by Bethany Veith You haunt the notches- breeze through the birches, soar through the pines, shake through quaking aspen, and echo through the intervals. Your spirit rises from the evaporator, sap swirling, thick with sweet fog sugar water dripping down the rough pine walls and onto my pages, comforting me…
by Bethany Veith Exhausted, she arranged her hands upon the pink flannel blanket wrapped around her silent bundle dressed in grandmother’s ancient white lace Christening dress. Her misty wide eyes flashed and contemplated the absolute miracle and beauty of life and the cruelness of nature. Cradling her angelic daughter one…
by April Garcia Could fear be the invisible culprit hiding— like a Copperhead in dead leaves —waiting, to poison me before ink meets paper? Even now, it slithers unseen— though the recesses of this busy mind.
by Bethany Veith We fought against the cold sweat dripping in August as we split hardwood and stacked it just so upon wispy grass and purple asters. The summers vanished like a dream. Wood smoke settled into the valley stippled with red and orange maples silhouetted against the frosted White…
by Stephen Mead Is this pen & a million other quills from a still living bird. My hand is yours’ wiping sweat from your face & finding some trace to form. It is resolved now. It is patient & the night blooms with that light of quiet faith & hunger….
by Stephen Mead 1 These berries seem candles within, their blue juice lucent, distilled right on the vine. Malleable hands shape supple bunches, the sun’s aristocracy. How pure is the fingered fruit, clear globes in palms! Could what they capsule be medicine? Multi-tongued? From country to country, healing is an…
by Dawn Fryauff I have been told how to grieve by a dozen well-intentioned souls. I have watched friends Seethe with the anger that I seem unable to feel towards the man as innately part of me as my name; which no longer belongs to me. One he freely gave,…
by Shane David Morin Inspired by “Arcs of Command” by Caspian Time ticks on, unceasingly, as if abandoning me Within deep chasms of a disillusioned and cracked psyche Awaiting, unhesitatingly, for the next opportunity to chime Bringing back to mind that this life is no longer truly mine Metronomically my heart…
by Dawn Fryauff No life bears forth from this desert. No seed takes root in this place. Be fruitful and multiply is Not A promise, but instead A command. Unfulfilled; My failure punctuated Monthly by Deep contractions of longing Birthing sand and scorched seed From this withered waste of a…
by Shane David Morin Dust settles silently enshrouding abandoned cities of my psyche The scrapings of nails and screeches of sirens have ceased, Leaving an absence of liveliness and horror in the wake of the Shadow Man’s demise What is left but a void where mutilated memories and surreal sorrow…