Definition in the face of an unnamed grief

 by Deborah A. Bennett 

to know it is to know your own hand
opening, to exhale to be bodiless
whether mad with joy or sorrow
steeped in vine or briars 
all reason glows in simplicity 
the world is out of your eyes
it is always june & you are walking
in the cool of the day
hearing its name in the wind
in the root light sings, laughter
breaks in its stems, fills the
petal folds with music old as sun
& dew & summer
in the heart makes flesh of heaven
spirit of earth
in the head tangles round & waits
in the mouth blossoms with thorns
& with leaves sweet & ripe
as an apricot 
broken open.

Lines

by  C.X. Turner

full worm moon plucked from the soil

Lines

by Chen-ou Liu

algae blooms ...
beneath the surface
of his anger

Lines

by Maria Mathai

Ripples of wind
Shiver the leaves of a willow tree
Rain drops speckle wood

Lines

by Ulrike Narwani 

scorched hillside
fireweed
ablaze, ablaze

Lines

by Hifsa Ashraf

April morning chill 
a bamboo partridge’s call
rippling the stream 

Three Photogarphs G. Tod Slone

 

Lines

by  I.W.B.S. Sister Lou Ella Hickman

an old frog singing 
a flash of green startles 
winter now is over 

Through the Desert’s Eye South Mountain, Phoenix

by David Chorlton         

The bones roll loosely underneath
a coyote’s skin, the spine a tangle
with his ribs and every limb
a lightness strong
enough to carry him where
he needs to go.
                           The ice has fallen
from the moon
and South Mountain warms
from a yawn to a smile.
                                             A fallen
saguaro is part memory
part earth, and asks
whether the coyote
was actually here, or turned
from fact to mystery
                                     when he stopped
looking left, right and inward.
There’s hidden chatter
in the mesquites and cholla
of mockingbirds and thrashers
seeking out the starting point
of spring.
               The sky is balanced
on the ridgeline. Each ascending trail
winds its way to where
nobody can follow except the hawk
with shadow
                       for a wingspan
who spirals into nothing
                                           and disappears
the way illusions do
when the Arizona desert blinks.

Lines

by Ron Scully

upper Merrimack
the gull out of scent
of the Gulf of Maine

Lines

by Hifsa Ashraf

late winter afternoon 

slipping into the dust haze
a junglefowl’s crow

Lines

by Douglas J. Lanzo

Mountain elk
graze snow-brushed grass
tilted antlered sky

Lines

by Michael Riedell   

bear creek valley—
three old cows corralled
in winter rain

Lines

by James Kangas

bedroom floor shadows
of two frigid legs walking
in windowed moonlight

Lines

by Carl Mayfield

footprints leading
to the sandstone cistern
filling with snow

Lines

by Chen-ou Liu

job interview
winter morning darkness 
at the bus stop

Motus Plantis

by Moray McGowan

Indignant pines stare down the woodsman 
Shame him, till he hangs his yellow helmet on a branch 
And shuffles back to camp 
 
Wheat stalks cup their ears 
For the harvester’s throb 
Then blind the driver with a storm of phosphate dust 
 
Furtive carrots couple in the soil 
Their blissful misshapen children 
Send packaging robots into tantrums of despair 
 
Roses mourning their beheaded offspring 
Put away their pretty pastels for the nonce 
Their next dull blooms, unplucked, set seed 
 
Poodle-clipped privet grows steely stems 
Bouncing the shears back on their own cable 
Banish the bandaged gardener to a bench. 
 
Potatoes shrug off their mounded earth 
Greened, inedible, 
Sun-worshipping sprawlers on the soil 
 
Lettuces, though, throw themselves flat  
Overacting in their green doublets 
They let the slugs raze every last leaf 
 
Celery and rhubarb 
Sick, to their pale cores, of the blanching pot 
Up sticks in the early hours and hammer on the bedroom window  
 
And the lawn, the lawn! Aching for buttercups, 
Aching for clover, daisies, dandelions, 
It sends the mower slithering into the pond 
 
One night the pond too eats its own underseal 
Lily roots follow the seeping water 
Long-lost lovers reaching with blind fingertips for the earth  

Lines

 by Douglas J. Lanzo

sockeye salmon
steely-eyed resolve
spawning red, upstream

Tidal Flow

by Gary Beck

When I walk on the beach
I see the loneliness
of the Florida surfer,
who waits and waits
for the big wave
that never comes.