Along Highway 70

by David Chorlton

A mountain's peak pulls back a corner
of the sky, while the land
beneath it rolls
and buckles from cattle to cotton and
kestrels on the telegraph wires
running to November's changing color
on both banks
of the riverbed flowing
from one dry season to the next.
The Miracle Church looks tired
today, outspent
by the Latter Day Saints on the rise
with a view extending
Apache miles to the Earth's
wild edge.
              In each small
town along the way
tradition's in the balance
with houses whose walls ache
from holding up the past
while box stores
make a down payment on the future.
And a highway made of sunlight
runs directly through a raven's eye.

"each year at dawn"

by Stephen A. Rozwenc

each year at dawn
on the selected day
tuna fishermen from this quaint
Japanese fishing village
sail out
to slaughter dolphins
because  they rip fishnets
and suffer the catch to swim free

that hideous day
the fishermen clamor to the wharf
bristle with gaff hooks
harpoons
samurai swords
shotguns
grenades
sticks of dynamite
and slews of other fatal weapons

boat engines grumble to life
and the angry fleet
lurches forward
to depart the harbor
only to find the way out
to open sea
blocked by 4,000 dolphins
collective tail fins foaming
and dolphin language-clicks calling
for a nonviolent demonstration
to halt another massacre

The Glory of Gardens

by Philip C. Kolin

Even when winter entombs
fields in stark white,
flags of rye and red clover
parade the victory of color.

In springtime hurrahs come
for the progeny of last year's
ancestors--lace cap hydrangea,
blue sage, heather, and impatiens.

Summer's sun-soaked bounty
is baptized into life with fertile rain--
corn, asparagus, meaty pole beans,
eggplants and tomatoes.

In fall, alfalfa, oats, and cowpeas
flourish under Novembered skies
full of promise for a feast of gathering
at the end of the year.                                   

Season to Season

by g emil reutter

Abscission long underway
leaves scattered on ground
grouped in temporary mounds
skipping to and fro carpeting
yards, streets and lots.

Calm shades of magenta, yellow
brown, purple, black and pink.
Rain intensifies, mini whirlwinds
of leaves tango.

Others captured by temporary
streams along curbs flow into
city inlets. There is a harshness
in the beauty of death and renewal.

Blustery cold front hurtles storm
to the sea, rustle of fallen leaves
silenced as stems clutch the hardened
turf others embed in cracks of cement.

White crystals of winters arrival
mirror full moon sky. Petrified
rhododendrons await a warmer
day as weiglia, forsythia bow to
the gods of winter.

Green cascade holds parchment
like curled reddish leaves, she is
always the last to drop. Sun rises
cardinal chirps on barren limb
of sycamore.

Winter at Enid Lake

by Wil Michael Wrenn

The cold wind comes rushing,
roaring across Enid Lake
creating whitecap waves
which make a splashing sound
as they roll onto the shore.

An early Winter freeze has come,
and the foxes, squirrels, and raccoons
hurry to get their daily bread
as they prepare for the season ahead
As nature has changed from Autumn to Winter.

The geese that migrated from places north
are beginning to leave the lake
for warmer climates further south
while the white gulls have come back
to stay again through Winter
as they have done for many seasons past.

This cycle of nature continues here
at Enid Lake, as it has done throughout
the years and seasons. Old and young,
death and birth, sky and earth abide
in this Winter season at Enid Lake.

"orange dawn"

by Stephen A. Rozwenc

orange dawn
spreads coral pink legs
to give birth
to live island young

sand crab
turtle
osprey dive
loitering pelican
inimitable jellyfish
afterglow violets
present themselves
to the white shell goddess
of the beach
that knows rebellion
is the highest form
of obedience

Ursa Minor

by Brooks Robards

Trapped in a brumal cocoon
she feels limbs moving
lumbers out of her leaf lair
before full cognizance.

Sweet air wakens taste buds.
Mogging through snow patches
brush, she stops to claw open
a birch newly fallen and soft.

Across ridges of pine and ash
still hanging onto parchment leaves
she sleepwalks, branches break.
A horse and rider stop to listen

Wait. No more sounds come
just light amber fat, bleak shadows
on greening mountain laurel
balsam freshened in last night's fog.

"how simple are the weight of things"

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

the force that through the green fuse drives the flower
     --dylan thomas

how simple are the weight of things
from thistles stocky and stubborn in sidewalk cracks
to tides that rise and fall in their love affair with the moon . . .
the restless rivers
stars that wander and wheel
forests that release their colors with each wind turning
rain that slicks and floods
deserts that endlessly cycle day and night
           under a sun that pulses a fierce radiance
such is the green fuse
singing in its own work
driving the seed into harvest
the green breathing of jungles
the erupting of mountains
singing its own in the sleeping of glaciers and swamps
singing each animal alive with muscles, bones, eyes, skin
singing each birth
          singing its own power
the power driving all things

driving me

Claim

by J.D. Stofer

From a cool seat in the garden
my fig tree
laden under dappled sun
I admired
till a movement in the shadows
a rat
despite me wove its way
twitched along the smooth trunk
sure footed
careful as a farmer
seeking just the right fig for himself.
Now I knew
that sun warmed fruit I had enjoyed
this very afternoon
pure and sagging ripe
straight to my mouth                           
the juice down chin and neck
had been sniffed, trod on, handled,
maybe peed upon daily by this bold fellow
with similar tastes to my own.
We both like a nice juicy fig.
And it’s clearly not my tree.

Lines

by Roberta Beach Jacobson

she hid all her secrets
in a yogurt cup
- then she recycled it

Freeze

by John Grey

Wind enough to sweep the lake of snow,
down to bare ice, particles of light,
stunted trees tinted, rock-stubble beach,
grass, a beleaguered brown, where poking through the white.

Half moon, horned owl in repose,
pine's dead branch, oblique stillness,
field mouse running in his head,
so dark, a silhouette,
eyes beam though the hooded grace
of the invisible, no sound
but the bounce of his heart.

The last father, the last mother,

by  Joe Cottonwood

the last two boys and one little girl
toddle over sand to their old sedan
leaving me alone on this beach beyond sunset
—oops not alone. One seagull sits in swash
tickled by foam. Sits. Something wrong.

She wobbles to stand on one leg. Flops
beak-first into wet sand. Stuck.
She’d asphyxiate but in awkward struggle
frees her beak and hops one-legged,
washed by creeping edges of surf
which the ocean deals, and deals again.
Now she sits. Can she float? Can she fly?
Is she in pain? How did she lose one leg?

Could I capture? Take her home?
Google how to feed a seagull,
nurse her, hope she heals?
Do I want a seagull in my house
squawking at my dog, pooping on my bookshelves,
flapping in my kitchen?
Post-sunset is ironically pretty, a trout-blend of color.
A cold wind, salt smearing eyeglasses.
A rogue wave icy water to my ankles.
Where did she go? I’m surrounded
by carcasses of crabs, mounds of mussel shells,
saucer sand dollars. Surrounded by death
which the ocean deals, and deals again.
Where did she go?

A question from the refugee camps

by Amirah Al Wassif

I asked them
How the sun says hello to everyone?
Then, they laughed bitterly
Without being sorry
And told me "ask the gun"
Her red spark
Sharp like a dark
Permits entering the light for none

They asked me "what is the sun?"
When our expected meeting will be done?
Since their question
I did not ask again
Cause everything was very clear
Through the war stain

There, in the Somali lands you can find the answers
Upon the clouds , in the camps even on the children features
There, in the Somali lands all the details written with no ink
The only truth here required from you to think
About those people who do not have the fun
But you still ask about their sun ?

Among the refugee camps in Baidoa
I found a baby crawled
On the arm of his mama
Who seemed to me frowned
The baby opened his eyes widely
Looking for the next light
But his mama knows
No light comes with fight

In a crowd of the lost African bodies
He hold my hand tenderly
He was selling water to the ladies
were sitting on the docks
With their pots
Waiting for the day- early

In the Somali lands
They asked me
How the sun says hello to everyone?
Then, I replied with no hesitation
No sun comes with a gun

Fossil Beach

by Joe Cottonwood

Take off your shoes, walk with me.
We’ll squish our toes. Miles it goes,
the busy beach brimming with tiny crabs
until we reach — here, this outcrop:
from salty pools you can pluck
dead souls reborn as rock, washed by tides
just as they bathed so long ago
smacking their clammy lips,
wafting a seaside scent
not unlike spilled beer.

We humans still seek contentment.
Here it has lain millions of years.

This fossil, bivalve,
from time before meadowlarks,
before Neanderthal, before waltz
in the shape of a harp roughhewn,
plays a melody murky, out of tune.
Wizened she is.
Surface ribs roll. Feel the deep chuckle.
How dense in your fingers,
how nicely she fits against your palm.
From the sand she shakes your hand!
Greetings from the Paleozoic tavern,
surfin’ oldies on the jukebox.

Some day, may you and I
jolly in our bones
return as stones.

How Autumn Begins

by Don Thompson

Nothing close to a chill this morning,
but cool enough to remember
how the cold felt and to know
that it’s coming soon.

Leaves yellow on the edges,
dying from outside in;
green fruit that never got started,
and one last fig that must be ripe:

Soft, but the skin’s leathery.
It plucks easily, though,
and tastes as sweet as anything
summer had to offer.

Lines

by Ryan Warren

Not all berries drop
in their season. Even now,
still, we are laden.

Autumn Pastoral

Mary Anna Kruch

At the foothills of the Rockies, the road shadows the river.
Rock ledges of red and burnt sienna
form terraced altars for juniper and spruce;
harebell and wild flax bloom at their feet.
Past the ledges, the sky is overcast but visible,
even at 8500 feet. There, Quaking Aspen,
connected by one root system, spread their wings above ground,
finding patches between rocks to flourish.
A sharp turn marks a grove of cottonwood
clustered together, leaves fluttering, sharing secrets.
Trail Ridge Road climbs higher into the mist;
one expects saints to appear, point the way.
A sign for Fall River Road comes into view.
Ponderosa Pines fade into thick clouds;
headlights shoot through the fog.
Tail lights vanish ten feet ahead,
and the road snakes toward Chasm Falls.
Partly-obscured guard rails bend and kneel, lean
toward free-fall disaster, barely three feet to the left.
Poplars gone red emerge, flow, then meld into a baptism
of tangerine alder, juneberry, and spruce.
A dip in the road brings clarity to the clouds,
a veil lifts, log cabins appear, and plains open up to a herd of elk.
Aspens crown the golden pastoral scene.

Three Photographs Christi Kochifos Caceres

Li River Mists

     

      Longsheng Rice Fields

Stairway - Longsheng Minority Village

Lines

by Laughing Waters

Algerian fox
yapping under blood moon
golden dunes

At the Edge of Sight~ Old Quebec City

by M.J. Iuppa

Where sky meets water, blue
mountains rise— moving
across the horizon in shifting
clouds that curve into fortress
walls— mortar made to keep
this old French city contained
in its glass globe.

A ray of light catches fire
on the cathedral’s steeple.
A gray pigeon flies under eaves.
A man stomps his boots before
opening the heavy door
to morning prayers. . . .

And, your cupped hands
shake—unable to control this
universe—it snows, and snows,
and snows.

Wilder Ranch

by Jeff Burt

Struck by sunlight
the west wall of the cliff
like two cymbals
crashes unexpectedly,
stone ignites,
nests of shorebirds
open from darkness,
swallows cavort
squeaking celebrations,
pairs of blue dragonflies
hunt like closing scissors,
and yes, yes, the sun, the sun,
the clanging and banging,
and the whole cliff waking to vibration

Lines

by Laughing Waters

desert sun
between two dunes
the wind whistle

Prairies

by Philip C.  Kolin

A prairie is flat,
honest

free and open

not hampered
by planting rituals

or fenced in
like a garden's roses.

A prairie celebrates the wind
frolicking with wild rye and clover;

its butterfly flowers follow  the sun
and its  buffalo grass roams at will;

prairie bluestem everywhere
mirrors the cloudless sky.

Imperious sparrows and larks
cannot control

what a prairie harvests
or seed it with weeds.

A prairie grows
from the inside

out. No prickly pines
or glossy holly can root here.

A prairie courts posies
with black eyes

and blue bonnets.
A prairie sings:

Let all the world be lupine.

Lines

by Laughing Waters

all birch leaves
pointing downstream
the school of fish

Untitled

by Aneliya Avtandilova

All wrinkled and creased,
Exposing the imprints
Of someone's gargantuan limbs -
The bed of Cascadia.

Lines

by Carl Mayfield

eleven mourning doves
                   milling about
             autumn 

Safari

by Julianne Basile

To discover how one
Can fit a safari
In an amusement park,
Board the truck.

The spirits left
A tweed elephant
On her seat
When she got up.

It was bejeweled and the color of dusk.

What is one thing she learned about the safari?

It's smaller than Africa.

Lines

by Carl Mayfield

red-tailed hawk
     circling overhead--
the songbirds shut up

Egret

by Paul Waring

Embedded in silence—
a statue, study in patience
you stand, lost to time

watch and wait
s-neck still life
wings locked down
in wild Lanzarotean wind

for what seems hours
you paint brilliant white form
pure as truth
against black volcanic rock

forensic eye
sharpened telescopic stare
down yellow beak
poised to pounce beneath

ice-blue Atlantic sheet
killer spear inclined
to missile prey
with minimum fuss

and rise back to life
in rapid flap
of broadsheet sails.

Change Of Color

by Denny E. Marshall

River flows downstream
In a different color
Past lost forever

Couplets

by Pepper Trail

Start with water or stone?  Stone.
No, water.  No, stone – stone.

So, a volcano – a lava flow?
Yes, then water.  Because otherwise – the moon.

Infiltrating every fault, eroding.  Yes,
freezing, thawing, cracking.  Habitat!

Now, lichens.  Eventually, a little soil.
Moss, succulents.  Flowers!

So, bees.  Lizards, mice finding shelter.
Then, snakes, owls.  Someday, forest.

It’s good, every kind of thing.
Every kind of thing – it’s good.

Landlocked

by Teuta Skenderi

It smells like my land,
like the soft soil in my mother’s garden
like a fistful of cold earth resting on my father’s chest.
It smells like seeds sprouting
and roses dripping dewdrops at dawn.

It smells like a hand-woven blanket
covering a stranger at night.

It smells like an untrodden forest and home-made wine,
like a coin rusting inside a wishing well.

It smells like wide open windows and doors,
a quince drying on the window sill waiting to be gifted.

It smells like a toothless kiss on a child’s forehead on his way to school.
It smells like a migrating bird’s feather free-falling.

It smells like my homeland in early autumn.

Sacred

by Khalilah Okeke

The paperbark tree swoons
into the scribbly gum.
They are lovers dancing in
morning’s still music.

Branches entwine—
arms reaching for lifetimes.

Rosellas flame
through a peacock feather sky-

swift sweeps of sunrise.

Snowy Owl New Jersey

by Elizabeth Fletcher

Silent arctic nomad
Snow feathered
Blizzard white
Gliding south on the Atlantic flyway
Drifting to the coastal dunes
Commands  an osprey’s stick nest
far from sliver foxes on the tundra

Impervious to the click and whir
of the dumbstruck
Thunderbird of ancient petroglyphs
scans
New  Jersey’s tidal marsh
Buffle heads and mallards paddle
wing beats away

At twilight, the owl
ghosts
the marsh stills

Across the channel
Atlantic City’s glass towers  rise
prism-cut

The Pelican Bone

by Pepper Trail

is full of light.
The bird, of earth, feeling aloft
with fingertips knit of cottonstuff
and sinew
rises, heavy as a child
out of reach always, then
grown, gone
leaving a memory of silence.

Evening

by Michael H. Brownstein

twilight over the Missouri
the shadow of ghost trees
paper birched and shedding:

a black current near the mud
and shells of clam and oyster
silver-sprinkle deep infested earth:

the coyote comes, the otter,
a few beavers, a family of possum
a then a bobcat thirsty-strong:

night begins to shade everything with new
songs reaching into the growing
dark, the bobcat splashes water on its face

twilight thick with trees, crickets, a forest

Grackles

by Linda Gamble

a multitude dots bare branches
their grating calls
like a thousand rusty hinges

black banner unfurls
takes flight
crosses the street
descends    shrouds
the ground two houses down

with a great beating of wings
they rise
dip    turn    land
once
and twice again
in synchronized formation

with military precision
they manuever down the road
blue jay jeers from high above

Choreographed Buzzards

by Wesley D. Sims

Aerial acrobatic show—
wake of turkey buzzards surf
the blue ocean of wind,
black bodies glistening, their silver
wing tips splashed by sunshine.
Like practiced dancers transitioning
through routines, they cycle up the cove,
shifting, changing patterns, congregated
first in a circle, followed by momentary
square, then a trapezoid, now a Dipper
constellation, followed by a dotted spline
that torques and bends into a question
mark, as if to ask—what is this?

Training run for young buzzards?
Some vulture-peculiar ritual
practiced in mating season?
A random drifting, sniffing,
sailing excursion over the lake?
Maybe it’s just a Sunday afternoon
surfing flight, admiring the sites
and gawking at humans.

Dragonfly Days

David Chorlton

There’s a thin skin of air
lying over the pond
where dragonflies float
in September.
                       A Common Green Darner,
light as a wish,
with one wing for minutes
and one for the hours,
marks time as it crosses the water.
Summer goes slowly
                                    down to the carp;
a year drifts away
to the mountain. The heat’s lost
its edge, shadows
have teeth, while
                              two hawks in place
for the cool time of year
are quotation marks
for a silence as wide
as the sky,
                  and a vulture
hangs on a thread
down from the lingering sun.

Blackberries and Thistle

by Lorraine Carey

Random splodges of blackberries
stain the village and it's winding
pavements. The splatters
from starlings scatter wide -
the fuzzy circles, like signs.
Full bellies heavy in flight,
with pickings
from heaving brambles.

Roadside thistle of palest lavender,
forsakes its thorny bristle,
as furred heads of softest mink
hang on, until the wind shakes
and whistles through.
Autumn sneaks in, mulches leaves
and strips flower beds
with the efficacy of a thin lipped wife
and her Friday laundry.

They fly low, the murmuration,
with their mutterings
in warbles and whistles
chattering rattles and sharp trills.
Mimics and whirrs fill up
the evening sky and clouds roll
in a gambolled elegance of tumbleweed.

The Opposite of Town

by Todd Mercer

As
far
from one
interstate
as you get before
drawing closer to another,
forty-eight mile stretch with one gas station. Hills have eyes
situation, where city folks flee
before sundown, scared.
Near-empty
country,
too
still.

Every Day is a Good Day(after the calligraphy of Keido Fukushima)

by Neil Ellman

Every day is a good day
to breathe the ocean’s air
and walk along the shore
dodging waves
like sanderlings
and listening to the rush of surf
speak of the eternal
ebb and flow
that lift the heart
as hour-glass sands
sink beneath our feet.

Arizona Dust

by M.S. Camacho

I live with the dust.
The furniture has a fine coating.
My husband’s boots.
My face and chest.
Sunspots and fine hairs
on my cheeks glow.

Coming down from the buttes
on to the hummingbird’s wings.
To the bat’s dinner song, and
between the saguaro’s crevices.

What a blessing should it
rain while the sun looked on
And while the cicadas
Sang before nightfall.

Cleanse me with ozone,
creosote bushes, and full moons.
Then, anoint me again with the
Desert’s fine red powder.

Confidence Question

by John Zedolik

A hundred yards to the shore
to solid earth, deliverance
and driving off,

just a jump—come on—
bathtub deep, lemon-yellow
squeezy ducks at the bouncing bottom

if you happen to drop down
into those depths beyond the green-black
surface, but you’ll skim

this with your strong strokes on only
this greatest and most northerly lake

don’t worry about the mischief of strong current
at a constant forty degrees. The boat’s too slow,
and five p.m. is far in the future.

The plunge will take you now.

The First Rule of Substrata:You Don’t Talk About Substrata

by Todd Mercer

There’s The Underground,
which everyone’s familiar with,
your standard shadow networks,
grey-to-black markets.
I’m talking about the underground
that people in the regular one
have only heard rumor about.
Below the sewer tunnels,
barely above
the collective unconscious,
the hydrologic caverns,
steaming mantle,
boiling molten core.

The Old Stone Wall

by Anne McMaster

So much is lost.
I walk the lane this silent autumn night
up towards the old farm.
A soft mist hangs low on empty, moss-edged fields
and the patient wildflower scent is strong.
Three small girls – three ghosts –
tumble behind me as I go:
racing past me up the summer lane to find their father at the hay -
chasing a small dog, yelping, laughing,
carrying a bottle of tea and a wrapped piece for the hungry man.
Walking behind the trailer on an autumn dusk
hair prickling with flecks of straw
mouths sweet and dark with blackberries
plucked warm from an August hedge.
Then huddled, silent and golden-eyed on a dark October night
watching bonfire sparks burst up to the stars -
their peach-soft skin blushed with heat
each goose-bumped with fear of the encroaching night.

The lands and farm are gone.
Sold on, re-worked, the houses razed.
Only the old stone wall – aged older than the girls – remains.
We climbed it then
a barrier rough and tall;
a challenge to our brief-lived years.
Now, tonight, I see it as a thing of timeless beauty:
of workmanship and pride.

The three small girls tumble over it
riotous and laughing
and are gone.

Eternity Turn

by Winston Derden

Consider the cleverness of the Cooper’s hawk
who glides disguised the upslope of the roof,
crests the ridge, and dives on pigeons
perched at the feeder hanging from the eave next door:

the crash and sway, the spilling of seeds,
the prey pinned against the box,
the futile flap of wings
as talons sink in, and the predator

rises above the roofline, bundle compacted,
elevating toward hungry chicks hidden away
in a nest new-found since the city sawed down
the elm that canopied the park, a disease in its heart.

Pestilence and predation invert the arc;
the cycle turns on the wings of a hawk.

Late September

by Ben Rasnic

Earth sheds
its worn, frayed coat
of Indian Summer,

cools in the silent
avalanche
of deep, sleeping leaves. 

Hush

by Kimberly Behre Kenna

The secret of dawn
Tucked in the cup of the moon
Dark brew, gold nectar

Uruguayan Autumn

by Terrence Sykes

orchards so ancient
now copse
olives & quinces
gather along  the ridge
as it slopes toward the arroyo grande
bulrushes  & cattails
merge coverage confuse
water & terra firma

ombra of figs clustered about
our little yet warm cottage
autumn rains already filled
heady aromas in the empty
mushroom baskets commingling
with the fragrance of last night’s
boiled cabbage and boar
eggs & potatoes pile
upon the overflowing table

chest of drawers laden
with forage jams
cupboards hold jars
pickled okra & green beans
harvested from the reluctant garden
rutabagas & pumpkins await in the
darkened unheated stone room
with garlic from several moons ago

all these a bit of autumn light
stored away to ward off
darkness of winter
clouds block the sky
dawn will arrive
of its own will