Horizon

by David Chorlton
 
Along a late sunbeam
crossing where the tall trees stand
with a wing for the left
and one
leaning right, the Cooper’s Hawk
stirs apart the flock
of pigeons gathered for protection
against the sky.
                         The west
is a blush spread wide
and the east
is open to receive the shadows
passing over the land with nowhere
to rest. This is how
the day glides with the knife blade
drawn, to its
concluding ring when
the bell swings one
last time
against the steel horizon.

Lines

by Veronika Zora Novak

burdened
with a dark dew . . .
plum blossoms

Bean Creek

 by Jeff Burt
 
They belong as one life,
water, rock--
one is not one
if one is another--
for a water’s swirl, an eddy,
requires a boulder’s resistance--
without backwater, no crawdad,
no steelhead, no kingfisher,
no egret, no dragonfly,
no frog.

LInes

by Deborah A. Bennett 

the moon tonight 
over george floyd square -
light of the yellow mums

Two Photographs by Morgen John

Snake River, Idaho

Sunset from Sunspot, New Mexico

A Call to Arms

by Michael H. Lester
 
His uniform festooned with ribbons, medals, awards
four small bronze stars on his epaulets
the ghost of General Armii Nikolai Nikolaiovich Prespelnikov
more bone than skin
wafts into the auditorium
of the Mariupol Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theatre
up to the podium like a stiff breeze
from the remote Siberian tundra
 
His throat parched from the dry, acrid air
he puts his bony hands on either side of the lectern
pauses for effect before bellowing
in his sweet undulating baritone
the oath of allegiance to the recruits
occupying one-hundred, or so, seats
at the rear of the auditorium
 
Ahem! General Nikolai coughs
in a bid to gain the attention of the nervously rattling skeletons
whose murmurings cause a devilish din
throughout the cobwebbed expanse
of the once grand but now dilapidated and musty auditorium
which murmuring, melancholy and morose
echoes off the walls and ceiling and through the rubble
like the screeching of so many startled belfry bats
bursting comatose into the harsh light of day
 
a war hero
a martyr and a saint
General Nikolai
leads the legions of dead
in their battle for survival

sunset

by Carol Farnsworth

fiery light streaks east
two cardinals fly
aglow in the dark.

Lake Avenue Brook

by Jeff Burt
 
August warm
wild blackberries,
fragile, falling
apart, a gift
from a brook, sun,
and seclusion.
Some wasps hang
adhered to the berries
nibbling the juice
thick as jam.                     
Others swarm.

Lines

by Susan Bonk Plumridge

trout lily sprouts
poking through
dry maple leaves

Spring Evening, Sunrise Drive, Garden Valley, ID

by Yash Seyedbagheri

Waxing gibbous in a slate-blue sky
shines on muddy roads
Ponderosas blackened in shadow
leaning

Lines

by Ram Chandran

morning mist

a flock of herons 
lifts slowly

Night Fishing

by Terrence Sykes

planted by the sun
watered by the moon
ancient tea trees
cling to the steep
craggy mountains
that confine this
meandering tributary
amidst silent waters
night fishing with
cormorants & lantern
in the shallow Li Jing River

I, Theologian

by Randall Rogers

I would rather
a beautiful soul
extol
the glories within
when reasoning
beyond description
fueling fires of
kaleidoscopic
emerald, sapphire,
ruby, and diamond
swirl
worthless among
the brilliance
of be-knighted Being
though I’ll parley
what I am able
into reasonable
facsimile of
eternity’s Paradise
dangling by each
comic
thread connecting
me to earthly life.

Lines

by C.X. Turner

fallen apples
fast disappearing
muntjac deer

the sacred white elephant

by Stephen A. Rozwenc

the sacred white elephant
charges up
the tousled green mountainside
with a tiny sliver
of Buddha relic bone
tightly clutched
in his trunk tip
 
his sole purpose
to collapse
and die on the sheerest cliff
to signify
where a temple should be built
 
fashioned
from the millions of voices
in the world
crying out for peace

Lines

by Roberta Beach Jacobson

lakeside
early morning cries
of a loon

Four photographs by G. Tod Slone

New Brunswick, Back Bay

Newfoundland, Indian Burial Ground 

 

New Brunswick, Grand Mahan 

Newfoundland, Seal Cove

Lines

by Marilyn Dancing Deer Ward

morning sun 
yet the sparrows peck
at frozen puddles

The Oak Grove in April

by Pepper Trail
 
Beginning spring, too early for the songbirds
but the oaks are humming, inhaling the sun
through the warming earth, up their coiling
passageways to the vibrating buds, green
swelling with the sound and the soil itself
is bursting, the sandy brown gopher mounds
patterning the ground, pushing aside the new
grasses that vibrate in the breeze like strings
of guitars, as the dusky skippers dart, black-furred
against cold mornings, now warmed by the afternoon
sun working the petals of the lilies too fast to follow
as they dash, leaving the yellow drumheads
of the buttercups to the heavy-footed flies
and all this silence is so full of sound
I just don’t know what will be left for the birds
when they finally get around to getting here, to say.

Lines

by Douglas J. Lanzo

bluejay cries
below circling osprey
scanning for brook trout

Lines

by Marilyn Dancing Deer Ward

heavy rain 
twisting the river bend 
a kingfisher 

One Earth, One Life

by Darrell Petska

Even to zoos come wars:
blaring sirens, bursting bombs,
bullets and shells that savage
the woven fabric of life—

Kiyv’s western gorilla, Tony, is depressed,
Horace the Asian elephant must be sedated,
Juto the giraffe has lost his appetite,
Christina the Asian lion is a bundle of nerves
and baby lemur Bayraktar must be hand fed
because his mother deserted him.

Fear, stress, loneliness—
provoking the pelicans to destroy their eggs,
the zebras to crash their fences,
and the remaining 4,000 innocents to endure
food shortage, daily disruptions of living
and the constant, debilitating awareness

of war’s clangor
tearing from Earth breath-filled throats
that trumpet, roar, and bray their right
to exist beside their human compatriots.

Lines

by Christina Chin

a rush of harmony 
the catbird song 
in a chorus of frogs 

About the Grampians

by James Aitchison
  
I came to unbreakable rock, 
Rock that was young and cooling 
Before any woman gave birth. 
 
Rock that will never be quarried, 
Where sand-dust grows a thousand trees, 
Nurtured by bushfires and rain. 

Lines

by Marilyn Dancing Deer Ward

spring breeze 
a sudden downpour released
cherry blossoms

Lines

by Christina Chin

Morning thrushsong
winter mountain
In the cedar woods

Lines

by Carl Mayfield 

a few starlings--
  murmuration 
   rippling the blue

On Warm Springs Road, Garden Valley, Idaho

by Yash Seyedbagheri

road curves
full of dirt and gravel
along with shadows and midafternoon light
sky is pale blue.
a stump sits among
leaning Ponderosa pines 

Egret Ghost

by Wesley D. Sims
  
Near nightfall
a great egret
flaps in over
a copse of
hardwood trees,
takes up
station beside
dull green reeds,
now slivers
of shadow
on the pewter
colored lake.
Standing still
as a small statue,
as darkness
descends
he becomes
emblazoned
on blackness
of water
like a ghost
of egrets past.

Abandonment

by Rose Menyon Heflin

Regal Sandhill cranes
high-stepping
silently,
slowly,
grubbing their way
across the open field

are migrating,
going somewhere.
Bosque del Apache awaits.

Fjord Tanka

by Sterling Warner
 
Winter vortex taps
frozen oak ferns and grass snakes
leaves snowy shrouds
dusts Olympic Mountain crests
far across the Hood Canal.

Fall Migration

by Maia Persche

Under the purple dogwood leaves
close to the prairie grasses
sinking down.
A thin note, an icicle
falling into snow.
A breeze through dry cattails.

White-throated sparrow,
quiet traveler.
Watching the world with dark eyes
you have the night sky in your feathers.

There’s a star map above us
waiting to grow bright again.
There’s a constellation of landbirds around us
waiting to rise up
from the tangled branches.

Autumn

 by Larissa Peters

The silent float
into a crisp cold.
A simple
touch
could 
disintegrate 
the very 
veins

[            ]

of the 
hundred year 
oak.

Stoic

by Tom Husson

The wood railings are capped 
in the storm, Cardinal’s red feather 
arrows fly from snowy ground 
onto grey branches, milkweed  
stalks scratch the air, hay humps 
coveted by the horses are silhouettes, 
there will be no sun showing today. 
white by snow, color flashes 

Lines

by Douglas J. Lanzo

evening crows gather
at Silver Creek waters
peering at rainbow trout 

Mountain Refrain

by Clint Bowman

Water droplets
         tap smooth granite,

                                  seep
                                  into
                                  moss
                                    then
                                     fall
                                       onto
                                            a
                                        laurel branch
           
                        and feed the Swannanoa River
                 that flows west,
flows west.

Lines

by Susan N Aassahde

auburn combine fleece
noon easel 
pontoon snow ricochet

Sumac

by Carol Farnsworth

red seed pods
stand tall amidst
rosy leaves

Sassafras

by Carol Farnsworth

sassafras
burnt orange in undergrowth
sway in wind

Shell

by Marla Sterling

Aged oyster shell, adrift on the sand
rocked by the shore’s gentle waves;
moved, defiant of station
in life or in death

Drilled body, ports to open air 

When wet, a rainbow of watered silvers and golds
pay obeisance to the single purple patch, legacy earned
from a long-lost connection

Layers extruded over years, long debrided by sand,
again reach the air, now as chipped and fragile ridges
whose losses have joined the fabric
of its destruction, creating the world in which it lies
in this littoral ebb and flow

Lines

by Marilyn Dancing Deer Ward

across the beck
willowherb seeds 
on autumn wind

November Garden

by John Muro
 
Bright enough to serve
As footlights, chrysanthemums
Of nursery pink and milk-
Tooth white appear like
Garden lanterns, florets
Illuminating mulch
And the mottled trunks
Of birch. The tree’s
Lower branches are
Eerily under-lit and
Sway in deciduous
Decadence – yellow-
Gold glistening –
While kerchiefs of bark
Are cast towards a
Dwindling audience
Of distracted crows.

The Promise of a Heron

by Shelly Jones 

We don our masks each morning, step out into crisp 
sunshine, head up the hill, backs hunched, legs 
propelling us back in time to a safer version of ourselves.

We walk, ghost-like, on the empty campus: sheet-less 
mattresses, broken screens, a collage of sticky notes 
in a window spelling out “hi!” - a greeting from a lost 
species picked up by u-haul trucks, parents’ SUVs. 

We press on up the hill, breath no longer jagged, flagging, 
our lungs acclimated to the climb made so often - two, 
three times a day. There is nothing else to do, we think,
but that is not why we come. A shadow passes over us, 

darkening our faces. We look up, stop, point at the grey-blue 
bird - its wingspan prehistoric, its neck u-shaped, reminding 
us to turn around, look down the hill, at all we’ve climbed. 
We wait till we can no longer see the heron, start down the hill, 
passing the pond, its nest tucked in the reeds at the far side. 

We walk home, knowing we will head out again tomorrow. 

Ghost trees

by M. Bennett

The Osage Orange hedgerow 
torn utterly from its foundation. 
Only a few mangled, lemon-curry roots 
lay exposed against darkest soil.

The mile-long sentry against 
wind and erosion dislodged from its 
WPA-appointed post with 
industrial efficiency.   

The dustbowl a 
distant abstraction. 

I still drive the road 
widened into the void.
The striated, serpentine bark 
of the gnarled trees, 
yellowed hedge apples decaying
beneath bowed, unkempt branches,
as clear still, clearer even,
than the emptiness just 
beyond the throw of the headlights.

Enough

by Pepper Trail
 
The mountain is a mountain of stone
The valley is a valley of dust
 
The mantra in my head, making the drive
from Summer Lake to Wagontire, winding around
the hogback buttes on Lake County Road 2-06
before dropping down to the wide salt skirts of Lake Abert,
car juddering on the washboard, forever fleeing its white shadow
of dust, which catches us at every stop, wraps us, chokes us.
 
But on that mountain grow fat leaves of stonecrop,
seeming to wring water from the very stones, and in the dust a flower
called Dusty Maidens, disheveled heads powdery, but beneath,
a modest loveliness.  And in the sky a nighthawk, so high it is invisible,
but its nasal summoning cry ringing that blue and borderless bell, while
from the horizon-filling sagebrush the songs of meadowlarks rise in celebration
of  all that stone and dust provide.  

The Ring-Billed Gull

by Royal Rhodes

A Ring-billed gull
gulping cast-off waste
around a hulking rusty hull
that roamed the gulf's expanse
ate the rubbish in a haste --
a white form floating on the darkened waves
with yellow legs to dance
beside a sea of graves.

They  watch the sea
and salt-marsh estuaries
these breeding birds in symmetry
ignore a plastic owl
where a tidal river marries
with the sea, as one repairs its nest
like any fish or fowl
beyond this sand-dune's crest.

This chiseled beach
is thick with horse-shoe crabs,
and inland, far as it can reach,
is twisted kelp
where watchful, hungry gulls can stab
at food in heaps on barges that they crowned,
while giving unpaid help
to cleanse the cluttered ground.

Lines

by Marilyn Dancing Deer Ward

wild barley
balances 

a drop of rain 

Baileya

by Larkin Pazanova

Mountains rise harsh
Sun bakes the cracked grass
The Baileya still blooms

Lines

by Christina Chin

darkening 
the autumn sunset 
kraa of crows 

Lines

by Christina Chin

whirling 
drift wood red with silt
plum rain season