Poem: "Where You Find Light"
Apr. 21st, 2026 10:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis poem came out of the August 5, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from dialecticdreamer, rix_scaedu, and jake67jake. It also fills the "Before the Fact" square in my 8-1-25 card for the Crime Classics Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by janetmiles. It belongs to the Big One thread of the Polychrome Heroics series. It is the first in a triptych, followed by "When You Learn to Read" and "No Faster or Firmer Friendships."
"Where You Find Light"
[Early June, 2016]
As soon as Aidan recovered
from the Big One flattening him
with the weight of so many deaths
and disruptions all at once, he
began looking for ways to help.
Refugees had come pouring
east from the coast after
the Big One, so Aidan had
promptly bought a house
to hold some of them,
especially immigrants who
were still learning English.
Casa de Esperanza was
huge enough to hold lots of
bedrooms and common spaces,
plus a basement apartment,
just south of Avery where it met
the woods of Hathaway Pines.
"What about you?" Aidan asked,
turning to Josué with openness
but no particular expectations.
Josué shivered in the warm air.
"I don't think I could stomach
direct relief work," he admitted.
"It brings up bad memories
of disasters back in Haiti."
Heavy storms hit more years
than not, and then there was
that earthquake in 2010.
Aidan just nodded, like
that was perfectly normal.
"Do you have other ideas
for volunteering, or do you
prefer to sit out altogether?
Either would be fine with me."
"I want to pitch in," said Josué.
"Maybe I could do something
to fix up the house you bought?"
"I can use all the extra hands
I can get," said Aidan. "It's in
good shape physically, but it
looks almost like a hotel inside,
and the yard is even worse."
So Josué joined the crew
of teens and young adults
who scrubbed the place and
then played around with decor.
Everyone wanted to work
on the house for some reason.
Zipper and Smashup dropped by
on most days, and so did a bunch
of the supervillains who hung out at
the Triton Teen Center in Mercedes.
"Okay, how come all of you are
here?" Josué asked Smashup.
"Dude," Smashup said,
"this house may look like
whitebread lives here, but
we can fix that, and it's all in
one piece not a pile of rubble."
Ah. They were getting everyone
who wanted to help but didn't want
to work a red or yellow zone -- or
had and was worn out from that.
Josué stopped wondering about
other people's motivations and
just concentrated on the projects.
The front and one side of the house
were a bright, cheerful pink while
the other side and back were
a pale peach or melon tone.
They used that for inspiration --
there was no getting everything
to match on such short notice, but
they could do creative combinations
of the furniture that they had found.
So the living room had a loveseat
and a corner couch in matching blue,
an ottoman of the same color but
different feet, an easy chair striped
in pink and blue, and a solid pink one
of a frillier style with two throw pillows.
Josué hit on the idea of transferring
the pink pillows to the striped chair,
and suddenly it all looked intentional.
Bougainvillea brought over boxes of
paintings, knickknacks, and stuff
from one of the thrift stores.
A few things, she turned
pink permanently, but most
she left as they were and
people just stuck them up
wherever looked best.
She even made a couple
of shadowboxes in pink
for someone to choose.
Some of the odds and
ends went downstairs to
the basement apartment.
Most of the bedrooms
just had one or more beds
and a dresser or end table,
but a few had throw rugs.
Then Delts showed up
on Zipper's elbow with
two enormous boxes on
his shoulders, one labeled
Air Hockey and the other
marked Foosball Table.
"Hey guys, look what I got!"
Delts crowed. "A bar's closing,
and I scored all their games."
Just then another teleporter
arrived with a pool table.
"Take those upstairs,"
said Aidan. "There's
a room that doesn't
close off well enough
to be a bedroom. We'll
make that a game room."
Into the same space went
the blue-gray couch that
didn't match anything else
and some wilderness art.
Aidan stuck his head into
the empty closet, and
then he handed Zipper
a Greenbucks card.
"Please go buy us
some tabletop games,"
he said. "Cooperative is
preferred, nothing too violent,
and try for Spanish or other
languages besides English."
"We can do that," said Zipper.
"Come on, Smashup, I'll show
you some favorite game stores."
"Could we hit a few thrift shops too?"
asked Smashup. "They usually
have some good family games,
and it's fun to hunt through
their stock to find favorites."
"Excellent idea," Zipper said,
and then they flitted away.
The teleporters returned
a few hours later with boxes
of stuff, brushing sand off
their clothes and laughing.
"You went to Spain?"
Aidan asked, smiling.
"Where better to find
good games in Spanish?"
said Zipper. "Of course,
we hit France and Italy too."
"And Thalassia for Esperanto
and German," added Smashup.
"That's good," Josué said as he
helped them stuff it all in the closet.
"People will want the distractions."
There were times when he would
have given anything for something
to take his mind off the misery.
Once they had the house
looking less like a hotel and
a little more like somewhere
people might want to live,
they started on the yard.
The side yard currently held
a plastic-lined goldfish pond
full of goldfish and water lilies,
alongside a big clay pot filled with
miniature water lilies and mosquitofish.
The kitchen window over the sink had
a perfect view of both, likely why
they had been installed there.
Josué and Aidan watched
several frustrated birds walk
around the steep rim of the pond,
hop around the clay pot, and then
go mess in the emergent plants
whose pots made shallower spots.
"Well, that's no good," said Aidan.
"Let's make a stopgap for now. We
can set up a real wildlife pond tomorrow,
then put the word out for bird fixtures."
The stopgap turned out to be a big bowl
that held a few rocks and smaller pots of
tough plants, making it easier for birds
to get a drink and splash around safely.
The next day, Aidan asked one of
the earthworkers to create a hollow
for the new wildlife pond, then lined it
with a thick layer of natural clay and
a thinner layer of gravel over that.
Locally sourced rocks surrounded
the edge, creating different areas
of shallower and deeper water.
"Take this and find a spot where
it will get sunlight for most of the day,"
Aidan said, handing Josué a solar panel.
"The cord is twenty feet, so that's your range."
"What's it for?" Josué asked as he started
wandering around the side yard with it.
"The water fountain," said Aidan. "I'm
not putting fish in here, so that frogs and
other wildlife can lay eggs safely, but we
need a way to discourage mosquitoes."
Where the side yard opened into
the front with its parking area, Josué
found a reliable patch of sunlight.
Behind him, he heard water splash,
and turned to see that Aidan had set up
a rock so that water formed a tiny pool
on top of it then trickled down to the pond.
It was beautiful, and soothing, and you'd
actually have to go outside to see it.
That was probably a good idea.
After that, they filled in around
the new pond with plants that Aidan
had brought, mostly native species.
Once those had time to grow in,
the wildlife pond would look lovely.
"Now for the backyard," Aidan said,
heading briskly in that direction.
As Josué rounded the corner,
he gaped. Gone was most of
the boring lawn grass, instead left
with gaping stretches of raw dirt.
"What happened here?" said Josué.
"Everything was fine yesterday!"
"I set a team to strip out as much
of the lawn as feasible," said Aidan.
"It's useless to wildlife and it's not
even much fun for humans. We're
going to put in native plants and
a few exotics in pots, whatever
bird fixtures the other team found,
and actual furniture for gatherings."
Okay, that probably would be better,
but right now it just looked mangled.
Aidan used spray chalk to sketch out
a swale to handle water flow, paths
to connect different parts of the yard,
and several patio areas for furniture.
"Hardscaping first," he declared,
then assigned one earthworker to do
the swale with its cobblestones, another
to do the paths with pea gravel, and
the last for the patios that would
have either paving or pea gravel.
"I don't think we have enough
edging materials," someone said.
"We don't have enough of one kind,
so we'll have to mix and match,"
said Aidan. "Water handling has
priority, so use bricks for the swale
first, then paths if there's any left."
The earthworkers scattered
to their various assignments.
"What would you like to do?"
Aidan said, turning to Josué.
"I don't know ... maybe something
to make it look nice?" Josué replied.
"Someone needs to figure out where
to put the decor and bird fixtures,"
said Aidan. "You could try that."
"Sure, that sounds fun," said Josué.
He went out front where people had
been piling up outdoor stuff for days.
There were birdhouses, birdbaths,
and birdfeeders of all different kinds.
Josué looked up what to put where
and started sketching out ideas.
There were other things, too,
pretty boulders and lawn furniture
and a chainsaw carving of a bear.
By the time the earthworkers
had installed the hardscaping and
smoothed the ground to make it
look more natural, Josué had a plan.
He showed his sketch to Aidan
and said, "What do you think?"
"That looks good," Aidan said.
"Let's test out the things that
belong on the hardscaping.
They put out the bench, chairs,
and a couple of picnic tables.
A grill went beside one path,
and bird fixtures along all of them.
More people showed up with plants
to fill in the gaps of the yard, mostly
things that would bloom in some season
and a few shrubs to add more layers since
the tree trunks were bare at ground level.
"Feel like getting your hands dirty?"
Aidan asked, grinning at Josué.
"Sure," said Josué. "What
do you need me to do now?"
"Pot these up," Aidan said,
pointing at several flats of
annuals and a row of things
that could be used as planters.
"They'll add summer color while
the native species are dormant,
and only need hand watering."
Josué didn't know all that much
about plants, but it still felt good
to touch live things and put them
in arrangements that looked
pretty or at least whimsical.
Other folks were planting
the bushes, flowering plants,
and various ground covers.
The backyard looked better
with its seating installed and
stuff for the wildlife to enjoy,
but all the plants still seemed ...
freshly planted and a bit scruffy.
"Well, it's an improvement,"
said Josué. "It'll grow in."
Aidan winked at him and
then said, "Kudzu Dan,
it's all up to you now."
A young man who had
lime-green hair stepped
into a large tub of topsoil.
Then he turned into leaves.
As Josué watched, amazed,
vines spilled out of the tub and
then swept over the raw ground.
Wherever they passed, plants
grew vigorously and the soil
seemed to heal over instantly
as roots pulled it down and
shoots sprang up through it.
Soon everything looked as if
it had been this way for years.
It made a cool, peaceful oasis
away from the sun where people
could sit and enjoy the outdoors.
Kudzu Dan returned to human form,
stepped out of the tub, and bowed.
Everyone clapped for him.
"All right, I'm done for today,"
said Kudzu Dan. "Someone
dump the tub into the compost,
please, before it can escape."
"Before what can escape?"
Josué asked, alarmed.
"The transformation always
leaves a bit of kudzu behind,
that's why he stands in a tub,"
Aidan explained quietly as he
and another man hefted it.
They emptied the tub,
kudzu and all, into one of
the black compost tumblers.
In the fierce California sunlight,
that would definitely bake to death
anything inside it within days.
"Well, that's done," said Aidan.
"This place looks good, and there's
still opportunity for people to customize it
once they move in. I will let the shelter
know that it's ready for guests now."
"Yeah," said Josué. "It does look nice.
I just ... think I'll miss working on it. I
liked doing something for the recovery."
"So choose a new activity," Aidan said.
"What else would you like to try?"
"I don't know," said Josué.
"Maybe I could do something
to help other young people
cope with the aftermath?"
After all, he had plenty of
experience with losses.
Aidan was thrilled with that,
and after some discussion,
they decided that Aidan would
buy books for the refugees and
set those up in the living room.
Josué would read to people so
they could practice languages.
Josué should've known by now
what that would quickly lead to.
You really couldn't turn Aidan
loose on a project without a budget,
or he would go completely wild.
This time, Aidan had built a set
of bookcases and filled them
with bilingual books in English,
Spanish, French, Haitian Creole,
and who knew what else.
Some were for learning
languages, others about
social skills or habitats or
how to deal with your trauma.
As Josué stared at the books,
Aidan explained, "It's better
to set up support before the fact
that add it after. This way it's
less conspicuous, but still here."
Josué thought about how he'd feel
walking into a house with lots of books
on languages and recovery, compared
to having them added after he arrived.
Yeah, books later would feel like they
were bought because he was broken.
"Good point," said Josué. "I'm sure
folks will like the books." He looked
around the living room. "It does feel
more homey in here now. I hope
this fits wherever folks are from."
There was comfortable furniture
to sit on and some random art
hung on the walls here and there.
"Home isn’t where you’re from,
it’s where you find light when
all grows dark," said Aidan.
"Yeah," Josué said, leaning
against his side. "That it is."
Aidan had been his light for a year.
* * *
Notes:
This poem is long, so its location and content notes appear separately.
dialecticdreamer, rix_scaedu, and jake67jake. It also fills the "Before the Fact" square in my 8-1-25 card for the Crime Classics Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by janetmiles. It belongs to the Big One thread of the Polychrome Heroics series. It is the first in a triptych, followed by "When You Learn to Read" and "No Faster or Firmer Friendships.""Where You Find Light"
[Early June, 2016]
As soon as Aidan recovered
from the Big One flattening him
with the weight of so many deaths
and disruptions all at once, he
began looking for ways to help.
Refugees had come pouring
east from the coast after
the Big One, so Aidan had
promptly bought a house
to hold some of them,
especially immigrants who
were still learning English.
Casa de Esperanza was
huge enough to hold lots of
bedrooms and common spaces,
plus a basement apartment,
just south of Avery where it met
the woods of Hathaway Pines.
"What about you?" Aidan asked,
turning to Josué with openness
but no particular expectations.
Josué shivered in the warm air.
"I don't think I could stomach
direct relief work," he admitted.
"It brings up bad memories
of disasters back in Haiti."
Heavy storms hit more years
than not, and then there was
that earthquake in 2010.
Aidan just nodded, like
that was perfectly normal.
"Do you have other ideas
for volunteering, or do you
prefer to sit out altogether?
Either would be fine with me."
"I want to pitch in," said Josué.
"Maybe I could do something
to fix up the house you bought?"
"I can use all the extra hands
I can get," said Aidan. "It's in
good shape physically, but it
looks almost like a hotel inside,
and the yard is even worse."
So Josué joined the crew
of teens and young adults
who scrubbed the place and
then played around with decor.
Everyone wanted to work
on the house for some reason.
Zipper and Smashup dropped by
on most days, and so did a bunch
of the supervillains who hung out at
the Triton Teen Center in Mercedes.
"Okay, how come all of you are
here?" Josué asked Smashup.
"Dude," Smashup said,
"this house may look like
whitebread lives here, but
we can fix that, and it's all in
one piece not a pile of rubble."
Ah. They were getting everyone
who wanted to help but didn't want
to work a red or yellow zone -- or
had and was worn out from that.
Josué stopped wondering about
other people's motivations and
just concentrated on the projects.
The front and one side of the house
were a bright, cheerful pink while
the other side and back were
a pale peach or melon tone.
They used that for inspiration --
there was no getting everything
to match on such short notice, but
they could do creative combinations
of the furniture that they had found.
So the living room had a loveseat
and a corner couch in matching blue,
an ottoman of the same color but
different feet, an easy chair striped
in pink and blue, and a solid pink one
of a frillier style with two throw pillows.
Josué hit on the idea of transferring
the pink pillows to the striped chair,
and suddenly it all looked intentional.
Bougainvillea brought over boxes of
paintings, knickknacks, and stuff
from one of the thrift stores.
A few things, she turned
pink permanently, but most
she left as they were and
people just stuck them up
wherever looked best.
She even made a couple
of shadowboxes in pink
for someone to choose.
Some of the odds and
ends went downstairs to
the basement apartment.
Most of the bedrooms
just had one or more beds
and a dresser or end table,
but a few had throw rugs.
Then Delts showed up
on Zipper's elbow with
two enormous boxes on
his shoulders, one labeled
Air Hockey and the other
marked Foosball Table.
"Hey guys, look what I got!"
Delts crowed. "A bar's closing,
and I scored all their games."
Just then another teleporter
arrived with a pool table.
"Take those upstairs,"
said Aidan. "There's
a room that doesn't
close off well enough
to be a bedroom. We'll
make that a game room."
Into the same space went
the blue-gray couch that
didn't match anything else
and some wilderness art.
Aidan stuck his head into
the empty closet, and
then he handed Zipper
a Greenbucks card.
"Please go buy us
some tabletop games,"
he said. "Cooperative is
preferred, nothing too violent,
and try for Spanish or other
languages besides English."
"We can do that," said Zipper.
"Come on, Smashup, I'll show
you some favorite game stores."
"Could we hit a few thrift shops too?"
asked Smashup. "They usually
have some good family games,
and it's fun to hunt through
their stock to find favorites."
"Excellent idea," Zipper said,
and then they flitted away.
The teleporters returned
a few hours later with boxes
of stuff, brushing sand off
their clothes and laughing.
"You went to Spain?"
Aidan asked, smiling.
"Where better to find
good games in Spanish?"
said Zipper. "Of course,
we hit France and Italy too."
"And Thalassia for Esperanto
and German," added Smashup.
"That's good," Josué said as he
helped them stuff it all in the closet.
"People will want the distractions."
There were times when he would
have given anything for something
to take his mind off the misery.
Once they had the house
looking less like a hotel and
a little more like somewhere
people might want to live,
they started on the yard.
The side yard currently held
a plastic-lined goldfish pond
full of goldfish and water lilies,
alongside a big clay pot filled with
miniature water lilies and mosquitofish.
The kitchen window over the sink had
a perfect view of both, likely why
they had been installed there.
Josué and Aidan watched
several frustrated birds walk
around the steep rim of the pond,
hop around the clay pot, and then
go mess in the emergent plants
whose pots made shallower spots.
"Well, that's no good," said Aidan.
"Let's make a stopgap for now. We
can set up a real wildlife pond tomorrow,
then put the word out for bird fixtures."
The stopgap turned out to be a big bowl
that held a few rocks and smaller pots of
tough plants, making it easier for birds
to get a drink and splash around safely.
The next day, Aidan asked one of
the earthworkers to create a hollow
for the new wildlife pond, then lined it
with a thick layer of natural clay and
a thinner layer of gravel over that.
Locally sourced rocks surrounded
the edge, creating different areas
of shallower and deeper water.
"Take this and find a spot where
it will get sunlight for most of the day,"
Aidan said, handing Josué a solar panel.
"The cord is twenty feet, so that's your range."
"What's it for?" Josué asked as he started
wandering around the side yard with it.
"The water fountain," said Aidan. "I'm
not putting fish in here, so that frogs and
other wildlife can lay eggs safely, but we
need a way to discourage mosquitoes."
Where the side yard opened into
the front with its parking area, Josué
found a reliable patch of sunlight.
Behind him, he heard water splash,
and turned to see that Aidan had set up
a rock so that water formed a tiny pool
on top of it then trickled down to the pond.
It was beautiful, and soothing, and you'd
actually have to go outside to see it.
That was probably a good idea.
After that, they filled in around
the new pond with plants that Aidan
had brought, mostly native species.
Once those had time to grow in,
the wildlife pond would look lovely.
"Now for the backyard," Aidan said,
heading briskly in that direction.
As Josué rounded the corner,
he gaped. Gone was most of
the boring lawn grass, instead left
with gaping stretches of raw dirt.
"What happened here?" said Josué.
"Everything was fine yesterday!"
"I set a team to strip out as much
of the lawn as feasible," said Aidan.
"It's useless to wildlife and it's not
even much fun for humans. We're
going to put in native plants and
a few exotics in pots, whatever
bird fixtures the other team found,
and actual furniture for gatherings."
Okay, that probably would be better,
but right now it just looked mangled.
Aidan used spray chalk to sketch out
a swale to handle water flow, paths
to connect different parts of the yard,
and several patio areas for furniture.
"Hardscaping first," he declared,
then assigned one earthworker to do
the swale with its cobblestones, another
to do the paths with pea gravel, and
the last for the patios that would
have either paving or pea gravel.
"I don't think we have enough
edging materials," someone said.
"We don't have enough of one kind,
so we'll have to mix and match,"
said Aidan. "Water handling has
priority, so use bricks for the swale
first, then paths if there's any left."
The earthworkers scattered
to their various assignments.
"What would you like to do?"
Aidan said, turning to Josué.
"I don't know ... maybe something
to make it look nice?" Josué replied.
"Someone needs to figure out where
to put the decor and bird fixtures,"
said Aidan. "You could try that."
"Sure, that sounds fun," said Josué.
He went out front where people had
been piling up outdoor stuff for days.
There were birdhouses, birdbaths,
and birdfeeders of all different kinds.
Josué looked up what to put where
and started sketching out ideas.
There were other things, too,
pretty boulders and lawn furniture
and a chainsaw carving of a bear.
By the time the earthworkers
had installed the hardscaping and
smoothed the ground to make it
look more natural, Josué had a plan.
He showed his sketch to Aidan
and said, "What do you think?"
"That looks good," Aidan said.
"Let's test out the things that
belong on the hardscaping.
They put out the bench, chairs,
and a couple of picnic tables.
A grill went beside one path,
and bird fixtures along all of them.
More people showed up with plants
to fill in the gaps of the yard, mostly
things that would bloom in some season
and a few shrubs to add more layers since
the tree trunks were bare at ground level.
"Feel like getting your hands dirty?"
Aidan asked, grinning at Josué.
"Sure," said Josué. "What
do you need me to do now?"
"Pot these up," Aidan said,
pointing at several flats of
annuals and a row of things
that could be used as planters.
"They'll add summer color while
the native species are dormant,
and only need hand watering."
Josué didn't know all that much
about plants, but it still felt good
to touch live things and put them
in arrangements that looked
pretty or at least whimsical.
Other folks were planting
the bushes, flowering plants,
and various ground covers.
The backyard looked better
with its seating installed and
stuff for the wildlife to enjoy,
but all the plants still seemed ...
freshly planted and a bit scruffy.
"Well, it's an improvement,"
said Josué. "It'll grow in."
Aidan winked at him and
then said, "Kudzu Dan,
it's all up to you now."
A young man who had
lime-green hair stepped
into a large tub of topsoil.
Then he turned into leaves.
As Josué watched, amazed,
vines spilled out of the tub and
then swept over the raw ground.
Wherever they passed, plants
grew vigorously and the soil
seemed to heal over instantly
as roots pulled it down and
shoots sprang up through it.
Soon everything looked as if
it had been this way for years.
It made a cool, peaceful oasis
away from the sun where people
could sit and enjoy the outdoors.
Kudzu Dan returned to human form,
stepped out of the tub, and bowed.
Everyone clapped for him.
"All right, I'm done for today,"
said Kudzu Dan. "Someone
dump the tub into the compost,
please, before it can escape."
"Before what can escape?"
Josué asked, alarmed.
"The transformation always
leaves a bit of kudzu behind,
that's why he stands in a tub,"
Aidan explained quietly as he
and another man hefted it.
They emptied the tub,
kudzu and all, into one of
the black compost tumblers.
In the fierce California sunlight,
that would definitely bake to death
anything inside it within days.
"Well, that's done," said Aidan.
"This place looks good, and there's
still opportunity for people to customize it
once they move in. I will let the shelter
know that it's ready for guests now."
"Yeah," said Josué. "It does look nice.
I just ... think I'll miss working on it. I
liked doing something for the recovery."
"So choose a new activity," Aidan said.
"What else would you like to try?"
"I don't know," said Josué.
"Maybe I could do something
to help other young people
cope with the aftermath?"
After all, he had plenty of
experience with losses.
Aidan was thrilled with that,
and after some discussion,
they decided that Aidan would
buy books for the refugees and
set those up in the living room.
Josué would read to people so
they could practice languages.
Josué should've known by now
what that would quickly lead to.
You really couldn't turn Aidan
loose on a project without a budget,
or he would go completely wild.
This time, Aidan had built a set
of bookcases and filled them
with bilingual books in English,
Spanish, French, Haitian Creole,
and who knew what else.
Some were for learning
languages, others about
social skills or habitats or
how to deal with your trauma.
As Josué stared at the books,
Aidan explained, "It's better
to set up support before the fact
that add it after. This way it's
less conspicuous, but still here."
Josué thought about how he'd feel
walking into a house with lots of books
on languages and recovery, compared
to having them added after he arrived.
Yeah, books later would feel like they
were bought because he was broken.
"Good point," said Josué. "I'm sure
folks will like the books." He looked
around the living room. "It does feel
more homey in here now. I hope
this fits wherever folks are from."
There was comfortable furniture
to sit on and some random art
hung on the walls here and there.
"Home isn’t where you’re from,
it’s where you find light when
all grows dark," said Aidan.
"Yeah," Josué said, leaning
against his side. "That it is."
Aidan had been his light for a year.
* * *
Notes:
This poem is long, so its location and content notes appear separately.
