Morning Light

by Ed Jones

Once, I said Pine has fingers but I was wrong.
Each arm has one hundred green fans performing
Japanese rituals.  Everything effortlessly coordinated
By Wind.  The great arms of the pine bow and beckon,
And the fans attend every movement, solicitous as
Geisha without the encumbrance of arousal.

Now this morning light is so pure
Nothing gets in the way of gray shingles,
Jade trim, cornice and shadow, the curl of
Sycamore leaves hanging thick as dried figs
In a skittering of branches.  Even the dog’s bark
Is transparent in this early light:  good morning.

Wind commands pine fans to tickle air
With their fingers!  Look, there, I was not wrong.
Such is the power of the grand choreographer today,
Transforming fans to fingers and back again.

And light still falls evenly on everything
Even as shadows climb down the roof, two leaves
Twitch in the wind, and the fans either spread
Or do not spread their fingers attending to the world.

When I decide I've had enough

by Laila Maged

You ruin my fertile land
You smoke away my sky
You gaze at me with greed-filled, ungrateful eyes
You named me a possession,
Planted your flags on my once-peaceful ground
Then killed one another over it
and searched for redemption never to be found.
I warned you once
Then warned you once again
I’ve stricken back many times
But you’ve proven you do not understand
In the end, it is still I who shelters you;
It is I who keeps you alive
I urge you to throw your trash in my lakes;
I urge you to smoke your issues away
I urge you to waste my pure water with your filthy bathes,
And give birth to an amount of offspring I cannot sustain,
while never giving thought to that fateful day,
when I finally decide that I've had enough.

Cuckoo

by Neil Brosnan

I blame the parents more than the youngsters
Those most deceitful of our refugees.
Planners and plotters, ingrained imposters,
Covertly winging from far overseas.

‘Shush,’ snaps the dunnock from under the sedge,
The marsh warbler’s song cut short in his throat
Mute pipits cringe at the still meadow’s edge
High up above them resounds the next note.

Tunefully perfect, evolved to enthral
Proclaiming his realm; his objectives clear
Shamelessly calling from dawn to nightfall
Stark confirmation that summer is here.

Have we ever heard this cuckoo before?
Will he return here - once, twice, or no more? 

The Man Who Spoke To Catkins

by Josephine Greenland

Etymology is written in the pistil. I trace it in the catkin; that little cat’s tail pinched between my fingers. Read it, through the microscope; hold it there, up to the stem, yellow hairs pressing against the glass. See the words now, all lower case, nestled under the flower cluster. Gynoecium, single carpel, raising its filaments to cover itself. The pistil is a shy little thing; look how it bends its head, tucking its chin in for modesty. Bend down, put the glass aside and use your ears as microscopes. The camp grows thick with whispers, of convergent evolution and ancestral inflorescence: the systems of nature through the kingdoms of nature, according to the species, the synonyms, the places. Dig down, root your fingers, absorb the words into your skin for safekeeping, they must be intact when you write them down. When plants speak, the biologist is the student; he must learn patience to capture their words.

Cousins

by Ed Jones

My inebriate cousins the mosquitos
Have whined and probed and sucked
All night long, leaving us swatting
At them even in our dreams and now
Fleeing before the sun they return
Besotted with blood, slippery
With intercourse, desiring only
Some tireful of musty rain water
To lay themselves down,
A scene burgeoning with vast sexual
Activity, a flotilla of filmy eggs.
And already they are asleep, no
Hangover, simply content in an
Exhaustion soon perfected in death
Which means nothing to them.
In three days their myriad corpses
Return as home:  bacterial nest,
Swamp grass, algal bloom.  We hate
Such thoughtless prolixity, don't we,
We Mayflower descendants, disturbed
By all that blindly plunges or
Prefers night to day or remorselessly
Dreamlessly does what it wants,
What it needs, what it must.

Barnegat Bay, After the Storm

by Elizabeth Higgins

Dune grass casts shadows
on the rain-stung sand.
The gulls glide silent
on the bloated sea,
storm-swollen, crashing
blindly into moss-caked rock.
Beach roses drink
the salt-spray, shiver
in the empty sky, sing
magenta through the endless
gray. The egret watches
from the sawtooth pier, unfurls
his white neck. A purple vein
of lightning carves
the fog. He lifts his wings
over wave crests, swallowed
by the white mist.
He arcs back once,
then disappears.

Portrait of Birch and Fir

by Floyd Cheung

white claws pierce green torso

paper thin branches
stretched through its neighbor
by inches over many seasons

Ice Fishing on Lake George

by Mathew Weitman

All at once, the fish erupts
from the augur’s hole
& lies panting, and kicking
as it reddens the snow;
nearby, a group of gulls
watches with open mouths.
This is not the reason
that seagulls believe in the paranormal:
an uncanny ability that a fish has
to bring itself back from death
by flapping. It is however,
the reason that seagulls fly.

Lake Mono Walk

by E. Margareta Griffith

puffy gray boulders, all air and ashes
charcoal-black small stones, gleaming in the sun
spilled down the mountain like costume jewelry
souvenirs of volcanic bonfire

Ivy

by Shannon Donaghy

Ivy creeps up the side
Of the red brick chimney
And coils around string lights
Left over from Christmas time

The vines have pushed through
The wire loops of the reindeer’s eyes
He sports a Persian green disguise
Over the stark-white of his wire bones
His proud antlers – the only bit of him that shows

If I plugged him in
The leaves would glow
The extension cord has been
Chewed through, though
And the outdoor outlet is half-broken
From last year’s snow

This Lily

by Tim Gorichanaz

What’s so unsettling about this lily
I say,
Is that it’s just like me.

A big storm comes in and floods the pot and the next day you think it’s finally done for but lo and behold it gets back up, turgid, it

Smells in the summertime of our bedroom,
A human ferment it

Flowers again even when the other plants have given up it

Perhaps knows there will be
An end
Written in the world all around but

For now, the sun is out

Shenzhen retouched

by Dawid Juraszek

Two birds came down the road
their heavy snake-like tails
enmeshed with dusty trees.

They stirred the burning air
above the ceaseless rush
their song greyed out by din.

Then hopped along the curb
their colours lost on all
the hurried and the stressed.

Their wings unrolled, they flew
across the Xinhu Street
amid the hurtling surge.

And then you fear they now belong
in a convenient zoo
with rapid eyes and velvet plumes
not broken on the wheels.

The shapes and sounds and sights
that made their world – retouched.

"black cormorant, whirlpool"

by Miriam Sagan

black cormorant, whirlpool
reversing rapids
pulled by tide
Bay of Fundy…
stink of the pulp
and paper plant
a boat
a view from a bridge…
whatever taught me
to see things as they are
not as I wish them:
I’ll call “sensei”

Eudaimonia

by Don Thompson

Water grass knee-high in ditch bottom muck:
A green so intense it would last all summer
And then some in a better world.
But here it dries up in a week.

Sub Storm

by Michael H. Brownstein

Today is Friday, tomorrow the beginning of next week,
An angry grumbling of earth, the heat a shower of shame,
Rising water, a plastic death to the ocean, things look bleak.
Today is Friday, tomorrow the beginning of next week.
Where is the Cuban Coney, the Sardinian Pika, the prairie leek,
The Jamaican Monkey, the Bulldog rat, the prame?
Today is Friday, tomorrow the beginning of next week,
An angry grumbling of earth, the heat a shower of shame.

By The Cauvery

by Rashmi Vesa

Crystal clear Cauvery calms the roaring sun
light showers douse a river ablaze,
rousing green,sprouting life.
The serene waters deceptively cloak
vertiginous whirlpools looking for prey,
masheers play, twirl away
confounding egrets and
painted stork alike.
At the cusp of twilight
a teasing sliver of silver moon,
herds elephants into water,
chinkaras call in the distance,
a light wind shifts sand
flaking gaur hoof prints.
The air is punched by pithy calls
of a cuckoo looking for another's nest,
a tiger sprawled over a crescent rock
waits for dark clouds to shroud the moon.
Quiet flows the Cauvery.

"It still surprises me"

by Miriam Sagan

It still surprises me
on a city street
how no one
crashes in to me, and I
avoid their feet—
cinquefoil on the mountaintop
blooms in its crevices
and a yellow throated green  warbler
sways on a branch

Ancient Ones

by Laara C Oakes

Spiraling up from the deep
in a whirlwind of slurry,
wakes a mighty force
born from power and fury.

Vernal fire cracks winter ice.
Atomic halation.
Stellar combustion.
Beginning creation.

Inspecting the Damage

by John Grey

I’m a friend to the lost
so farewell, alders, cedars.
My breath is a bell-tower
ringing silently.
Day’s sad light spreads
to include the few
Douglas firs not dragged away.

Suffering, pain,
echo of a buzz-saw,
bitterness,
everything oily to the touch,
senses at the crossroads,
hemlocks, moss, maidenhair,
mud-spattered grass, mushrooms –
the wreckage of yesterday’s logging –
scorched earth unveils its meaning.

Brown Field in Summer

by Taylor Graham

All this dead bio-mass still standing – shoulder-
high wild oats over a thickly woven pad of vetch
and clover the nitrogen-fixers, bull-thistle
crowned in spiky purple blossom in May,
beloved of goldfinch. By June, stiff and brown,
flammable. Also foxtail and rip-gut brome, bane
of passing creatures. But the phoebe still
finds insects in this sunburnt jungle, the turkeys
lead their chicks through, pecking who knows
what. Spring green has spent its seed;
the annuals’ life after death, to come again
next year, for goldfinch, turkey, phoebe.

"The dog and I climb the hill,"

by Eliza Mimski

The dog and I climb the hill,
The crepuscular light, twilight,
The birds with their consonants, their vowels.

The dog stops and smells the trees,
Drunk on their elixir.
The dog urinates
To say how much he loves them.

The tree is a bird planted in the ground.
Its wings are branches.
The tree is dark brown lush,
Shadow maker.

The light shifts,
The sky begins to close
As we make our way up the hill.

Ninety-five Days

by David Chorlton

The last time was a sprinkle.
Just enough
to tease flowers
out of the saguaro, and to wet
the air for arriving
doves.
         We don’t know
when we turn a faucet
where the water comes from
any more, while on the mountain
cholla needles shine
with thirst.
                It’s been ninety-five
dawns with scarcely
a cloud. But it helps to be
an animal to know
how dry the days have been:
                                             to wake
at dusk and wander. To remember
hidden springs. And when
they no longer flow
to climb
            up to the ridgeline
and lick salt
from the rim of the moon.

Haiku to the Moon

by Terrence Sykes

constellations play
kickball with the moon across
that vast milky way

Weed-Eating One's Own

by Taylor Graham

He aligns the swath straight as a pike
through headhigh wild oats and needled
brome. Assurance of long acquaintance.
The sun’s a little bit late to hit the swale,
the cusp of summer. A far extent of field
unmowed, uncharted though he knows
every foot of it. He could have paid
to have this done, but that would
neglect the connection a piece of ground
is owed, the owner always in its debt.

The Koi

by Michael Medler

She lies,

lumpish and still
where the heron killed her,
entangled in her own entrails,
beyond swallow size.

Her sallow scales glint
in angular morning light. One
eye might catch the quick
of clouds, the other gazing

down where she left eggs
for spring. She gapes,
wavers in ripples, torn
where water falls, coasting

in sublime ugliness. Not
even food for the bird;
just kill. Just where her time
let her lie. Just there.

The Bench Behind Stone Hall

by Shannon Donaghy

I wonder who it was that decided
That we should get to glimpse the Meadowlands
Beyond the suburbs of Little Falls
And just before the sprawling skyline
Over the sawed-off necks of cedar trees
Heads somewhere by the street down below

I sit a bit to the side of all that
Where the trees are still intact
Oaks and birches and underbrush
The bench where a mother racoon
Has been rumored to sit
After sifting through the garbage
There’s so little room for all this up here
Deer lingered outside my window last year
Leaning like billy-goats against
The sloping rocks of Clifton’s cliffs

I guess we’re all too busy
Gawking at the city lights
Out there in the mountainous middle distance
To notice the massacre

My Tiny Bit of Green

by Azrael Tseng

On Earth Day I plant a tiny sapling
in a nice spot with lots of sun and space.
It looks so skinny, such a fragile thing --
I wonder why the teachers clap and praise.

“You kids are like this tree-to-be -- so small,
but you are both the future of this Earth.
Now learn this most crucial lesson of all --
replant, retell the story of its birth.”

I do as my teacher says and water
my tiny sapling every day with care.
I do it for the ones who don’t bother
but sometimes I cry out loud, "It’s not fair!"

“It’s only because there are those like you
who do their bit to help save our planet,
that we still have a chance to start anew,
undo the bad by those who began it.”

Well, I started this tiny bit of green,
and although it may not seem very much,
it adds a splash of color to the scene --
in twenty years it'll be too tall to touch.

If only it makes it. I go one day,
heavy watering can hanging from an arm,
to find them all cut down and thrown away --
all we planted with their tree-to-be charm.

Where warm soft grass once fluffed under our feet,
now splayed lumpy earth like churned up porridge.
Growling from the fenced-off grounds of concrete,
dozers prowl like guard dogs to discourage.

But the part that really makes my heart sink?
The sign out front reads -- ‘Future Builders Inc.’



Written by Azrael Tseng on 23/04/2017, inspired by the sight of his second-graders planting sapling for agriculture.

Monks' Garden

by Terrence Sykes

fig shadows & apothecary roses
sprawl & almost
consume & reconstruct
ancient greenhouse ruins

bees flourished contentedly
amongst saliva & rosemary
countless healing herbs
outlined that enclave

comfrey once
healed bones & wounds
now twists upon
broken beams

seemingly now only
divine intervention could
resurrect this sacred
abandoned garden

Caw

by Amanda Eagleson

          This cool wet April

            this damp delay

  spreads the Still Creek Roost

         a murder of grey sky

                  Until May

  black feathers, feet, and beak

             In June we nest.

Capture This

by Jules Henderson

Wild jasmine and gardenia arrest the senses,
and the shores of Haleiwa are crowded with cliff-diving natives.
Rain cascades down walls of molecules that hide themselves in sun rays;
we are heathens but we breathe in their mana, assuming it is ours to claim.
          (Still, this is not appropriation)
Sleet grey lava stone whispers prophecies to cherry hibiscus:
Next year at this timethe water will be too toxic to drink.
In the sand, our fingers mimic Cezanne’s strokes to capture this fleeting moment—
why is life a canvas only
to those who bow
humbly to the heart?
Pele either creates or destroys; she does not preserve.
We take our cues from her to fashion our days
and dance like sphinx inside plumerias in search of wine.

An Australian summer

by James Aitchison

Grieving hills,
Your silky trees consumed by fire.

In the angry afternoon
The heat strangles a breeze at birth,

And the wild night claims
The leavings of the day.

How Can You Keep A Weather Eye Out If You Can’t See?

by Jeff Bernstein

It is just one murky Vineyard night:
cinnamon swirls of fog droplets collect
everywhere like transparent cotton candy
spun on a machine of twisted oaks
and brown leaves as they strain
and lisp over Up-Island roads.

Lighthouses signal sadly across
the Sound but no one watches
anyhow. Light chop slaps
the few fishing boats still tied up
at Dutcher Dock, two old cobraheads
sputter above the parking lot
and a single light burns
inside the lobster pound.

Gulf Branch

by Ben Nardolilli

Spring approaches, it is warm enough
To crawl through the wide open drain pipe
And listen to the traffic going overhead

The run has lost its icy cover,
Water flows around our shadows as we balance
Over the rocks that are moss-free for now

On the other side, we look up at the white
Spaces between the tree branches,
They shelter us with the end of all expression

Lines

by Carl Mayfield

one flick
    of a black-tipped ear--
      jackrabbit revealed

Copper River Salmon, Best in Alaska

by Sarah Henry

It must be hard to be a salmon,
mouthed by a bear
and dragged to the woods

or caught by men
with fishing boats,
thwacked against the sides.

Times are tough
when eagles screech
and dip too low.

Luck and instinct
lure them
as the river swarms

with millions running
to their summer
destination.

Over a wave,
one salmon leaps
a single arc of possibilities.

Afternoon at Rockaway, Oregon

by Daniela Lorenzi

At last the fog is lifting.
Its echo hangs in the air—
a haze over sand and water
refracting tepid sunlight; now
the waves that boom
to shore glint silver, a never-
ending attack and retreat
a thousand icicles
skipping on the crests.

"when I was 9 years old"

by Stephen A. Rozwenc

when I was 9 years old
I played Mohawk Indian
hide and seek
creeping
among the comforting shadows
of forest trees
and the lacy silhouettes
of ferns
longing for grace

now I’m a 73 year old expat
who has fled
an angry withering
culture
that offers schoolchildren
in schools
as human sacrifices
to appease
merciless gun manufacturing gods

In the Desert

by Carl Mayfield

thirty-seven drops of rain
have reminded
the cholla cactus
what color is for

Lines

by Colleen M. Farrelly

ibis creeping low
in spring’s oasis
before jaws snap shut

"At the bend, a flamenco cry erupted"

by Margarita Serafimova

At the bend, a flamenco cry erupted.
An invisible rooster, proud with the midday light,
robbed my pulse,
and I looked for confirmation at the man
who was working there.

Pelagic

by Karla Linn Merrifield

Do not say
the tide goes out
rather it falls
coral reef appears
another
another
secreted shoals
exposed
as turquoise retreats
to horizon-deep blue
I follow
shearwaters
flying the ebb

"I saw the belly of a bird of prey"

by Margarita Serafimova

I saw the belly of a bird of prey –
dappled as a clear sky with cirrocumulus.
She possessed the inner law.

Cable Crossing

by Gary Lark

I stop at the cable crossing hole
when light just touches
the top of the canyon.
I slip down the bank under the trees
to the liquid emerald
and roll cast to the dimples
of rising trout.
They pay little attention
to my muddler or mayfly.
I set the fly rod down.
This deep green world
turns to magic at twilight
and I give in.
The fish jump and roll
as I breathe the living air.
I will be here at seventeen
and seventy, life washing
through me, this small infinity,
the experience of one.

Haiku At Poinsett Bridge No. 2

by Matthew Banash

You can’t tell
A Monarch butterfly
Where to go

Wild Water

by Victoria Doerper

Water rockets
Round boulders
Tight pressed
In pockets of cliff,
Falling heedless
In spume and thunder
Pounding down,
Surging under
Broken limbs,
Bounding up,
Flowing on again
Strong as a silver
Scour of gravel,
Silt sculpting rock,
Building up a mantle
Of remembrance
In deposits along
The further banks,
Signs that once
Water had a wild
Encounter
With constraint
But left behind
Less than what
She kept
And carried
Forward.

Haiku At Poinsett Bridge No. 1

by Matthew Banash

Crows laugh in the elms
At jokes I don’t get-
Caw caw caw

Around the Bend

by Gary Lark

We fished the south fork
for bullhead catfish
or steelhead in the winter
but seldom for trout.
I decided it was time to explore.
June, before it got too warm,
I headed up river,
looking for water on BLM
or Forest Service land,
somewhere not posted.
On the map Cow Creek
makes a big loop
before joining the river.
I walk railroad ties
away from civilization,
catch a couple of trout,
nothing to get excited about,
when a sweet aroma
filters through the trees.
I follow, find some tiger lilies.
Though perfect in their own right,
it's not them.
Down more ties, around a bend,
the scent invades me,
tunnels into my cells.
There it is, wild azalea
in full bloom, filling the world
with its heavenly essence.
In the pantheon of aromas,
it could shoulder aside
gardenia and honeysuckle.
Wild azalea, unmatched.

Hummer Sunset

by Mike McCormick

Emerald stars
Erupt from sun
Orbit juniper

Scatter like comets
When yucca shadows
Grow long talons

Deodar Cedar

by Jack King

I have three trunks
like a fork
aimed straight at the sky.
I climb the air.
My limbs reached out for a hand
to hold,
but never found one so kind.
The only one of my kind,
For all I can see.
I stand taller than all around,
They never knew the reason for my height
was because of my bite on an old sewage pipe
deep beneath the grass and pavement. Shit
was my secret
ingredient.

Raging Earth, Soothing Sea

by Maria DePaul

The ground quakes before me,
The islands overflow with fire.
I am Pelehonuamea,
Hawaii’s Volcanic mother.
I devour the archipelago
With towers of ash.
I rage at human stains on the
Landscape, erasing every trace.
Men flee to my basaltic shores,
To meet the goddess of the sea.
My sister Namakaokahi cools
Raging sands with soothing waters.