take a look at two articles. The first talks about the reader reacting to events before the protagonist can, and why it matters. The second is a condensation of a very powerful way of placing the reader into the scene.

https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/2022/01/23/i-saw-it-first-the-grumpy-writing-coach/
http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/scene.php

If that second article makes sense, you want to read the book it was extracted from: Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer, which recently came out of copyright protection. It's the best I've found, to date, at imparting and clarifying the "nuts-and-bolts" issues of creating a scene that will sing to the reader. The address of an archive site where you can read or download it free is just below. Copy/paste the address into the URL window of any Internet page and hit Return to get there.

https://archive.org/details/TechniquesOfTheSellingWriterCUsersvenkatmGoogleDrive4FilmMakingBsc_ChennaiFilmSchoolPractice_Others

Try a few chapters. I think you’ll be surprised at how many times you’ll find yourself wondering how you could have missed the point he brings up.

I know this is a lot, and unexpected, but it’s a problem we all face when we turn to writing fiction, because we forget that the purpose of public education is to provide employers with a pool of prospective employees who own a set of basic, and useful to employers, skills. In the case of writing, it’s the nonfiction skills we practiced with all those reports and essays we were assigned.

So we never realize that we leave our school years precisely as qualified to write fiction as to pilot a commercial airliner. We also forget that professions, like Commercial Fiction-Writing, are acquired in addition to our school-day skills.

And since we’ll not address the problem we don’t see as being one, I thought you might want to know.

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

[Crowley]

Jay, thank you much fro stopping by. I did not take the time to count how many words in the review but probably more than a thousand words boiled down to "utter garbage" makes one stop and ponder becoming a commercial airline pilot instead. I will get on the internet and see what that takes. If you do decide to travel you may want to ask the name of the pilot and reschedule if it is me...lol. This piece was from a prompt two weeks ago in a Writing Workshop. The prompt was "Write a short narrative description using a photo or painting that inspires you or makes you feel joy or passion." That was one photo I took on vacation in Iceland, where the landscape was so foreign to me that it did indeed inspire and that day with the storms and volcanic rock shores, the water did appear to be black and the scene was as beautiful as I have witnessed. Should it have been in there, maybe not. All in all, definitely not Dickens or Steinbeck as far as story goes, but there are few selections on the drop down that match. Your comments are definitely fair enough and I have downloaded the articles for reading as I have time. I did feel like pulling this down after reading the review, instead I will leave it up and see about improving it or move on to the next piece and try not to write just another set of pretty words. I am proud that you took the time to actually write a review of that length and will revel in the fact that you admirably and constructively gave me a "shellacking" that may well be deserved.

Honored, Jay G.

Regards,

Corey Rowley