Grass Bends with the Smoothness of Blue Jay Dreams

by Adam Levon Brown

Pliant grass bends with the softened wind
and submerges sorrow with the blackened
soil of faith and healing

Dwarf’s Beard lichen soothes the bones
of pain and whisks away phantoms of
night-molded loneliness

Palpable minnow-shine supplants
misery with Pine memories in essences
of elation and delight

Love permeates the broken twilight
of sadness and overwhelms the heart
with everlasting fortitude

Feathers of a Blue-Jay pirouette
down into the pond in renaissance fashion,
creating ripples of satisfaction

Favoured Island

by Joanna M. Weston

a ferry sails into harbour
on its reflection
while mountains
rise into burning skies
and Douglas firs shake
cones on our heads

farm-stands litter
the winding roads
where crags reach
to tidal points
and bundled roses
open gates built
out of driftwood
for a tourist Canon

The Catch of the Day

by Matthew David Laing

Acidic falling drops of concentrated
reptilian poison, splurging over tinted
glass windshields, wipers
melting and sticking like chewing gum.
The metal doors warp and buckle,
a child screaming from the back seat.

Geysers of waste and plastic
toppling over onto acres of sturdy pine,
filling the soil with chemicals, rot
and fusion of the environment with human
venom and excrement.

Once an uncharted emerald and sapphire vastness,
is home to the seagulls stooping over
the salty sea to the east – the fishing trolleys
lay silent and empty to the west, waiting
for the century’s catch of the day.

Silent Circles

by Emily Strauss

i.

the Redtail hawk is hardly seen against the cliff
wings held stiff for the up-drafts, only his shadow
circles over us, we duck and flinch instinctively

ii.

the moon is voiceless yet we denote by design
a female presence, pale, wan, fragile, a distant
ideal circling at night, a ghost in gauzy dress

iii.

the field sprayer turns around the center well
once a day, wheels pass silently, herds of deer
arrive at dusk to lick droplets from the alfalfa

iv.

dark black vultures, a kettle, slowly pass over
ready to slip lower, testing the state of a vole
lying under sage, bloody teeth marks dripping

Three Photographs Pepper Trail

Checkerspot

Haiku

Lily & Grass

"Out of the sunset light"

by Margarita Serafimova,

Out of the sunset light,
a brown flame arose.
A falcon placed herself above her hunger.

Fragile Thing

by Lynda McKinney Lambert

Before daylight
lone black crow lands on swaying tree tops
high above rushing waters of the creek
crow’s voice hollers out
sharp staccato jabs, high-pitched notes
mingled with swift moving water

Canadian geese
build nests on flat rocks
beside a torrent of white-water
near Rhododendron bushes
super stars, each of them
magnificent blooming wall of flowers
before dawn this morning

Life happens slowly
like growth of lavender-pink
Rhododendron blossoms
smallest details
hundreds of them
wide open
everything in sync
a fragile thing.

Silhouettes

by Stefanie Bennett

The periwinkle pulls her head in
at twice the speed
of sound

Heron Mathematica

by Michael Medler

If you've strayed
too close to the coterminous
of rock, of river, a chaos
of green water may pull
you in. You may crack
the ragged plane of air.

The heron will loop
down, though, a cosine
arc drawn on a silver
of sky. He will
save you; the parallels
of his slender legs
withstand the flood.

Step back and stop.

Sand Dunes--from “The Snow Man," Wallace Stevens

by Emily Strauss

One should have the mind of water
to understand the Bitter River (Amargosa)
as it sinks into the wash and reappears
eleven miles downstream under willows

half hidden from the sun, avoiding sand dunes
and tracks of vehicles that climb like lizards.
The mind of water feels the heat of evaporating
pools, a constriction of mud, a thickening

into dirt as the river digs through hidden
channels underground, seeping, dripping
in cracks, lightless cavities it has forged
where we see only dry beds carved against

sandstone during rare summer floods. Then it
tires of hiding and pours for ten minutes, the mind
of water a living memory of rushing angst
in its haste to prove that bitter was only a lack

of momentum and rain is the shimmering soul
of water revealed once a year under black clouds.

Sakura

by Deanie Roman

Cherry blossoms fall from the trees.
Petals, confetti-like flutter on the breeze.
Faded pink, edged with brown; wind-scattered across the ground.
Ribbons of blossoms dress the street; transforms the gutter at my feet.

Slide Effects The Blue Mountains, NSW Australia

by Stefanie Bennett

I hang my hat where
the oxygen’s lean
and cows
come home
in single file...
where nothing’s out
to prove a thing
but the believing
that’s behind
the green gate.

Japanese Crow

by Deanie Roman

Crow looms on a wire,
watches, waits,
and menaces
passers-by;
his caw strident.

Osprey Fishing

by Wesley D. Sims

An osprey soars in circles migrating
up the cove, bright white underside
gleaming in the sun. It spies movement,
begins descending in a cone spiraling down
twenty yards until it clarifies the target,
draws in brown-barred wings and plunges
head down, accelerating as it dives.
Hits the water head first cratering plumes
outward, quickly pumps its wet wings
against the water to lift off straight up,
grasping a bass in its talons. It rises
fifty feet aiming toward the tree line.
Its reward wriggles, struggles to escape
the sharp claws as the osprey continues
its ascent and lights a high sycamore limb,
pinning its prey while it begins to dissect
the fresh meal with its curved eagle beak.

blue river

by Michael Estabrook

The golden eagle swoops down,
the sun blazing off its wings,
lands beside
the blue river, and watches me
with one black immobile eye
as I stand alone
on the bank and fish.