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.