by John Stanizzi,
Pecking the air with their chuck chuck, the grackles worry the trees.
Owl feather floating delicately on the pond, are you part of the reason for the
noise this morning. Was that you whose wide rump I glimpsed
dexterously wheeling through the thick overgrowth, touching nothing, silently.
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
Monday, August 26, 2019
Newfoundland
Photography by G. Tod Slone
 |
| Monkstown |
 |
| Ile d'Entree |
 |
| Burlington |
 |
| Saint Lewis |
 |
| L'Anse aux Meadows |
Sunday, August 25, 2019
Superluna
It's very nearness changes who I am.
--after Sarah Harwell "Super Moon"
by Judith Ann Muse Robinson
Dark dome of night. Split. Ablaze
at the clerestory. Buona sera,
Superluna of the blood. Welcome. Rest
awhile within our brimful nest
of empty opulence. Creation holds ephemeral
residence enough for you. Clever
hangs its head beneath Niagara's
tongue turned sifting whisper
of Sahara's shifting sands. Distant river
ice explodes a scent of new-mown hay.
Fleshing-out begins of sclerotic bones. Rudder
lost. Dam-breaking floods
expose dry riverbeds draining smelted ore
of sword and shield.
Babble becomes anthem. Becomes
lullaby. This palsied foot taps Tango.
--after Sarah Harwell "Super Moon"
by Judith Ann Muse Robinson
Dark dome of night. Split. Ablaze
at the clerestory. Buona sera,
Superluna of the blood. Welcome. Rest
awhile within our brimful nest
of empty opulence. Creation holds ephemeral
residence enough for you. Clever
hangs its head beneath Niagara's
tongue turned sifting whisper
of Sahara's shifting sands. Distant river
ice explodes a scent of new-mown hay.
Fleshing-out begins of sclerotic bones. Rudder
lost. Dam-breaking floods
expose dry riverbeds draining smelted ore
of sword and shield.
Babble becomes anthem. Becomes
lullaby. This palsied foot taps Tango.
Barred Owl on the Road
by Barbara Brooks
It looked like a rock
until it swiveled its head,
yellow eyes looking at me.
It was sitting on
the side of the road, its drab
wings brushing the ground.
I leaned down to pick
it up, its talons softly
grabbed my arm, its
barred wings fluttered
in the wind of the passing
cars. It clung to my arm.
I tried to cover it with a
bag. It flew instead.
It looked like a rock
until it swiveled its head,
yellow eyes looking at me.
It was sitting on
the side of the road, its drab
wings brushing the ground.
I leaned down to pick
it up, its talons softly
grabbed my arm, its
barred wings fluttered
in the wind of the passing
cars. It clung to my arm.
I tried to cover it with a
bag. It flew instead.
Lunar Eclipse
January 20, 2019
by Jane Richards
8:30
The moon shines pure,
--no ordinary moon, but perigee,
so close to earth it exhales past its boundaries--
glistens the snow,
cuts shadows in crisp lines,
brings clarity to a winter night.
9:46
The moon, smudged at its bottom edge,
--no ordinary smudge, like a passing cloud,
but a stain, a creeping disease over the white face--
lays a dirty cast on the snow,
smearing shadows--
gloom hovers.
10:16
The moon, a feeble frown of light
--nearly overcome with thickening shades,
red stain soaking through the grey--
turns snow into a dark shroud,
shadows into black holes--
the night broods in silence.
10:32
The moon gasps,
--aspirates a last flare of light--
shimmers snow,
recuts shadows
before all illumination dissolves.
10:40
The moon
--in total eclipse, a strange rust-colored beauty,
old blood swirling in murk--
abandons snow and shadows to eerie black--
the earth shoulders a heavy burden,
sinks into itself,
threads to its sun severed.
8:30
The moon shines pure,
--no ordinary moon, but perigee,
so close to earth it exhales past its boundaries--
glistens the snow,
cuts shadows in crisp lines,
brings clarity to a winter night.
9:46
The moon, smudged at its bottom edge,
--no ordinary smudge, like a passing cloud,
but a stain, a creeping disease over the white face--
lays a dirty cast on the snow,
smearing shadows--
gloom hovers.
10:16
The moon, a feeble frown of light
--nearly overcome with thickening shades,
red stain soaking through the grey--
turns snow into a dark shroud,
shadows into black holes--
the night broods in silence.
10:32
The moon gasps,
--aspirates a last flare of light--
shimmers snow,
recuts shadows
before all illumination dissolves.
10:40
The moon
--in total eclipse, a strange rust-colored beauty,
old blood swirling in murk--
abandons snow and shadows to eerie black--
the earth shoulders a heavy burden,
sinks into itself,
threads to its sun severed.
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
7.11.19
7.40 a.m.
59 degrees
by John Stanizzi
Pretentious candelabra, the staghorn sumac, and the breeze this morning as
overheard as a whisper in church. A pair of green frogs
noggles the landscape with gulps, and just along this shore the tendrils of
diving reed-grass are as sleek and smooth as a brushstroke.
Pretentious candelabra, the staghorn sumac, and the breeze this morning as
overheard as a whisper in church. A pair of green frogs
noggles the landscape with gulps, and just along this shore the tendrils of
diving reed-grass are as sleek and smooth as a brushstroke.
Sunday, August 18, 2019
The Red Tide off the Gulf of Mexico, Florida
by Michael H. Brownstein
The colors of the ocean
turquoise with bits of pickled sky blue,
and a blend of grape juice purple—
and then, its skin ruptures,
a sudden rash red and boiling,
a lesion bleeding rotten blood.
The colors of the ocean
turquoise with bits of pickled sky blue,
and a blend of grape juice purple—
and then, its skin ruptures,
a sudden rash red and boiling,
a lesion bleeding rotten blood.
Saturday, August 17, 2019
Photo Op
by Phil Huffy
The loon is not compliant
and folks who dare to try
to photograph these creatures
will find things go awry,
for acts of disappearance
are made with style and ease;
they dive beneath the water
and do not deign to please.
You’ll watch for one to surface
but don’t expect to find
it’s where your camera’s pointed,
the loon can read your mind.
The loon is not compliant
and folks who dare to try
to photograph these creatures
will find things go awry,
for acts of disappearance
are made with style and ease;
they dive beneath the water
and do not deign to please.
You’ll watch for one to surface
but don’t expect to find
it’s where your camera’s pointed,
the loon can read your mind.
Turtles
by Olivia Cyr
Jane, my college best friend, licks the back of her hand,
and closes her eyes. It’s the salt, she says. It tastes so earthy.
I say, it tastes like the saltwater, you mean. No.
She turns my palm over and licks it from the heel
to where my pinky finger begins. Like salt.
It takes me a minute to taste brininess the way that she does,
when I open my mouth and try a handful of salt water,
lapping it gently. Jane laughs, pulls me gently along.
We walk along the small, tucked cliffs above the shore,
looking out onto the Naples water.
My sandals work the backs of my ankles like sandpaper.
I stop, take them off, toss them in my drawstring bag
and step through the billions of pearls of sand and salt.
A bicycle whizzes past us, and Jane giggles. For a moment,
I think she is flirting with another pizza boy,
riding through the cobblestone valley in half-moonlight
on his way to the pizza parlor, al chiaro di luna.
But Jane grabs my elbow and squeaks.
When I look where she’s pointing, my cheeks go fat with a smile.
And suddenly we’re girls again, long before the throes
of college and career life, plucking ladybugs from each other’s hair
after swimming in the lake at camp; tanned, smooth legs akimbo
on the grass while we talked about dreading that first day of high school,
how we thought we’d much rather be squeezing lady bugs
until their plump, pearly bodies engorged, popped like little fireworks.
On the cliff, Jane pulls me, and we skid recklessly
down a sandy path that slopes between jagged rocks,
our bare feet sprinkled with bubblegum nail polish.
I land at her side, and as we come to a stop by the frothy water,
I put a hand over my sunned chest. I suddenly feel exposed
and want to run forward and scoop them up.
Baby turtles have hatched somewhere along the tiny,
bubbly waves of high tide. Five of them.
Barely minutes old, they sleepwalk, like blind little starfish,
their legs and arms tender flippers. They slog through the sand,
exhausted and oily, as it sticks to them
like granules of sugar on my grandmother’s whiskey cookies.
I pull my hand back to my mouth, lick the inside
of my wrist to taste the earth. We stand, perfectly paced monuments
on the beach, watching the turtles sluicing themselves
with water and coiling, clumsy. Beached, quintuplet sacks of flesh.
Jane is so careful to step around them, and studies their patterned trails,
divots in the sand from their pointed flippers.
The carapace of each turtle is a slick skin sectioned out into squares.
These are leatherbacks, I tell Jane from across the way.
We watch them, crouched over their trails, as they race to the ocean,
wiggling rhythmically, resting every few paces.
I imagine them dehydrated, desperate to reach the water,
breathing heavily with newborn aches all through the tender
curves of their limbs and I’m frightened for them.
I could pluck them from the race and carry them to the water,
past the hermit crabs and sand spiders. I want to mother them,
careful and reasonable. Now, my niece is almost five but
I think about my sister nursing her all those times
when she was a baby, when my sister was just twenty-two
and I was writing for newspapers. I worry about when
she will curl up beside her mother like that again,
and know it will be because someone broke her heart,
and not out of instinctual hunger. She will be desert rocky and mica strong,
and glistening all at once. She will be seventeen
squishing ladybugs on picnic blankets while I write in Colmar
with capfuls of Veuve Clicquot at my little kitchen table.
When she was just weeks old, I cradled her at my own chest
while she gazed up through pink eyelids, both of us full of wonder.
Nursing became fluid, it became competitive for her—her little mouth
grazing over her mother’s skin, my sister just running
her hands over her face so she could look at her, not wanting
to let her eat even when she fussed. That hard, rudimentary pit
in her body of motherhood would make her too eager
for her baby to stay that small.
I though often about how she would grow up,
how she would have to move and shift and be, without leaning on us,
and it choked me, that thought of growing— of them each learning
the push and pull of the other. How will my sister do it?
Jane and I have been in Naples for two weeks,
and Jane has finished her book review, while I have buoyed myself
on the beach in the evenings and written in broken Italian
on paper napkins. It is our last night here;
I dig my hands hard into the beach sand,
encouraging the nest of turtles to go, go, go.
And they move without assistance.
Where’s their mother? Won’t they drown, you think?
Jane shimmies her bottom into the sand next to me,
but the babies have dipped into the tide.
Jane, my college best friend, licks the back of her hand,
and closes her eyes. It’s the salt, she says. It tastes so earthy.
I say, it tastes like the saltwater, you mean. No.
She turns my palm over and licks it from the heel
to where my pinky finger begins. Like salt.
It takes me a minute to taste brininess the way that she does,
when I open my mouth and try a handful of salt water,
lapping it gently. Jane laughs, pulls me gently along.
We walk along the small, tucked cliffs above the shore,
looking out onto the Naples water.
My sandals work the backs of my ankles like sandpaper.
I stop, take them off, toss them in my drawstring bag
and step through the billions of pearls of sand and salt.
A bicycle whizzes past us, and Jane giggles. For a moment,
I think she is flirting with another pizza boy,
riding through the cobblestone valley in half-moonlight
on his way to the pizza parlor, al chiaro di luna.
But Jane grabs my elbow and squeaks.
When I look where she’s pointing, my cheeks go fat with a smile.
And suddenly we’re girls again, long before the throes
of college and career life, plucking ladybugs from each other’s hair
after swimming in the lake at camp; tanned, smooth legs akimbo
on the grass while we talked about dreading that first day of high school,
how we thought we’d much rather be squeezing lady bugs
until their plump, pearly bodies engorged, popped like little fireworks.
On the cliff, Jane pulls me, and we skid recklessly
down a sandy path that slopes between jagged rocks,
our bare feet sprinkled with bubblegum nail polish.
I land at her side, and as we come to a stop by the frothy water,
I put a hand over my sunned chest. I suddenly feel exposed
and want to run forward and scoop them up.
Baby turtles have hatched somewhere along the tiny,
bubbly waves of high tide. Five of them.
Barely minutes old, they sleepwalk, like blind little starfish,
their legs and arms tender flippers. They slog through the sand,
exhausted and oily, as it sticks to them
like granules of sugar on my grandmother’s whiskey cookies.
I pull my hand back to my mouth, lick the inside
of my wrist to taste the earth. We stand, perfectly paced monuments
on the beach, watching the turtles sluicing themselves
with water and coiling, clumsy. Beached, quintuplet sacks of flesh.
Jane is so careful to step around them, and studies their patterned trails,
divots in the sand from their pointed flippers.
The carapace of each turtle is a slick skin sectioned out into squares.
These are leatherbacks, I tell Jane from across the way.
We watch them, crouched over their trails, as they race to the ocean,
wiggling rhythmically, resting every few paces.
I imagine them dehydrated, desperate to reach the water,
breathing heavily with newborn aches all through the tender
curves of their limbs and I’m frightened for them.
I could pluck them from the race and carry them to the water,
past the hermit crabs and sand spiders. I want to mother them,
careful and reasonable. Now, my niece is almost five but
I think about my sister nursing her all those times
when she was a baby, when my sister was just twenty-two
and I was writing for newspapers. I worry about when
she will curl up beside her mother like that again,
and know it will be because someone broke her heart,
and not out of instinctual hunger. She will be desert rocky and mica strong,
and glistening all at once. She will be seventeen
squishing ladybugs on picnic blankets while I write in Colmar
with capfuls of Veuve Clicquot at my little kitchen table.
When she was just weeks old, I cradled her at my own chest
while she gazed up through pink eyelids, both of us full of wonder.
Nursing became fluid, it became competitive for her—her little mouth
grazing over her mother’s skin, my sister just running
her hands over her face so she could look at her, not wanting
to let her eat even when she fussed. That hard, rudimentary pit
in her body of motherhood would make her too eager
for her baby to stay that small.
I though often about how she would grow up,
how she would have to move and shift and be, without leaning on us,
and it choked me, that thought of growing— of them each learning
the push and pull of the other. How will my sister do it?
Jane and I have been in Naples for two weeks,
and Jane has finished her book review, while I have buoyed myself
on the beach in the evenings and written in broken Italian
on paper napkins. It is our last night here;
I dig my hands hard into the beach sand,
encouraging the nest of turtles to go, go, go.
And they move without assistance.
Where’s their mother? Won’t they drown, you think?
Jane shimmies her bottom into the sand next to me,
but the babies have dipped into the tide.
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
Synchrony
by Jeff King
Five geese
southbound descend
flit-flash, stealth-plash—
splash splash splash splash splash—
across the surface of a catfish pond,
sycamore-encircled,
to rest their wings momentarily and drink
then rise again
to evanesce northwestward,
the ascending sun tincturing the skyline
burnished copper to salmon pink.
Five geese
southbound descend
flit-flash, stealth-plash—
splash splash splash splash splash—
across the surface of a catfish pond,
sycamore-encircled,
to rest their wings momentarily and drink
then rise again
to evanesce northwestward,
the ascending sun tincturing the skyline
burnished copper to salmon pink.
Sunday, August 11, 2019
composition for spring on the salton sea
by Ginny Short
the salton sea is silvercalm
haze rises up masking
the interface of sea and sky
a lone boat moored offshore
mirrored on a pewter surface
the salton sea is silvercalm
haze rises up masking
the interface of sea and sky
a lone boat moored offshore
mirrored on a pewter surface
How
by Abby Park
Stepping on the mountain gave me a fresh breath of air
mother nature victoriously stood; it
Took lots of love and time
but people don’t understand the goodness rooted in the mountain
except for this one not so modern man,
It was how he loved it not why.
Stepping on the mountain gave me a fresh breath of air
mother nature victoriously stood; it
Took lots of love and time
but people don’t understand the goodness rooted in the mountain
except for this one not so modern man,
It was how he loved it not why.
Wednesday, August 7, 2019
Sunday, August 4, 2019
6.10.19
6.22 a.m.
48 degrees
by John Stanizzi
Periods of heavy rain are forecast for later today; the
offices of sun and sky are transformed to overcast clouds, and the
nominal steam rising from the water drifts like a flimsy ghost
dreaming, as the polliwogs leap farther out of the water every day.
Periods of heavy rain are forecast for later today; the
offices of sun and sky are transformed to overcast clouds, and the
nominal steam rising from the water drifts like a flimsy ghost
dreaming, as the polliwogs leap farther out of the water every day.
Recovery
J. Conrad Smith
The field went back wild,
sedges and grasses—foxtail barley,
bluestem, bromes, and goosegrass—
thick and teeming from the ferns
and deer tongue and the clusters of perfume
bold violet bright gold alfalfa blooms
burgeoning in the pitches and gradual crooks
that snaked down to the bulrush, cattails, and
buttonbush canopied by cottonwoods standing
escort to the waterway that at night swelled
with fireflies like cityscapes from a dark-side orbit
that spread and saturated the booming thirty acres
with a chatoyant sheet, a bioluminous fog mocking
the milky way for being so static and boring and
tame as the glittering tides formed conga lines
to recede back into the tiny creek that—unlike the
cold implements that would snatch it all back—
only ran when it rained.
The field went back wild,
sedges and grasses—foxtail barley,
bluestem, bromes, and goosegrass—
thick and teeming from the ferns
and deer tongue and the clusters of perfume
bold violet bright gold alfalfa blooms
burgeoning in the pitches and gradual crooks
that snaked down to the bulrush, cattails, and
buttonbush canopied by cottonwoods standing
escort to the waterway that at night swelled
with fireflies like cityscapes from a dark-side orbit
that spread and saturated the booming thirty acres
with a chatoyant sheet, a bioluminous fog mocking
the milky way for being so static and boring and
tame as the glittering tides formed conga lines
to recede back into the tiny creek that—unlike the
cold implements that would snatch it all back—
only ran when it rained.
