antler by Arthur Durkee

antler bone found in the grass
speaks of lost deer rituals, their religion of seasons
and blood

dance of hoof and antler, horn and fur ruff
circle of apple trees full of bees
and the tender undying evergreens

horn-handed deer staff a dance ritual for young bucks
while old men sit blanket-wrapped watching
sweat-braced flanks they used to know

we rub our bodies with suet and red clay
we dance the deer in spring and autumn
becoming those bones found in the grass

edges of the field at dusk still full of bees
where deer stop to stare, then walk on
suddenly doubled with ghosts of the ancestors


Arthur Durkee, USA

Ancestor Worship by Debby Regan

The last Imperial Chinese parts of
Ourselves reside in the attic
With jade busts

To throw garlands?
.............Show our reverential
Anger

These ancestors whose
Maddening destructiveness
Mocks what PBS would instill.

(I cried about the lost
polar bears who float
away from our fingertips
on iceberg rafts)

some Edwardian sailors keep
a naturalist's case of
extinction but when they retire,

the glass eyes reincarnate and
follow the specks of light
from the ceiling

Is the Irish elk in
heaven? I never saw such antlers

They say on
forty feathers of passenger
pigeons the Woolworth Building stands


Debby Regan, USA

My Tribe by Ray Sharp

The trouble is not
with the names of flowers

how to make fire
or find my way home
on a moonless night.

I dream
of the long walk
and the endless green river.

What happened to the frogs?

The sky
is bruised
above the blood-red sun.

I live among people
with three simple rules

do not kill birds
do not pee at the water-gathering place
and I can never remember the third.


Ray Sharp, Michigan, USA

A Silent Poem by Michael Keshigian

In the beginning it must have been
that the Neanderthal
emerged from his cave
early one day
into a cold and ruthless world

and noticed for the first time
sun’s reflection glistening
upon lake tranquility
between twin peaks
of a snow covered summit.

And speechless
as he might have been
for images never seen
he fell to his knees
staring mutely

unable to excise
the swell in his soul
and realized
each morning thereafter
would speak differently.


Michael Keshigian

Pathfinder by Alan Britt

Like Pathfinder
I retreat
across smooth roots,
streetlights,
and the moon’s severed hand
reaching for the wrinkled waist
of a pear tree.

Like Pathfinder
I slip sideways between mercurial shadows
on my way to the outskirts
of the known universe
just behind the speckled thigh
of a golden pear.

I enter each brown spot on the pear
looking for salvation
born inside each russet scale
sloughed from the body
of our most precious religion
we call time.

Once inside, I’m greeted
by black violins
and ten thousand suns digesting
a watery consciousness
inside snail shells.

Like Pathfinder
I retreat
across smooth roots,
streetlights,
and the moon’s severed hand
creasing the wrinkled hips
of a pear tree.


Alan Britt, MD, USA