I saw your billboard today – the one you signed, 
the one that said:  Life is short. 
Eternity isn’t.  
God
 
I wondered about your punctuation, why you created two 
stand-alone sentences.  I would have used a semicolon 
because it seems more powerful to connect the two –
you know, like dying may seem scary on its own 
but if you think this short life is like a day in the park compared
to what comes next, the threat of eternity really picks up some steam.  
I’m sorry – it’s presumptuous of me to instruct You on punctuation 
but I feel more and more presumptuous these days.  It could be eternity
but I think it’s really just another day looming like the next  eight or 10 hours 
and all it will take to make my way through.  I’m tired, 
you know?  You must know.  Have you ever considered 
reincarnation – how nice it might be to have a good long rest as a tree, rooted 
in earth but able to rustle and sway?  It sounds pretty great to me.  
The thing is, I’m not clear about your whole eternity plan.  Keeping people out –
that part feels familiar – it’s pretty much the way things work around here too.  
But have you ever considered just letting us all in – every single person 
you made no matter what our short lives offered 
or withheld?  I don’t know.  It is lovely to think about
though.  I like to picture you pondering it; (semicolon) 
I like to picture you considering the possibility of another way.
 

You’re a nickel 
of a thing, same
color,you fling
yourself akimbo and not
like a frog at all.
You’re a child
no matterhow old,
you heedless bit, 
squashable from lack 
of consideration 
for stomp, 
you and your 
careless gaze.  
No grace, no reason,
all go.  Plaintive peanut
of perpetual resound.
You common 
implausibility, 
intimate
with ground.
Water born
lung breatheryou
too small to be called 
quitswhen come
what may.  You’re hope
looking down, every kind 
of possibility
unbound.
 

Tears and Trombones

by Nanci Lee Woody

Persimmon Tree readers will love young Joey’s mother, Ellie, as she navigates through poverty and around a philandering, alcoholic husband to help her boy achieve his dream of becoming a classical musician. She scrimps and saves enough to take her nine-year-old boy to the San Francisco Symphony to hear Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, though she herself had never before set foot in a concert hall. Readers will follow Joey through his childhood with its real-life pain, and watch as he, too, navigates around his father and uses his creativity to passively “get even” for his dad’s cruelty, always knowing his mother will be there to rescue him. Though their relationship is not without its trials, she models for him loyalty, persistence and hard work and allows no excuses when times are hard. In high school Joey falls quickly and deeply in love with a curly-haired beauty, and is torn between his love for her and pursuing his musical dream. When another girl courts him and offers to help him pay his way through college and music lessons, Joey marries her, thus forming a tormented triangle love affair. You will follow Joey as he auditions for the Sacramento Symphony and Music Circus. You will be there with him when he plays his horn with Frank Sinatra, studio musicians from Hollywood, The Beach Boys, Dorothy Dandridge and Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison. Having achieved his musical goal, will Joey ever be able to set his personal life right? Nanci's short stories and poems have been published in The California Writers Club Literary Review, a CWC Anthology, October Hill Magazine, The Fault Zone, the Sacramento Poetry Society’s Tule Review, Your Daily Poem, The Monterey Poetry Review, the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal and many other online and print publications. Check out Nanci’s website for samples of her writing and art, click here to listen to the music in Tears and Trombones, and watch for Nanci’s new book of poetry coming out this fall. Available on Amazon

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