Legacy

digital re-imagining of photo by marilyn fleming

Legacy                                    

by Marilyn Fleming

by the summer solstice

only a transparent skeleton

stands amidst the fallen needles

the unexpected dying

seemed almost sudden

when there was certainty

the arborist in harness climbs up

with slow deliberate spurred steps

he pierces and tests the bark

a chain saw hangs from his waist

branches drop as the belt notches higher

stabs continue the walk up the trunk

now walking down a lop off the stub  

another cut until boots touch ground

  

left behind a heap of bones

a giant spruce toppled   

the unexpected legacy      

an expanded view of the lake

a fire pit in place of the stump

cords of stacked wood

numerous tracks and droppings   

a nocturnal gathering place

born to eternal life date unknown

cremation services held graveside

eulogies invited     bring your own beer

Aldo Leopold benches provided

~ first published in the Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar

SEPARATING

cropped and digitally modified from photo found at www.70-130.com

SEPARATING

by Michael L. Newell

When you say, "I'm leaving,"

and begin to sob,

I feel a strange elation,

not for your departure,

but for your crumpled face.

I say, "Stay, stay,"

and press you tight;

I am a child squeezing

hot laundry to his face.

            *

Amputees still feel

severed limbs--

how long will my left arm

remember your weight?

~ originally published in Poetry/LA (1984)

OTHER ACTS

photo: ralph murre

OTHER ACTS

by Michael Gessner

After the carnivorous business

was completed out on the savannah

or in elegant suburban bedrooms,

after this, all this

memory forgot, forgave itself once more

as though wantonness & other acts

were sudden rends, small distortions

to say this never really occurred,

to conceal a family disagreement

so the other conversation could continue

like a pair of lovers among ruins

on a wine-colored evening

when all is agreeable & everything

said is certain.

~ first published in Wisconsin Review

  and subsequently in Beast Book (BlazeVOX)

The Bookmobile

digital art from uncredited news photo

The Bookmobile

by Mary Jo Balistreri

Every two weeks, we’d search the horizon

for a distant cloud of dust. It never failed us.

Into the dry dirt lot the bookmobile rolled toward

a long line of small bodies baking in South Dakota heat.

Finally, finally when the door to the trailer opened,

the bookmobile lady in wire-rimmed glasses appeared,

her face a text of perception. Black hair swept high on her head,

she stood in her crisp white blouse.

One by one she handed us a towel to wipe sweaty hands

before allowing us to cross her threshold.

Inside, a fan blew cool air, and we felt it a holy place

so different from our homes.

I thumbed through pages of Scarlet O’Hara, but Nancy Drew proved

more exciting in her blue roadster as did the flying flanks

of The Black Stallion and Flame, manes streaming free.

But it was Francie who changed my life.

Like the tree of heaven that sprouted between cracked cement

outside her Brooklyn tenement,

she encouraged me to push ever upward, to rise from my own dirt lot,

and to grow, grow green and alive.

~ previously published on Your Daily Poem

Just Before Sunset

artwork: ralph murre

by Eric Burke ~

Just Before Sunset

A nuthatch

walks down

our tree.

As we watch,

Mom

prepares

our supper.

~  first published in miller’s pond poetry magazine

Come Closer

digital art: ralph murre

Come Closer

by Joan Wiese Johannes

Heavy air wanders

around the corner of the barn

bends into evening

and staggers through the peonies

to meet me under the porch light

where dizzy moths flit

and midges swarm

around the naked bulb.

Tonight I wonder why

I once thought love darkens

too soon in June

when days are too long

and nights too eagerly late,

when  stems grow spindly

weak from

too much  too fast too soon.

A night-blooming blossom

luminous as the moon

reminds me of something

I should have done

~ previously appeared in Poetry Dispatch

De Colores

public sculpture in buenos aires / photoart: ralph murre

De Colores

by Angie Trudell Vasquez

Language and borders,

skin color and barriers,

love knows no lines.

Boundaries are drawn

on the shifting sands of time,

war spoils to the victors,

heartache for the people

living there.

The land remains

but the people come and go

different groups fight on foreign lands,

plow the fields, plant the crops,

clear trees for new homes.

This is one blue planet

circling around the sun.

One sun shines down on us all

makes everything grow,

crops flow with the pulse

of a million hands

who put fingertips to soil,

plant seeds, water them

with sweat from their brow,

and feed the world

with their exhale.

There are millions of bent heads

at schools, in office cubicles,

grocery stores and factories

across this vast continent.

People marching for change

seen just over the horizon,

de colores of the sky,

that signify a shift

is about to come for you and I,

and for all living in the shadows.

The time is ripe for us to take our place

at the table and say we’re here,

we have always been here,

and we are not going anywhere.

This is our home.

Change is the only constant,

the ebb and flow of tongues,

cultures, bloodlines, loves.

I believe some day

we will sing about

how it used to be

how we feared

those we loved most

would be taken away from us

walking down the street, driving.

Today we are closer,

but we’re not there yet.

We can see justice

flickering in the distance,

and what has been given

can’t be taken away so easy.

The door is open and it is time

to walk through the day of light,

to stand in the sunshine,

say, I am here, and

I want to contribute.

I believe.

I believe.

I believe.

~ first published by Woodland Pattern

Sueños

Sueños

by James Reiss

In my dreams I always speak Spanish.

The cemetery may be in Brooklyn,

and I may be kneeling on a rise

looking out at the skyline of the city,

but I will whisper, Mira el sol.

And it is true the late morning

sun will turn that bank of skyscrapers

the color of bleached bone in Sonora,

and all the window washers of Manhattan

will white-out like a TV screen

in Venezuela turning to snow.

But the gray face on the headstone photograph

has a nose like my father’s,

and his voice had the lilt of the ghettos

of central Europe.

So I should kneel lower and say something

in Yiddish about fathers, grandfathers,

the hacked limbs of a family tree

that reaches as high as Manhattan.

I should say, Grampa, I loved those times

we ran through the underpasses in Central

Park, you with your cane, I with my ice

cream cones, shouting for echoes,

bursting out into sunlight—

if I only knew the language to say it in.

~ first published in The New Yorker

gravity

photoart: ralph murre

gravity

by Elizabeth Rosner

sometimes I am Jacob and

sometimes I am the angel and

always I am wrestling

with God or with the idea

of God or with the idea

of myself wrestling with God

(there is always a risk

in the naming of

things in the naming

of oneself)

the stones in my pockets

weighing me down

are also holding me

steady

angels have no pockets and therefore can float

while I, who resist floating,

watch them rise with

something like envy and

something like rage

who can float in a time

like this, when the past

is still close enough

to touch and the sounds

of weeping linger so

clearly

isn’t it our grief that makes us real

makes us dimensional,

heavy on the earth?

I think of my grandmother’s

sweet hand, the weight

of it as she stroked my hair

to say good-bye, giving me

comfort because she was

the one leaving,

and her hand rinsed

me like water,

like falling water

~ first published in Many Mountains Moving
and subsequently, in the author's collection,
GRAVITY (Atelier 26 Books)

Found in an Attic . . .

artwork: ralph murre

Found in an Attic:

World War II Letter to a Wife

by Donal Mahoney

When I get home

things will be the same.

I haven't changed.

The sling 

comes off the day

I get on the plane.

I'll be able

to cut the grass,

rake the leaves,

shovel the snow,

all the stuff I did before.

And every morning

in summer, fall,

winter and spring,

when we wake up,

I'll draw rosettes

with the tip

of my tongue

on your nipples,

await your orders to

bivouac elsewhere.

Nothing has changed.

I'm feeling fine.

We'll cleave again

~ first published in Eye on Life

Scout's Honor

artwork: ralph murre

Scout’s Honor

by Ralph Murre

Merit badges for tying knots -

the bowline, the sheepshank, the clove hitch.

Merit badges for whittling the likenesses

of dead presidents and woodland animals, and

of course, for assistance given to the feeble

in their never-ending quest to cross the road.

Maybe they should keep handing them out.

The badge for showing up every day

right down to the day they tell you

not to show up tomorrow.

A merit badge for the day

your infant son needs major surgery.

Another for that day he’s grown

and buys his first motorcycle.

Badges for each of your daughter’s tattoos

and piercings. Diamond insets

if you can’t really mention what’s been pierced.

A merit badge, or, at least, a colorful neckerchief

as your party loses another one.

( But it could be taken back if you move to Canada.)

Bronze medals for burying parents.

Silver for friends.

You’d rather die than win the gold.

A merit badge and letter of commendation

the day you actually give up your abuse

of anything, or anyone.

And a little badge of semi-precious material

for every day that you get out of bed

and wear a brave costume.

One for that confident smile on your face

as your knees tremble beneath the table.

            ~ previously published in Crude Red Boat

               (Cross + Roads Press)

ANNA SWIR IS MISSING . . .

photoart: sharon auberle

ANNA SWIR IS MISSING IN THE FOREST

by Sharon Auberle

Last seen lying on a log

among trilliums, lady's slippers

and columbine…

It has rained since then,

a downpour of sweetness

drenching the book

I left among trees

where birds and squirrels

may one day line their nests

with a poet's words.

I didn't mean to leave her there,

but knelt to gather mushrooms

then, forgetting, walked away.

As she lay dying in Poland,

Anna wrote the book's last poem,

hospital sheets white and sterile

beneath her, no bed

of dark loam and leaves

no choirs of wildflowers

no one to whisper

she did not die,

she's only gone missing

for awhile in the forest.

~ first published in Crow Ink (Little Eagle Press)

Editor’s note:  Some days after losing the book and gaining this poem, Ms. Auberle retraced her steps through the woodlands and recovered the volume, dampish and lovely and treasured more than ever.

Near Death

digital photoart: ralph murre

Near Death

by Firestone Feinberg

Heart attack.

Emergency.

Hospital.

Doctors.

Nurses.

Technicians.

Cold.

I was walking on a narrow bridge.

It was only wide enough for me.

And no one else was on it.

I looked up.

There was no sky.

I looked down.

There was no earth.

Just

silence

darkness

emptiness

void

mist…

I was standing in the middle of the bridge.

Then I turned around and slowly

walked

back

home.

~ first published in Verse-Virtual

What Right Have I?

photo: jude genereaux

“What Right Have I”

  by Jude Genereaux

What right do I have

to luxuriate in such exquisite beauty?

     people are starving in Africa

           children die in the killing fields

                   the mid-east festers, ticking

What right …

to sit gazing at sun dazzled water

lined in cliffs of white, bumblebees pop & whizz

through candy cane striped flutes

gulls glide, weightless over the

navy-blue-white-frothing bay

             I sit idle in a field

             studying the lace of white pine;

Would I dare to hope this is karma, reincarnation?

I am aware of nothing I did to earn this moment

               even as I recognize the truest sin

                        would be to not rejoice in such grace

When I return home I promise to write

my congressmen, send money to good causes

            but for this moment

my sole Duty,  my responsibility

            is to take Notice of this perfection

                                      and be glad.                               

~ first published in Base Camp

Metronome

photoart: sharon auberle

Metronome

by Harvey O’Leary

To wake, as if given a fright,

To know today has no tonight,

To watch a cord dangle the light;

To watch the watch, to clock the clock,

To hear, as the key fits the lock,

The tinnitus of tick and tock

Grow louder; to hear the heart boom,

To see the door enter the room,

To know that now the time has come.

~  first appeared in Verse Virtual

I MOVE MY TEENAGE SON . . .

artwork: ralph murre

I MOVE MY TEENAGE SON’S MATTRESS

INTO A U-HAUL

~ by Shoshauna Shy

If I happen to remember Roy

- scruffy vet whom I met

on the New Mexican desert -

what I remember is the night my father

dropped by my first apartment

without warning.

Recent arrivals to that dusty two-horse town,

my father left the sweat of a big-city career,

and I left childhood.

He saw Roy’s motorcycle propped

against the aspen, so why he rang

the doorbell anyway meant he stood

in the dark long enough to regret it

while I buttoned, zipped, straightened,

smoothened, wrestled open the door

and found him, hands clasped behind

his back with some excuse about money.

I could tell, by the light from the stairway,

that even though his shoulders said

Please forgive me, there was no apology

for wanting to stay in my life.

That’s all I remember about Roy.

If Roy happens to think of me,

he remembers something else,

I’m sure.

~ previously published in

The Orange Room Review

SPRING SNOW

artwork: william marr

SPRING SNOW

by William Marr

I know you love to dream

Standing in front of my window

I watch the snow

swirling in your dream

a sweet smile rippling

on your mouth

How I’d love to place an overseas call

raise the receiver towards the sky

and let you listen in your dream

to the sound of the snow

wafting and drifting

~ previously published in Poems of the World