Call Me Aster

by Rachel Loughlin

My daughter is reinventing herself
In quarantine
She's chosen a new name
New hair
Is sewing new clothes
From old curtains

I try to honor her wishes
There are so few things in her control
By choosing to name herself
She is taking her stand
Before the yawning chasm
Of uncertainty
And saying
I am here
I am me
Everything may shift
But I remain

Tonight I've promised to dye
Her new hair bright blue
And mine red
Also newly cut
I quietly think
About changing my own name
But I do not tell her that
We will shout together
At harvest moons rising
As women always have
Tell the stories
Say their names
drop by drop
So it isn't a flood that washes her away
She does not understand yet
The long line unbroken
Of women tending each other's wounds
That holds the universe in order

She just knew
Something in her
Needed a new name 

This is a poem about a full moon

by Joe Cottonwood
 
called a Hunter’s Moon 
I never saw rising because 
I live in a valley covered in fog
among redwood trees.
 
Each night I soak in a hot tub before bed,
each night a different phase of moon
which must rise high scaling mountainside
and then pierce the fog
which keeps the trees alive.
 
The fog turns to silver shafts
hovering among trees
like beams from a celestial projector.
 
This is a poem about a nose 
touching my elbow at the edge of the hot tub,
a black wet nose,
a raccoon cub wide-eyed with life,
handsome fur thick and glossy,
curious, electric, spirit of night.
 
Startled delighted I exclaim There you are!
like an idiot and the cub, scared,
so quick on its feet scampers — gone.
 
This is a poem about the felt, 
sometimes seen, ever there: 
the fog and full moon, 
an elbow, cub nose, 
the damp touch 
of the wild cosmos.

Aging

 by Jamie Seibel
 
The shore is an old man 
of sand wrinkles 
and folds.
A paper crane,  
flies north 
as I pick up
the bone of a fish,
hoping to replace mine
and swim downstream. 

Lines

by Maria DePaul

Overdue rain
Rivulets hit dust
Valley’s flash flood 

Lines

by Chen-ou Liu

horns and tire screeches 
another sunrise blackening
with wildfires 

Lines

by Nancy Scott McBride

false dawn -
early birds whisper in
the mock-orange bushes

Cacophony

by Kathryn Holeton
 
Loud crashes echo,
a tornado siren wails,
cellar doors slam shut.

The Great Auk

by Simon Christiansen

The penguin but your shadow on the wall
Your egg lies crushed beneath a human boot
The world without your presence has grown small

Our actions in the past we can't recall
The world is changed for good by this pursuit
The penguin but your shadow on the wall

Atop the signs of progress, we stand tall
Towards Utopia we chart the route
The world without your presence has grown small

The trees, the stars, the beasts must be in thrall
From homes of chrome and steel we thus salute
The penguin but your shadow on the wall

From everywhere to anywhere we sprawl
The fruits of nature only our loot
The world without your presence has grown small

We do not see as we collect the haul
Our egg beneath a fast-approaching boot
The penguin but your shadow on the wall
The world without your presence has grown small

Lines

by Mona Bedi

billowy clouds 
a red kite struggles
to stay afloat 

Lines

by Douglas J. Lanzo

breathlessly close
mountain peak stars
fingertips off summit

Lines

by Herb Tate
 
overshadowing 
bright moon 
shadows 

We Didn’t Know

 by Alexandria Lacayo
 
The rake rakes amid the strain of the back
metal fingers searching aimlessly, exposing.
Splinters spawn secretly beneath as payback
from the spent earth for disturbing the process.
 
We didn't know the disaster we'd cause
and the disaster we caused didn't know
 
A rustling ramble stirs crimson and coral
atop neglected bronze blades, crippled by men. 
Busy birds above prepare, choral, quarrel
while tree-dwellers dig diligently, nesting. 
 
Searching for a nut in the same place
A nut in the same place for searching
 
The rake rakes, resenting its behavior
seizing the former tree canopy's remains,
hoarding them in his teeth, a gesture, favor
to the world where he once belonged, free, complete.
 
Metal limbs telling me I'm trapped by you
Trapped by metal limbs, I'm you, telling me
 
The Hunter's Moon soon turns his head, peeking through
clouds, nimbostratus, busy, and opaque.  
His lullaby quells the thoughts turning askew
as frost blankets the earth, slumber commences. 
 
We didn't know the disaster we'd cause
and the disaster we caused didn't know.

Lines

by petro c.k.

harvest moon
the foodbank line
a bit longer

Lines

by Vandana Parashar

nip in the air

dust settles 

with me on the couch  

Lines

by Ravi Kiran

autumn moon
there is no one left
to blame

Forever and a Day Photograph by KJ Hannah Greenberg

 

Quiet Road Photograph by KJ Hannah Greenberg

 

Lines

by Chen-ou Liu

house sparrows
flit to the empty feeder
again, sticker shock

Lines

by Douglas J. Lanzo

whirling whiskers
of spotted goatfish
sand dredging

The Heron

by Ceri Marriott

the heron stood still
in the shrunken dried up pond
as the summer sun
beat down relentlessly, wave
upon wave of searing heat