Lines

by Christina Chin

Morning thrushsong
winter mountain
In the cedar woods

Lines

by Carl Mayfield 

a few starlings--
  murmuration 
   rippling the blue

On Warm Springs Road, Garden Valley, Idaho

by Yash Seyedbagheri

road curves
full of dirt and gravel
along with shadows and midafternoon light
sky is pale blue.
a stump sits among
leaning Ponderosa pines 

Egret Ghost

by Wesley D. Sims
  
Near nightfall
a great egret
flaps in over
a copse of
hardwood trees,
takes up
station beside
dull green reeds,
now slivers
of shadow
on the pewter
colored lake.
Standing still
as a small statue,
as darkness
descends
he becomes
emblazoned
on blackness
of water
like a ghost
of egrets past.

Abandonment

by Rose Menyon Heflin

Regal Sandhill cranes
high-stepping
silently,
slowly,
grubbing their way
across the open field

are migrating,
going somewhere.
Bosque del Apache awaits.

Fjord Tanka

by Sterling Warner
 
Winter vortex taps
frozen oak ferns and grass snakes
leaves snowy shrouds
dusts Olympic Mountain crests
far across the Hood Canal.

Fall Migration

by Maia Persche

Under the purple dogwood leaves
close to the prairie grasses
sinking down.
A thin note, an icicle
falling into snow.
A breeze through dry cattails.

White-throated sparrow,
quiet traveler.
Watching the world with dark eyes
you have the night sky in your feathers.

There’s a star map above us
waiting to grow bright again.
There’s a constellation of landbirds around us
waiting to rise up
from the tangled branches.

Autumn

 by Larissa Peters

The silent float
into a crisp cold.
A simple
touch
could 
disintegrate 
the very 
veins

[            ]

of the 
hundred year 
oak.

Stoic

by Tom Husson

The wood railings are capped 
in the storm, Cardinal’s red feather 
arrows fly from snowy ground 
onto grey branches, milkweed  
stalks scratch the air, hay humps 
coveted by the horses are silhouettes, 
there will be no sun showing today. 
white by snow, color flashes 

Lines

by Douglas J. Lanzo

evening crows gather
at Silver Creek waters
peering at rainbow trout 

Mountain Refrain

by Clint Bowman

Water droplets
         tap smooth granite,

                                  seep
                                  into
                                  moss
                                    then
                                     fall
                                       onto
                                            a
                                        laurel branch
           
                        and feed the Swannanoa River
                 that flows west,
flows west.

Lines

by Susan N Aassahde

auburn combine fleece
noon easel 
pontoon snow ricochet

Sumac

by Carol Farnsworth

red seed pods
stand tall amidst
rosy leaves

Sassafras

by Carol Farnsworth

sassafras
burnt orange in undergrowth
sway in wind

Shell

by Marla Sterling

Aged oyster shell, adrift on the sand
rocked by the shore’s gentle waves;
moved, defiant of station
in life or in death

Drilled body, ports to open air 

When wet, a rainbow of watered silvers and golds
pay obeisance to the single purple patch, legacy earned
from a long-lost connection

Layers extruded over years, long debrided by sand,
again reach the air, now as chipped and fragile ridges
whose losses have joined the fabric
of its destruction, creating the world in which it lies
in this littoral ebb and flow

Lines

by Marilyn Dancing Deer Ward

across the beck
willowherb seeds 
on autumn wind

November Garden

by John Muro
 
Bright enough to serve
As footlights, chrysanthemums
Of nursery pink and milk-
Tooth white appear like
Garden lanterns, florets
Illuminating mulch
And the mottled trunks
Of birch. The tree’s
Lower branches are
Eerily under-lit and
Sway in deciduous
Decadence – yellow-
Gold glistening –
While kerchiefs of bark
Are cast towards a
Dwindling audience
Of distracted crows.

The Promise of a Heron

by Shelly Jones 

We don our masks each morning, step out into crisp 
sunshine, head up the hill, backs hunched, legs 
propelling us back in time to a safer version of ourselves.

We walk, ghost-like, on the empty campus: sheet-less 
mattresses, broken screens, a collage of sticky notes 
in a window spelling out “hi!” - a greeting from a lost 
species picked up by u-haul trucks, parents’ SUVs. 

We press on up the hill, breath no longer jagged, flagging, 
our lungs acclimated to the climb made so often - two, 
three times a day. There is nothing else to do, we think,
but that is not why we come. A shadow passes over us, 

darkening our faces. We look up, stop, point at the grey-blue 
bird - its wingspan prehistoric, its neck u-shaped, reminding 
us to turn around, look down the hill, at all we’ve climbed. 
We wait till we can no longer see the heron, start down the hill, 
passing the pond, its nest tucked in the reeds at the far side. 

We walk home, knowing we will head out again tomorrow. 

Ghost trees

by M. Bennett

The Osage Orange hedgerow 
torn utterly from its foundation. 
Only a few mangled, lemon-curry roots 
lay exposed against darkest soil.

The mile-long sentry against 
wind and erosion dislodged from its 
WPA-appointed post with 
industrial efficiency.   

The dustbowl a 
distant abstraction. 

I still drive the road 
widened into the void.
The striated, serpentine bark 
of the gnarled trees, 
yellowed hedge apples decaying
beneath bowed, unkempt branches,
as clear still, clearer even,
than the emptiness just 
beyond the throw of the headlights.

Enough

by Pepper Trail
 
The mountain is a mountain of stone
The valley is a valley of dust
 
The mantra in my head, making the drive
from Summer Lake to Wagontire, winding around
the hogback buttes on Lake County Road 2-06
before dropping down to the wide salt skirts of Lake Abert,
car juddering on the washboard, forever fleeing its white shadow
of dust, which catches us at every stop, wraps us, chokes us.
 
But on that mountain grow fat leaves of stonecrop,
seeming to wring water from the very stones, and in the dust a flower
called Dusty Maidens, disheveled heads powdery, but beneath,
a modest loveliness.  And in the sky a nighthawk, so high it is invisible,
but its nasal summoning cry ringing that blue and borderless bell, while
from the horizon-filling sagebrush the songs of meadowlarks rise in celebration
of  all that stone and dust provide.  

The Ring-Billed Gull

by Royal Rhodes

A Ring-billed gull
gulping cast-off waste
around a hulking rusty hull
that roamed the gulf's expanse
ate the rubbish in a haste --
a white form floating on the darkened waves
with yellow legs to dance
beside a sea of graves.

They  watch the sea
and salt-marsh estuaries
these breeding birds in symmetry
ignore a plastic owl
where a tidal river marries
with the sea, as one repairs its nest
like any fish or fowl
beyond this sand-dune's crest.

This chiseled beach
is thick with horse-shoe crabs,
and inland, far as it can reach,
is twisted kelp
where watchful, hungry gulls can stab
at food in heaps on barges that they crowned,
while giving unpaid help
to cleanse the cluttered ground.

Lines

by Marilyn Dancing Deer Ward

wild barley
balances 

a drop of rain 

Baileya

by Larkin Pazanova

Mountains rise harsh
Sun bakes the cracked grass
The Baileya still blooms

Lines

by Christina Chin

darkening 
the autumn sunset 
kraa of crows 

Lines

by Christina Chin

whirling 
drift wood red with silt
plum rain season

Scavenge

by Anita Sullivan

The Anna's hummingbird sitting on the willow twig
makes a private, smug little sound
like gargling zippers. She is taking a break
from her hourly scan of the few remaining
Salvia microphyla blossoms, the October
holdouts. The usual summer spats are
largely gone, the birds finally able to honor
the social distancing their protocol demands,
but high energies cannot tolerate.

Poke! Poke! goes the black-scimitar beak
in what must be a version of scraping
the pudding from the bottom of the bowl.

Minnows in a Tide Pool

by Howie Good

 
They’re what happens
when flickers of flame
can survive in water

Lines

by Veronika Zora Novak

crouching feral cat
the swaying glow 
of pampas grass 

September Night, Garden Valley, Idaho

by Yash Seyedbagheri

 
Up Sunrise Drive,
Ponderosa pines line the road
black shadows
a nearly full moon is in the sky
pine needles sprinkled across the road
crickets and frogs call
air is crisp

Lines

by  Rp verlaine

lightning storm
wearing black better
than night

japanese inn

by I.W.B.S. Sister Lou Ella Hickman

wind
   blowing seaward

the door opens
   i stand
watching the wind

tomorrow
   my son will die
the door closes
my bath is ready

Up in the Hills

by Ray Greenblatt

they are listening,
in the growing season
the speckled light
is part of their covering . . .

in winter woods
they can see distances,
mist from their breathing
cloaks them . . .

their history has been a long one
hart, roe, hind . . 

Breathing

by Rachel Lee

Saturday evening, orange-gold light slants
through the palm grove, glazes across the clearing.
Here, the rose-ringed parakeets fly as if breathing—
in circles, they rise, fall, rise again. The air thrums
with their shrieks.

Ancient history

by Shannon Cuthbert
 
Birthed in a time of drought and flame,
a cacophony of gypsy moths with mouths like our own.
Later we’ll find it hard to describe their buttermilk stench,
their sponge wings spouting ink.
So young, language claws loose.
We run through the slash of branches on skin.
Caterpillars moist emerge from our lips.
A simple trick: the apple applied to the swelling bruise
becomes the poison you most crave. 

Conservation of Angular Momentum

by Virginia Aronson

Consider the turning of the sun
and staring up
waiting for fever, questioning
blinding reflections
as a double
consciousness.

Consider loose deer bobbing
through thick pine, white 
tails flashing
in the moonlight
knowing, brilliant
wisdom you can't acquire
online, in video chats.

Between the next star
and here, or here
between the sun-dried skulls
of the wild animals among us
there is just one burning
question:
how does it feel to be
the problem?

Consider the naked empire
built on an enriched soil
of darkness and lies
the carriers
vulnerable to the invisible:
pass down the bucket.

Consider this too: what if
the world is stunned
into silence.

The fig and the wasp

by Stephen Lang

Desperate, she burrows into soft flesh-
Shedding her subtle, ethereal wings
That sped her on this single flight-
The clandestine bloom obliging,
Towards the pulpy pouch, wherein
She’ll disgorge her treasured eggs and die.
Her brood will mate and fly the fig,
The females on their final flight,
Pregnant and, unknowing, tagged
With sticky, figgy sex-dust,
To proliferate perpetual fruit
That feeds the needful forest from
The generous parasite, keystone strangler,
Hollow-latticed, steep cathedral,
From which Hathor herself evolves,
To welcome home each weary soul. 

Endangered Frisco Clover

by Lynne Goldsmith

You’re hanging on with taproot intact,
reddish-purple blooms, shallow ground
among pinion, juniper, sagebrush
spread out, gravel making room
for “invasive” plants to settle
with joining the heavy dust
to pare down seedbanks,
pollination viability,
in these your few areas                                   
of Utah wilderness for growth,
your only home
among miners eroding the earth,
removing the soils,
digging for gold.

The water drops

by Dmitry Blizniuk

 
The brief rain is over, but it has glazed the world,
and a crow fools around trying to catch
water drops falling from the roof,
like fish falling from the sky.
He is so happy;
he jumps away,
puffs his chest, ruffles his feathers emotionally,
then attacks the drops again.
And the drops have already pecked
holes in the dirt
in the shape of a future flute.

(translated from the original Russian by Sergey Gerasimov)

Drought

by Pamela Nocerino
 
Riverside dirt 
was the bed
in more generous weather.
Now, smooth gravel and unnatural debris
tuck the edges of barely-there banks
and cracked, ash-dusted surfaces
make haunting patterns
of parched 
parched
need.

Full Moon, With Stars

by GTimothy Gordon
 
The full moon rises, pauses,
takes its place among all              
midsummer stars not known
for color, shape, size,
overwrought pride,
full moon, with stars,
the kind of night thing,
above all, we wish ever
with us, in a dark time,
never not be new.

Shingles

by Arriama Matlock-Abdullah 

Shag wood hickory
Bark jetting away from the tree trunk
Suspended in mid air  

Alive

by Darrell Petska

gray squirrel

measured steps forward
hold
side flip left
hold
side flip right
millisecond hold
dart toward fence post
wheel/dart back
hold
hold
right roll twice

red cardinal alights
left glance
right glance

gone

Awakening

by Shayan Kothari (high school writer)

Splayed wings of a kingfisher 
make seldom appearance 
above city embers.
The sky slumbers, finally.
Flapping softens, 
evaporation into holograms, 
cotton-woven cumulus
dissolving into night's 
marmalade.
Spangled skies illuminated alas.
From a distant silo 
whelm the undulating
tears of Western Scheldt. 
Its dace rejoice,
for estuarial squalling
behold the return of
kingfisher.

Brotherhood

by Lynne Goldsmith

No brewer’s blackbird in the lavender

but a brotherhood of cowbirds’ oratorio of feasting

on a stump with seeds and cracked corn

celebration as they raise their backs and heads,

puff out breasts, spread their tails, lift their wings,

and bow 

again     and again     and again.

Harvest

by Elise Woods

Ripping wheat from fields
Deer abundant til winter
Harvest will provide

Haibun

by Darrell Petska

Craggy burr oaks blot a waning moon. In the savanna, cricket songs cease. A screech owl somewhere among the stars has the final say. Weighty silence engulfs space, stills time, swallows a lone firefly’s blink. A foot, a hoof, disturb the woodland brome. They meld into night.   

  eight glinting moons

  snared by the dark branches—

  possum family

Lines

by Pawel Markiewicz

autumnal buckrams
the last roses sobbing of
flowering seasons

White Body of a Woman for Madeline

by Rabbi Steven Lebow
 
Blossom of pure light, 
white body of a woman on a stem. 
without you, the world will not slough off its snow, 
nor the night fill up with dew. 
 
Pools of dark water, 
dark history of the petals of the eyes, 
that fell beneath the hand of winter. 
beneath the cold eye of the moon. 
 
You ask me not to write about your body 
and your modesty increases my desire. 
I sow the myth and reap the metaphor, 
white flower in the dark earth of the soul. 
 
Without you, the world cannot blow the candles out, 
nor the night lay down its head. 
You paralyze the stamen of the heart, 
white flower of the woman in the moon. 

Carrion

by John Grey

The crows perch on the upper branches,
three glossy-coated undertakers
clucking how good they have it.

On the roadway below,
small mammals chance their luck,
are surprised to find they have none.

Squirrel squashed overnight,
the crows drop down for burial rites,
their beaks for pall-bearers,

stomachs for coffins.
Occasional cars interrupt the ceremony.
But these birds are not at risk from traffic.

Their radar sends them skyward
should anything approach.
Then the coast clears, the service recommences.

The crows are no choir. No mistaking them
for summer warblers. Their loud caw celebrates
a reverent feast, a glorious interment.

Grass

by Lydia Chapman

Grass among gravestones
keeping good company
to the forgotten

Just a Trim

by Darrell Petska

Cottonwood
ragged
rustling

billowing squall line
strikes

branches clash:
east-leaning, diseased lateral,
hanging stub, taken

west-facing lateral branch
pared,
weakly ascending scaffold branch
lopped

leafed twig fall
frittering down

brightening
rain patter
leaves

Lines

by Roberta Beach Jacobson

wrapped
in the colors of autumn
the river

The crow

by Katherine Burris

The crow begins its day early

beating the pheasant’s squawk for the harsh welcoming sound of morning.

It surveys its domain.

It knows exactly what field is being harvested

on the fertile marshes preserved by 17th century Acadian dykes in Old Barns.

The garbage stops on the streets of Bible Hill are routine: College, Murdoch, Vimy, Dorset

and the Aberdeen Street School playground offers no secrets to it;

roadkill can’t be planned but human rubbish can.

The seasons’ changing weather has little effect on the crow’s timetable,

but dusk does, signalling flying time

toward a night-time perch high in the towering eastern hemlocks,

for the crow ends its day early.

Lines

by Douglas J. Lanzo

bright green grasshopper
plods along lakeshore
hoisted by an ant

Beach Shores

by Melissa Kelly

Jones beach is empty except for
bluish grey shells along the shore
white foam from rough waves
And the seagull searching
in deserted garage cans
for sandwich scraps

Autumn

by Rob Lowe

There is a slowness in English autumns,
A pause, an appearance, before the Fall;
Balanced withholding from sudden changes,
To slip without drama into the cold

 
Alchemical sleep of the ending year;
I smell the ways they stir on the verges –
Stubble, acorns, brambles blotched with ageing;
Webs of spiders, their coded announcements

Then the revolution: fields bare as bones;
Shock and awe of a blasting December
Consuming supply lines from November.
But that is a violence yet to become

Today is the last of summer memories,
To harking back to dry weeks in July;
Recalling fruit trees heavy with harvest,

Hung under a sky that scarcely darkened

 
August, September, times of preserving,
Their stillness invaded sinew and bone;
And everything seemed so secure then
Before the war came – wind, downpour and storm
 
Till then I exist in an in-between;
The sun inspects its columns of branches;
Footsteps of light leave imprints of shadows,
Where small lives scuttle to sheltered places
 
The rivers no longer complain “I thirst”,
But nor do they burst their banks with surfeit;
This is the moment all is forgiven,
Waiting, remembering - ordered to move?

 
That will not happen, not for a moment:
This season awaits the brown leaves applause;
Only then will it raise up the curtain –
A stage without light, a plot without cause.

Lines

by Douglas J. Lanzo

Belted Kingfisher
perched high above the lake
preens blue-feathered crown

Untitled

by Stephen A. Rozwenc

not natural or ethereal
not composed of elements
from any needy origin story
this particular Bangkok morning
revels
in luminosity
 
with the first rising sun
ritual sacrifice
skyscraper phalanxes
those high priests of profit
who are really deluded prophets
cast beloved death-waking shadows
to confess monstrous alibis
deep listening heals

for the second blinding
white flash
of nirvanic rapture
beyond tenacious reality
the alter-ego mirror
of the collective unconscious
shatters
ornate sprigs of Thai gold
that cheerfully drown in restless pajamas
of heroic separation
from any earthly body
ordeal or recovery

August Evening, Garden Valley, Idaho

by Yash Seyedbagheri

Down Sunrise Drive
sky is pale blue, pink, and tangerine orange
shadows on the road
Ponderosa pines darkened
air cooling
crickets call faintly

Feeling the Burn, or That Which Feels Like a Bargain

by John Dorroh

Fires come in many flavors: Orange Crush
with its fluorescence fogging the bottle
from the inside out, inviting thirsty glass animals
to toss it down their parched gullets, its sugary matrix
of bedroom communities, chemicals that are hard
to pronounce; golden butternut squash with visual
connections to ash leaves on a Colorado mountain side
in mid-September; devil red, complete with obligatory
horns, its sinister smile that confuses all the normal people,
wrapping them in a hot satin cloak, pitchfork optional.

Yours is the Combination #4 with a medium drink
and fries, an upcharge for handmade onions rings
in a beer-batter crust. You know as well as me
that when you mess around with fire, you almost
always get burned.

Lines

by Douglas J. Lanzo

rain-soaked otters
slip down river banks
hunting for brook trout

Lines

by Ankit Anand

Mallard dabblers
Plunge the shallows
For freshwater shrimp

Silence

by Carol Farnsworth

After cricket’s chirps
before the sunrise
   silence

Pride of Place

by Ankit Anand

When the Eagle has had its fill
The Caracara move in
Black vultures bide their time
Turkey vultures keep their distance

Ecology

by Ankit Anand

Eucalyptus
Chirps
Till silence.

Waves

by Carol Farnsworth

ebb and flow
whitecapspushed by wind
erode Sleeping Bear dunes

Lines

by Susan N Aassahde

magpie crayon blimp
host cot
butterfly Gorgon spire

Whitefish Point

by Carol Farnsworth

a spit of land
waves tumble smooth stones
litter the sand

Ripples in a Pond

by Ahrend Torrey

          A subtle chain of countless rings         
          The next unto the farthest brings…
                  —    Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature”
      
A pine nut falls into the dark, still pond—
a ripple-wave appears, then another

ripple-wave appears, then another

ripple-wave appears, then another

ripple-wave appears, then another


pine nut falls into the dark, still pond…

Lines

by Carl Mayfield

coachwhip snakes
    mating in the shade
       of the cedar tree

Summer Morning

by Patricia Hope

Dawn
On Watts Bar Lake
Geese honk
Water laps
Chickadees chatter
Swallows dive
Ducks quack
Mayflies amass
Egrets stand
Fog clears.

Lines

by Padmini Krishnan 

dawn drizzle
a Wood Pigeon’s
new tune

Garden Valley, Idaho, Morning

by Yash Seyedbagheri

Over Warm Springs Road,
sun falls
along with graying shadows
dead Ponderosa pine leans
sky light blue

Lines

by Mark Danowsky

two goldfinches alight
on a blush rose bush
across from the Wawa

The Dog's Growl

by Chris Butler

The human mind is a mile wide
but only six inches deep.
But when hunger growls,
the human mind is the first chew toy.

Blood Moon Near Sacramento

by Kaitlyn Jensesn

blood moon leaks
red in all
directions as
if an empty tavern
bathed in neon
light
on the road
to Winters

Exhale

by Patricia Hope

The jungle inhales
The jungle swells
The jungle prowls
The jungle slithers
The Jungle crawls
The jungle assassinates
The jungle scavenges
The jungle decays
The jungle persists
The jungle exhales.

Lines

by Philip C.  Kolin

cotton fields after
harvesting
a cloudless sky

Katydid

by Michael H. Brownstein

south wind
night falls
trees go to shadows and darkness
and then
a slew of boasting katydids
katy-did-katy-didn’t. katy-did-katy-didn’t.

On the Croton River near St. Augustine’s

by  Kathleen Williamson

Pink moon rises—
starlings in the oak
go silent

Mayfly Time

by Juliet Wilson

heat haze

swallows laze

across the lake
to catch mayfly

for the mayfly
iridescent in the sun
this languid day

is eternity

Summer

by Jeff Burt

Hummingbirds hover
while orange Chinese lanterns quake
spring yet continues

Lines

by Maria DePaul

Nautical twilight
Gulls cry echoes
Waves crest and break

Leopard in Balance

by Juliet Wilson

Amur leopard knows nothing of borders
or memorandums of understanding
and wouldn't recognise the names Putin or Xi.

She just follows herds of deer
through the mountains
stopping when she gets a chance
in a favourite resting place.

She surveys the world
secure in the spots that blur her
into the background.

She chooses solitude
until her cubs arrive
driving her to hang out at deer farms
where the pickings are easier.

Sunset at Bombo

by Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad

The cliffs of Bombo Headland
burn in a fuschia sunset
crags and ridges awash
in a medley
of violet and tangerine

in the depths of the Kiama sea
columns of igneous rock
stamp their ancient weight
as night thickens and settles
mottled with astral glitter -
a sprinkling of meteor showers

on the windswept eastern face
ghost crabs scuttle
abseiling down the basalt
unperturbed by the violence
of the thundering Pacific
lashing at the parapets
of prehistoric caverns.

Lines

by Catherine Saccone

Magnolia warbler
calling loud & bright
through white ash & hickory.

Twilight

by Bonnie Stanard

Behind the jassamine vines
the sun becomes chaffs of light.
Hoots and haws from noisy crows
rout a flock of robins
perched in the turkey oaks.

Blank Look #714

by Carl Mayfield

two ravens determined
juniper berries resistant

sky flashing blue
through the tree

On the Murrambidgee River

by Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad

Through sacred lands
the waters of the Murrambidgee
course in crimson sheets
thousand year old River Red Gums
mirrored in its depths

a wedge of magpie geese
spear through the skies
brown bitterns and freckled ducks
jostle with white-faced herons
wading among schools
of golden perch and bream

the primordial river glides
in a Dreamtime reverie
dusted with ludwigia blooms
and high up in the coolibah trees
the koalas’ eyes follow
the edge of the canoe
foaming lace through water.

Lines

by Carl Mayfield

  both sides
                  of a locked gate--
             cassin's vireo song

Jacaranda Tree, Los Angeles

by Alice Campbell Romano

after last night’s rain
jacaranda nearly bare
bark gray brown
grass a lavender stain

June Evening, Garden Valley, Idaho

by Yash Seyedbagheri

Ponderosa pines rise

in black shadows

cabins through the groves

lights faint and yellow

a moon 96% full, shines luminous 

in a pale blue sky with clouds colored pink and gray

Down Holiday Drive

lavender shadows glow in distant eastern hills

Midnight in Suriname

by Joshua Fagan

The silver lake leaps
Into a spotted frog’s mouth.
Ripples grow and fade.

Cicada

by Mary McCormack

red-eyed cicada
struggles up blades of grass--then flies,
suddenly graceful

Hummingbird

by Carol Casey

bringer of joy
ruby throated
in magenta lupines
wings invisible
now here, now there
now gone.

Lines From North Hutchinson Island

by Andrew Hutto

A bowl of roseate spoonbills stir when the
lagoon wakes shutter the mangrove forest.

Marsh rabbits and stone crabs
hide in sandy burrows.

Nettle

by Sarah-Jane Crowson

The hollow road’s all snarled with thorns,
fringed with stinging plants, the path
lost in hundred-eyed branches, where roots
are claws, knitting floors of speedwell, bluebell,
stitchwort, nettle, wren, dock, buttercup,
vipers bugloss, thrush, goosegrass, dock
nettle, dock, nettle.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

by Diane Sahms

As if every sound has its own shape, purpose.
His song, distilled. His black-hooded head
& brilliant semi-circle of red, with a leaky
valve extending down the middle of a white breast
& satin black wings with patches of white highlights
& this sacred space—his rambling song & sharp
rhythmic tweets—then in silence—there’s
emptiness—to enter, to become that silence,
ever changed

crow

by Trishita Das

crow blots itself into the skin of the sky,
crow pulls the smell of rot from corpses,
crow cackles into the night's blackness.

Lines

by Christina Chin

billowing red sails
in morning mists
Halong Bay

Scent of Almonds

by Padmini Krishnan

The spring moon melts
into a tree yellow butterfly
on the almond bush

Summer Savory

by Sarah-Jane Crowson

Summer Savory, lemon-spiced,

softer than Rosemary. Dark green

leaf-spears glow with oil.

Mercury claims dominion over this herb.

After Rain Herbs

by Ann Boaden

After rain herbs smell of themselves.
Cleared and crystalized with wet, they
skein away green down a summer roadside:
heft and sheen
of honey; quick red
of pepper; blue clean
langor of lavender.
Bruised
to balm.

Tsuchiyama - 50th station of the Tokaido Road by Utagawa Hiroshige (Kyoka version)

by James Bell

a violent rainstorm beats down
on four travellers who hasten

along their path in a defile
between the hills - the roofs

of the village can be glimpsed
further down - in the distance

profiles of summits - blue
mountains that spare the houses

from the storm soon to abate when
the mountains change to a brighter shade

'after summer rain'

by I.W.B.S. Sister Lou Ella Hickman

                         after summer rain
                     leaves in wind
              rustle like chimes
         in an old forest

Spring Morning

by Feston Altus

When the rain ends
Green buds speckle
The black spring oak
Two damp whitetail deer
step across a frostless stream.

Mist

by Saharsh Sateesh

Winter mist
chisels crevices
into Mount Shuksan.

Overjoy

by Randall Rogers

Tickle my fancy
deadly asp
for I enjoy
life knowing
I'm gonna die (death);
wisdom flees
from a surfeit
of security.
Hold your breath
until you turn
blue.

Sapir Whorf

by Ian McFarland

I can see the world,
just as clearly as
I am able to
describe it.
Balanos adds       
another shade of
meaning.
Marsh, fen, grove,
left to wonder
at the placement
of his oaks,
bunkered on the rise
among the wild grasses
by the river,
spry the wooded clearing.

Aha!

This will take some time.

A Florida Swamp

by John Grey

A solitary egret rides in
on a floating island.
Mangrove twine
sips brackish water.
Snake slithers through the tangle,
            upends a log
            of painted turtles.     

Now and then,
fish pop the surface
            Swamp, sleeping water.

A frog’s throat drums.

Lines

by John Hawkhead

winter sun
blue notes in a minor key
fresh snow

Outside Pignon Haiti

by Connor Orrico

as dusk settles
in Fontaine hamlet
the Equus bray

Lines

by Anannya Uberoi

an apple tree plunging,
the elm parroting,
a gamble of eggs

Melancholy

by M.J. Iuppa

This country air smells heavy
& strangely thick— green fumes of
cabbage— a whole field never picked, but
left to expose its demise, from a race of blue
caps swimming in an unexpected sea to
so many skulls bearing the grimace of
Pompeii— eyes raise to question
this field’s sour economy.

Seasons With Stone Lizard

by Terrence Sykes

upon my stone wall
lizard flashes rainbow tail
seasons come early

what do you forage
dandelions plucked for lunch
let us share this meal

verdant sunlight fades
clutching of oregano
spring rains bring flowers

willow branches dance
blackbird casts it mournful song
cross the fountain

summer comes too soon
lizard I call you my friend
flashing prism gleam

ginger blossoms soar
into star laden cosmos
dawn finds me hungry

rivers call my name
unspoken punctuation
where is my autumn

chestnut foliage
wild hive laden with honey
hidden in the lairs

where are you lizard
we have not talked as of late
dreams need to be told

mulberry charcoal
warms these freshly plucked peaches
drunk upon plum wine

clouds steeped silent hours
chrysanthemums shine brightly
like a pot of tea

lost in copse & groves
olive tree constellations
tea kettle simmers

stars fall from the sky
winter snow comes too early
fire pit keeps me warm

stone lizard stay warm
hibernate like a phoenix
resurrect come spring

Late April Evening, Garden Valley, Idaho

by Yash Seyedbagheri

At the end of Sunset Drive
where the road curves
pines rise
black shadows
sky a deep velvet
frogs calling
Venus shines
a waxing crescent moon above the trees
it is the last week of April

Green on Grey in Adelaide

by Martha Landman

Rain forced in by Antarctic winds
drenches pepper trees, oaks
and fern.
Lorikeets’ green, yellow and red
defy the sunless grey morning
until skies open to their screeches
and let blue slither through.

Morning

by Kathleen Brewin Lewis

Leaves of the banana tree,
gravid with fresh rain.
One touch, they spill their catch.
Green day born and baptized.

A Brief List of Brilliant Things

by Kathleen Brewin Lewis

Thin light of morning.
Aubade of the house wren,
aroma of magnolia. Spiderwebs,
brown hawk in the sky.
Green meadows dabbed
with violets. Ginkgo turning to gold.

Spray of waterfall. Hiss of goose.
The chatter of afternoon rain.
Jupiter and Venus in the sky
together, fireflies in the pines.
A path of silver moonlight
thrown down on the crumpled sea.

Lines

by JS Absher

early spring
lambs in the shadow
of a vulture's wing

Agalloch

by Kevin McGowan

bazaar of spices
stemming from musky heartwood

Zebra-Tailed Lizards

by Lynn Finger

Zebra-tailed lizards
skim
under buckled mesquite,
soft sounds
on dry river sand.

Gravity

by Michael Estabrook

the sky with all its blue
tumbling down through the branches and leaves
of the trees reaching
all the way to the ground.

Lines

by Elizabeth Sams

barn owl
in a crevice in the Douglas Fir
as dusk falls

Lines

by Luther Allen

single bloom
winter garden
the pearl moon

Lines

by Roberta Beach Jacobson

in the center
of the pasture
a lone tree of crows

Lines

by Susan N Aassahde

bramble platoon jazz
lemon twist
Kingfisher panic keg

tikkun olam

by Madison Zehmer

tell me again how seaweed aches for breath,
how the fawn cries out for its mother,
how snakes wrap around oak.

show me butterflies flattened on gravel,
crow innards eaten by vultures,
buzzards sleeping away guilt under willow trees.

tell me there is hope
in birds that still fly south for the winter,
in flowers that blossom from concrete,

in the scarred dirt you cradle in your hand
and then whisper back to earth.

Autumn Morning

by Ray Greenblatt

Marmalade moon
burns in mauve sky.
Cold frames filled
with gold Incan masks
as first sunlight fills trees.

Rainy Afternoon, Garden Valley, Idaho

by Yash Seyedbagheri

up and down Sunrise Drive
Garden Valley Idaho, hills rise and fall
dip and curve
a soft rain falls
light gray clouds above
a mist to the east

Lines

by Veronika Zora Novak

a monkey's hiss
that is not there . . .
dusk in bamboo

Lines

by Marilyn Dancing Deer Ward

Hawthorn hedge
deep in darkness
Dunnocks chirp

Patterns

by Ray Greenblatt

Crows on swaying wires
rule the early morning.
A stroke of gulls
against distant woods
across the Great Elk River.
Clouds move up the river,
tide now ebbing.
Trees shuffle in place
and wave branches in rhythm.
From the north Boreas
is the unseen
music maestro.
Like a sub-atomic particle
one moth defies plotting.

Unmeditated

by Stew Jorgenson

A robin has returned
with spring

as I sit here
this morning

not thinking
about it

just listening
to

the earth breathing
through me

taking each one in
and letting it go

waiting for another one
to return.

The Simplicity of Water

 by Colin James

It hardly ever seems under duress
just expands or contracts,
evaporates or condenses
at its environment's indulgence.
Patiently sorting out
its workload by category.

Crows

by Philip C.  Kolin

A cortège of black clouds,
They sweep acrosss
A frightened sky.

Gloom calls them
To a country of corpses--
Fouled air, red flares.

Trees with wild hair
Cannot hide or hush
Nestlings in their
Last taint of breath.

For most fallen
The duration of death
Is swift, a hunter's shot,
a bigger predator's spoil.

Pieces of flesh left behind
On highways or back roads
Waiting for these dark undertakers.

Over each they mutter
A one-syllable requiem
Before ravaging them.

Or carrying off
Pieces of flesh
To their aeries.
The wind goes silent.

Blank Look #7

by Carl Mayfield

the daffodils are back
with their version of the story

Early spring in the Blue Hills

by Lucy Chae

past the foothills where timber rattlesnakes
meander in fat, lazy lines
and dogwoods lie unblossomed,
the narrow clearings wither into thorn.
whitetails scramble farther,
breaking through the thickets,
snapping wispy branches
for a place still as clear as winter.

Lines

by Ron. Lavalette

high winds all night long
—mesmerizing lullaby—
first week of April

Lines

by Roberta Beach Jacobson

in the Maple trees
where winter was
spring

Lines

by Christina Chin

wind dies
a coconut branch snags
the bullfinch kite

After Bonnie

by José Stelle

Moon out and a forced lull.
No woozy waterspout
Dragging the fractured sea
To a dark rage.

The hacked, wrecked hulls
Heaped on the shore
Loom like whale bones
In a strange glow.

The well bottom is shorn
Of the fleece clouds.
Only some scattered planets
Make a pale show.

Across the water
The dock lights drown
In their own reflections.

All around, demented
Crickets scrape their wings off.

Lines

by Veronika Zora Novak

weeping
till we no longer dream . . .
winter koi

Lines

by Roberta Beach Jacobson

late December
shivering spirits
of the cornfields

Lines

by Padmini Krishnan

patch of blue
amongst dark clouds
the hidden hyacinth

Winter’s Afternoon, Garden Valley, Idaho

by Yash Seyedbagheri

Up Sunrise Drive
sun illuminates hills of white
air crisp and still
shadows of pine trees zigzag in leftover snow
road rises and dips and curves

Blank Look #819

by Carl Mayfield

      no post card
      can do it:
                   mountain peak
                   knowing where to stop

Squirrel Selecting Bouquet

by Wesley D. Sims

A squirrel sits upright
on hind legs amid a patch
of lavender, lilies, and goldenrod
as though trying to select
a bouquet to pick and take home
to his out-of-sorts mate,
needing to make up
for his horrible habits
like hoarding the acorns,
leaving a mess of hulls
scattered around the house
and other irritable actions
constantly driving her nuts.

Lake Morey

by Corey D. Cook

Red and white bobber pins the sky’s
reflection to the surface of the lake,
an expanse of light blue borrowed
from Sisley, crowded with schools
of clouds, their bellies round and ripe.

Blank Look #302

by Carl Mayfield

Standing on the escarpment,
city pollution at eye level.

In the valley below fossil fuels
are pushing their weight around.

Winter

by Craig Kennedy

Gregorian chant, burning wood,
the midnight blue Croton River
frozen thick and bittersweet,
congealed near Orchard Road.

Overwinter

by Kathryn Ganfield

Canada geese break their vee
into a sine curve.
Four lag behind, beating hard to regain the flock
that wends northeast on a winter afternoon.

Geese or ganders, identical,
whether near or far.
Wings a gauntlet gray,
heads stretched and black like asps.

In the air,
bright and ceaseless honks,
capped only by a downy woodpecker,
its head a slice of Red Delicious.
Knocking, knocking,
rapping, bashing.
Not too loosen insects, but because
this is the only song they sing.

Lines

by Carl Mayfield

soaring raven painting the sky black

City Street Performance

by M.J. Iuppa

This winter there will be
no winter—only snow

mixed with rain— the filthy
kind of slush that gets thick

in the smear of wheels
spinning around corners—

all vowels stick
as pedestrians arch

their backs & raise
their arms, like pigeons

dispatched—not
a moment too soon.

Lines

by Susan N Aassahde

snow crumpet plaza
nettle mash
rain stalactite dentist

Pima Canyon Sunday

by David Chorlton 

Cactus wrens mark distance by their calls.

Winter sparrows come out

from seclusion, and the sun

is a spirit clock at noon.

The desert trail’s a pilgrim’s

way, where lizards cling to

the rocks and every

Curve-billed thrasher has a tiny Compostela

in the cactus where it makes a nest.

Lines

by Christina Chin

desert superbloom
the call of skylark
sitting in the sun

Lines

by Veronika Zora Novak

shaped
by mountain fog . . .
a raven's caw

Lines

by Andre Le Mont Wilson

coyote darts
across Bear Creek Road
faces the sun

Ravens

by Walker Abel

At daybreak in desert
two ravens on rock
moon still up in west.

Hills wrinkled deep with shadow.
When the birds fly north
no one stays behind.

Estuary

by Mike Dillon

Sanderling’s wicker tracks in mud.
A breeze ticks the sedge that nearly hides
a rotting dory. Gull mew. Clack of clamshell
upon rocks dropped from a hovering height.
The quiet mixing place where salt water
meets fresh, its bits of seaweed and a rainbow trout.
Back of all — a silence that does not speak.

Decaying

by Farzana Israt

a sigh in unison
amongst the Willow Trees
as the cicadas
sing their
mournful song

kingdom

by Geoffrey Aitken

seasonally
they return to the south
our Australian Parrots
to fly above us
on intermittent show
celebrate September springtime
with feasts of fresh pine nuts
in Conifer treetops
take water
from recent winter rains
then preen
mate
and nest
then with familial dawn song
remind us of incumbency
evolutionary longevity
and ownership
before flight beckons -

as if to brag

Tannenbaum

by Andrew Hutto

The bear-whelps scratch on fir trees
and mourning doves eat safflower seeds.

To bracket out epoché between unseen
                                                    and seen-world.

There is no adieu.

                        Ice will not ornament the forest this winter,
                             there will be no way to cross the river.

The hot air in the morning will drive
all the martens to the stream but they will not
dip their paws into the boiling water.

Lines

by Stephen A. Rozwenc

dew and lightning
mountains and rivers

sacred doctrine

over the crest of Kerchouan

by James Bell

bare boughs beneath the sky
trace in hazel woods
remains of long gone oaks

great rocks of granite
skirt small ravines where humanity
has had no effect on the always been

standing stones have dotted horizons
for thousands of years
in attempts to understand

the beyond over brows of hills
as far as the eye cannot see –
its limits clear of mist today

Lines

by Roberta Beach Jacobson

claiming
the sunrise
barnyard rooster

Three Crows on a Pine Bough upon Buson’s ink-brush painting

by GTimothy Gordon

Late fall parched mustard wheat
modest as a Norse king, no risqué
bluebell, poppy, scarlet paintbrush,
or even outré desert aspen, bronze turning
among mangroves of sand speckling this end
of earth, not Kyoto, in fall, the blackest of ravens,
goblins, trolling from husks of stumps bone-dry things,
all for the scent of blossom, sight of bloom,                 
every prickly Joshua beseeching heaven.

Lines

by Roberta Beach Jacobson

autumn morn
canaries find something
to sing about

January Evening, Garden Valley, Idaho

by Yash Seyedbagheri

Garden Valley, Idaho night,
a January evening
luminous half moon mingles with brightness of snow
white meets white
across hills and valley
around the curves of Sunrise Drive
over rising and falling hills dotted
white mingling with remnants of ice
from the last storm, the storm before it
fresh and glass-like
and moon shimmers through groves of pines
stillness in the air, shadows
broken only by lights from an A-framed lodge
bright white holiday lights
the occasional roar of a truck, a car
fading away without echo
footsteps of a walker in the night
en route somewhere,
replaced by the crispness of thirty-degree cold, dropping, and the moon,
drifting through clouds, opening and disappearing.

Guineas

by Wesley D. Sims

A knot of guineas swung
around the pasture
like a swirl of twigs
pinned to a rubber band,
picking grass seeds
and singing their squeaky
alto song of contentment
All-right, all right.

Wildlife

by Darrell Petska

The zoo giraffe
treading its concrete
winter quarters
pauses
with each circuit
before the small
high window
looking out on

the chain-link enclosure
of the Somali wild ass
listlessly chewing hay
beneath its lean-to
capped with snow

and the grey slate of sky
nearly as far from spring
as Africa.

Kolibri

by Sterling Warner

iridescent feathers
greenish-red flashes
zipping, darting among
coral honeysuckle vines,
wings buzzing 52 beats a second,
ruby throated hummingbirds
pause, hover, penetrate, feed,
long tongues lapping nectar,
plucking aphids and mites within 
each trumpet-shaped
blossom.

Kallar elephant corridor, Western Ghats

by Ajay Kumar

Some just came to drink
across a table of water,
others just left,
pudding-pipes in their way,

a calf sniffs to the side,
alone a bull’s tusks
point to his raised trunk,

movement of myriad grey.
A flycatcher, a blue of his own,
excavated in the sky
from the sun, rests on a Neem.

Soap pods in patches. Snaky
trunks smell a cardamom memory.
The ones that came to drink leave
for wild plantains, more come
across the water again.

Spider Constellation

by Wesley D. Sims

A large gray spider
in an almost deserted
restroom at the campground
has spun a silky mural
of long legs and little
brown bodies,
strung up a constellation
of granddaddy long-legs,
their wire-thin legs splayed radially
outward like arms of a galaxy.
Their lights have gone out,
their carcasses kept
on cold storage in the spider’s
private mausoleum,
hidden in a corner
of little used web-space.

Missive from a Blue Whale

by Susan L De Miller

My world is your ocean
So you say
Floating on blue
you pay to see me
I am your fascination
You offer me no peace no warning
you are here there everywhere
Refuse spills from your world into mine
Blue sky
Blue ocean
Blue whale
Multi hued human
I am starving
We are all starving
Starving for blue
You can not build
a new planet
a new ocean
a new sky
Gone
is
gone
is
gone

Sky Driving

by Judith Steele

Early South Australian summer
before the fires.
Driving north
from Glenelg beach to country town
of Gawler, into sky intensely blue,
lapis lazuli, a bowl just made
in ancient Mesopotamia.

Late afternoon returning south
sky gathers smoky clouds,
herds them onto the horizon,
allows pale blue to float above.

Detour west to Semaphore beach
in early evening. Yellow streaks of sunsetting
recline on darkening sea.

Stopped at traffic lights, look east
to curves of Adelaide Hills
glowing purple. Above them,
reflecting their lines and tints,
long waves of violet clouds.

Back in my Tod St flat
with its view of 26 more.

Lines

by Darrell Petska

Walking through the woods
in search of inspiration—
oh, that blue jay's scorn!

Sky Tree Water

by Ajay Kumar

Jacanda walking, on the water,
on the water-weed disciples,
its wings bronze, golden
the oil sachets it keeps walking on.

In the trees, there’s a decade
in that one note the koel likes to hold
in december, his eyes red in july.

In the sky, kindled blue, with a cloud
disturbed indigo, an eagle
flapping once- assurance
of gravity upon a time.

Five Crows Forage in Wittunga Park

by Martha Landman

their stomachs full
they take flight en masse
swooping through the air
their caw-cawcophony
murders the Sunday silence

Lines

by Stephen A. Rozwenc

three evergreen triangles
slowly climb
a steep hillside

As simple as that

by Ajay Kumar

Water makes no sound, friendly petioles
pardon leaves which flavor the wind green.

Message of crow echoes, torch by torch.
A bird of sound alone, a small bird by sound,
flies from the mountains of that side-

rubber rubber rubber mountains mountains
rubber rubber rubber rubber mountains rubber
rubber palm bananas bananas palm rubber
          pole                               pole     
road road road road road road road road road
canal canal canal canal canal canal canal canal
road road road road road road road road road
      pole                                       pole
wall gate gate wall wall wall wall wall wall
drumsticks                         coconut coconut
hibiscus tulsi                         tobacco   coconut
                                              well neem
                                          coconut coconut

-to the coconuts of this side, a fossil of a song
from the east to the west is a kingfisher,
a piece of cloud stuck in his throat, whitening it.

The trinity of coconuts sways, in memory
of a fulfilling wind, in extinction of right-angles,
all curving & moving, the white-throat drops
an anchovy, like punctuation, like leaves falling
in alliteration

Can It Be?

by Gary Beck

Dogwood is blooming everywhere.
Daffodils are blooming everywhere.
A scrawny cherry tree
is working like wild
to put out its aroma.
Daffodils are blooming everywhere.
Dogwood is blooming everywhere.

December

by Michael H. Brownstein

Snow fell on white rose petals,
the way too early blossoms of mulberry,
and spun webs upon gardens of lilies.
The sky opened itself to summer,
earth crunched open with warmth,
the roses opened their mouths to the sun,
one mulberry began to ripen among miscolored Ieaves,
and three lilies spread their wings.
Seventy degrees, an easy wind,
warm swamps of what had been snow,
and we put away our winter clothes again,
headed out to the field of stone edges,
green brown moss, evergreens,
and wild flowers that did not know any better.

"then there are"

by Stephen A. Rozwenc

then there are
those long frigid winter nights
when the shivering mind desperately resorts to cold calculation
for warmth

perception becomes beatified delusion
and crucial explanation
of why
riparian New England snowscapes
swath moonlit snow’s creamy vellum
with iridescent comforters of thermal profusion

movement becomes meditation
a restless Chi of wind moans hotter eroticism
up through the back pasture
sailing disbelief like a ghost schooner
its barely audible foredeck jib a filigree powdery swirl

more resolute abstinence tacks across a hillside meadow
pausing only
to marvel at the rusted hay baler
and its half emerging halo of snow
inviting reckless deer to feed
on heavenly light
instead of ragged strips of hemlock bark

a pearly necklace of enterprising stonewall
belies the edgy hill’s diffident proposal
of fire clamoring inside ice
and a runway back to blissful heat
and the blessed Pleiades within our DNA

Australian bushfires

by James Aitchison

They say the smoke has reached Chile.
Not just the smoke from our blazing forests,
But the smoke from lost firefighters and townsfolk,
And thousands of lost homes,
And five hundred million wild animals,
And cattle and sheep and bold horses
Burned alive in once-lush paddocks.

They say the smoke is toxic.  It is not. 
It is sacred.

Mimicry

by Michelle Ainslie

Two purple hooks
curl into a promise
to the male wasp’s urge;

its plum body
pulsating on yellow
again
and
again.

Flower to
flower,

the wasp
relentless
in his pursuit;

the orchid -
blooming.

From Ocean Triptych

by KB Ballentine

III.

California coast — mystery of rock and water —
froth spumes, soars — whirlpools eddy the sand.
Seaweed tossed and withering, shearwaters skim
teal and turquoise while fly fishers wait, wading
swirling edges. Salt stings, shells and broken glass
  flashing through the shingle.

Trajectories #8

by David Chorlton

Against a sky wiped clean of every memory
a Red-tailed hawk hangs on a thread
of sunlight, while behind him is a kestrel
dipping and looping in a hundred
arabesques. Below them
Sunday’s rooftops lie at rest, with brunch
and lunch and football games continuing
and a weekly round-up of the news
consigned to silence. The kestrel’s
quick as a lawyer’s tongue;
the hawk is big but can’t negotiate
the curves the kestrel can. There’s no telling
where it ends. The facts come slowly
but they come. Without a lot
of decoration, just the intricate maneuvers
a diplomat is master of. There’s truth
and lies and every nuance in between,
so much work to figure out
who’s right. Or not, when the light
shines so brightly on the struggle
and the powerful wings
steer the hawk in his defeat
away.

Lines

by Veronika Zora Novak

cradled
by a peacock's cry . . .
full moon

Here

by Andrew Hutto

is a Florida scrub jay
on the shell of a gopher tortoise
in the Juniper Prairie.

They walk alongside the
trumpet vines
and saw palmetto.

Lines

by Marilyn Ward

long night
the broken branch
a crow turns into

Daybreak

by Beverly Summa

Bent blades of Shenandoah and beard grass reflect
morning’s blue-green light under shimmering coats
of late winter frost.  The red fox turns her head at the fleeing sound
--a nimble-footed field mouse erupts through the thread hairs
of her ears and warms the blood of curious nostrils.
The mouse disappears beneath the snow.
Hunger guides a knife’s edge concentration as her kits
stir and stretch in her belly.  She pauses, waits.

Lines

by Veronika Zora Novak

Kawarthas
a wolf's deep winter tracks
rewritten

Lines

by Susan N Aassahde

deer gypsy broom
snow well
hoof trench pickle