lyrical songs

by Lynda Lambert

lyrical songs
mingle through foggy layers
abandoned  nests
hidden among wet branches
mulberry trees without tender berries

Desert Rain

by Ann Hunkins

Seven nights of rain in the high desert.
Steam puffs off flowering chamisa,
woody apache plume, curled gramma grass.
Even the shattered granite softens
to take raccoon and squirrel tracks.
A Townsend¹s Solitaire rises through sunlight
wing flutter flash, catch and release brilliance.
Dark side of the hill cold. Sun slips through valleys,
lights up tops of two tall ponderosas, candles.
The warm side slopes up in bright red soil
toward clothed mountains, needles silver with rain,
mist in the hollows, juniper berries shining sapphire.
No one here complains about the wet.

Forest-hope

by Thriveni C. Mysore

Raging wild-fire swept
through sun-burnt forest.
Seven dawns passed through
smoky air that carried
stifled scared cries of
insects, birds and beasts.
Hurried raindrops fell
to sooth sprouts.
a chirp, a song, a growl
promised the coming of
fertile, New-life.

Three Photographs Ann Hunkins

In Constantinople

by Margarita Serafimova

Allah is calling the parakeets
to pass over the grass,
and they are passing,
greener than light.

Lines

by Carl Mayfield

hummingbird still between his wings

The Horned Lark’s Song

by Pepper Trail
 
This is what we want
The short grass
Poverty
Drought
The hard horizon, all around
Here we know where we are
At the center
Here, nothing else
At the center

Lines

by Carl Mayfield

Russian sage: that purple brushing the drought

Hinge Breach

by Rachel Barton

someone’s taken the door off the hinges wind
howls and wails against the open walls leaves
and grit flail and scritch in a scatter of eddies across
open floorboards across the valley at least the rain

clings to distant mountains and coast we make
the most of joists creaking dryly in the yawn of open air
dry creek bed of our brains threatens flames
everywhere the in is out we want to shout

enough but the cotton in our mouths
thwarts our tongues’ longings our eyes
red with the assail of grit grow weary
doors unhinged all barriers are permeable

openness an assault and a wonder
radioactive boars defy containment
run wild around Fukushima
we are scatter shot to the stars

Ponderosa

by Carl Mayfield

Bark is the only
bite offered.
The pine sucks
the earth
into its trunk,
rising
moment by moment
into the sky
where the
three needle
clusters
meet the wind.

In the Forest

by Elizabeth Burnside

I
Water seeps
up, enough pools,
until dribbling, gurgling,
falling water forms
water falling,
gurgling, dribbling,
until pools enough,
up seeps water.

II
Pollen falling
with golden
leaves beneath
still wet streams,
glistening moss slakes
creek, slakes moss, glistening
streams wet still,
beneath leaves
golden with
falling pollen.

III
Lofting trees
now dormant, trunks
fallen into slopes,
lacing streams
amongst layered decay,
nascent decay
layered amongst streams
lacing slopes into
fallen trunks, dormant
now, trees lofting.

Autumn Colors in the San Luis ValleyMaury Grimm

Saffron

by Don Thompson

Smoke from distant wildfires
creates the illusion of clouds—
of faux cumulonimbus
offering rain like those promises of peace
that no one falls for.

And behind its pall this morning,
the sun glows almost saffron
as if to honor a self-immolated monk
who died for
some long forgotten lost cause.

The fires will keep burning for miles,
for days; and years from now,
driving by, we’ll see snags
like blackened skeletons
still standing upright in the new growth.

gorilla rain

by Elizabeth Kuelbs

he knuckles around his cage around
                   the tub it smells of plastic it smells
of rain that wets bamboo nests
                   somewhere he would eat ants from
his lovers’ and his babies’ faces where
                   he would thunder dirt where he
would tremble forests it smells

real

he climbs into
                   cool wet
he claps splashes stretches
                   his great arms stormwide he
                                      spins he
                                                     spins and spins
                                                                      his own rain and he
                                                     is he is he
                   his eyes on a
somewhere sky

Lines

by Terrence Sykes

red dog morning
coal black silhouette mountains
slate laden spring clouds

Diamond Beach Glow

by Maria DePaul

Breakers hit the black sand of Diamond Beach
Dust of volcanoes sparkles with chips of icebergs

The surf glows with the scattered frozen jewels
Clear glass of ancient tundra broken apart

Burnished by the waves clear against the
Brilliant blue of waters under a rainbow dawn

Each facet and flaw of these random ice floes
Sparkles in Arctic tides battered by heavy rains

Frosted, transparent or mirrorlike, floaters reflect
Every nearby glow of light bouncing on the waves

Harvest Moon Maury Grimm

Italian Naturalist's Diary

by Terrence Sykes

olive & fig
then chestnuts
amongst
peeling birch
guarding that
silent river

On Fernandina

by Elizabeth Kuelbs

There is still
suspended
between
celestial light
sparked breaths ago
and the slow wet rock
that holds life from fire
a seal who sleeps with
squid in the mouth
her agouti fur alive
with quick-tongued
lizards who dance
death to the flies
who would
sting her
until they
too surrender
cool-skinned
to sun.

"The wolves who drink snow pass in spring"

by Margarita Serafimova

The wolves who drink snow pass in spring,
one by one, through the forest under the ridge, keeping to the high,
an unconditional look in the eye, knowing who they are.

Just A Bird

by Don Thompson

The owl has flown infinite distances
and for eons to get here,
somewhere close by in the dark.

If you could see it, you’d recognize
your own fear caught in its eyes
like an insect in amber.

You’ve felt talons seize your wrist
in a bad dream;
waited all night for the beak;

and heard the owl call softly—
low notes like an angel of Apocalypse
warming up his shofar