Magic by Taylor Graham

For ten days the old dog growled

and grumbled at the new

pup, and begged us to make her

disappear. She ragged him, 

hung from his ruff, bit him on the ear. 

An old dog only longs 

for quiet, his peaceful cedar-bed, 

a slow amble 

down the grassy swale 

to sleep beside the running stream.

But this morning, he lifts his paw

and bows, as if asking her

a question; looking her life in the eyes -

puppy eyes. Magic,

this old-dog invitation to the dance.


Taylor Graham, California, USA

Snowy Owl by Lisa Pellegrini

Amber pools buried in white plumage,

slits of fire whose warmth

escapes the world's notice,

blink with the grace of a

butterfly in flight.

Talons curled over scaly branches

prepare for their daily dream.

Invisible dancers skip across feathers,

creating miniature fans like

the fins of tropical fish.

He rotates his head toward the blue.

The branch shakes as he departs.

He is a floating sheet of paper,

adrift on a hammock of air,

weightless in a world that

gasps in wonderment one minute

and forgets the next.

 Lisa Pellegrini, USA

A Frame of Snowflakes by A J Huffman

falls in perfect form

                                 ation.  10

for difficulty (this is not their usual

locale).  We watch in wonder as

the weaklings waiver, gather,

cluster across the sand.  Stoically,

they stay

white for only the breath

of a moment before the rising

wind and warming temperatures

return them, in original form, to the waves.

A J Huffman, Florida, USA

Midnight Robin by Maureen Weldon

While the sky shimmers like shot silk,
chimneypots a toothy smile,
I count the pots, 1 2 3 4 5.

On my kitchen table, sheets and sheets

of screwed up poems,
 I will flatten them tomorrow
for shopping lists.

While perfumed smells of hyacinths

bring memories of my mother:
‘they make lovely Christmas presents’
she would say, as she potted and tended …

The evening moves along

as evenings do…
 The moon a half golden bracelet.
The sky cluttered with stars.

All is still, no cars, no trains.

And in this stillness,
the midnight robin sings.

Maureen Weldon, North Wales, UK

Nesting by Paul de Vito

The light filtered lightly through

the window, she was sitting on the sill

waiting for the wind to stop blowing,

it was spring and she was building

her nest in the tree next to my house,

the wind gusted and the window

blew open, in she flew suddenly,

around and around the room,

looking for a place to settle,

finally she spotted my pipe

by my reading chair and swooped

down to dig some tobacco

from the bowl, then up again,

around in flight and out the window

again to her nest in the tree.

Paul de Vito, New York, USA 

editor's note: this poem really caught my eye as I had just recently read about birds using cigarette butts in their nests, you can read more about it here.

untitled by Arthur Durkee

raven floats in morning wind
above a sea of grass

howling wind outside my door
begging to get in
long night terrors, fury's call
gone in morning light
linger still behind rough clouds
moving fast and tight

raven silent in the sky
all sound drowned in wind

picture mountains gray and dun
bare tree on the ridge
piebald sun and shadow cloud
red side-wall canyons iced
picture groaning pines bent down
giving birth to wind



Arthur Durkee, USA

Gone for Winter by Cynthia Sidrane

Walking by the waterless
Flood control tunnel
This early evening in fall
There's no evidence of the
Mexican free-tailed bats
And their nightly mass-exit
Out the gaping concrete mouth
Into the traffic of insects
And the beetled hours
Except a vast emptiness
Heaving from their summer roost
Exhaling dank guano
Into the stillness of desert twilight.


Cynthia Sidrane, Arizona, USA

Solar by Chris Crittenden

a rut of light
locks horns with pines

to loose
mercurial rills of gold,

gold licked and snatched
by manic leaves,

dribbling down
to vulgar shanties of decay.

even the swarth
of the filth that is death

luxuriates and swells,
guzzling the gift

sown from an infernal perch,
ramrodded

through unthinkable cold,
gold

that gilds sapphire,
impregnates green and crystals,

gold to stir
incarnadine cores.


Chris Crittenden, Maine, USA

Dawnsingers by Richard Krepski

Predawn May morn (waking beside you),
I was drawn by an ecstasy of birdsong
To gaze at the glow on the Eastern horizon
And learn the cause of the planet's turning.
It is not gears meshed with Ptolemy's spheres,
Nor Newton's choreography of gravity;
It is the call of birds--
A forcefield of sound at the edge of dawn
Circles the globe like a wave
Engages the sun and torques the earth along.

Then we were part of the song,
But now sounds November's bleak noise.
Lovers and dawnsingers disappear,
Withdraw their crescendoing joys.
The darkness palls, the cold stars stall,
This utter night could stay,
Unless we the remnant all gather and call
To mate our meridian with a new day.


Richard Krepski,  PA, USA

Haiku by Jeffrey Winke

rustle of autumn

permeates

the campfire air

Jeffrey Winke, WI, USA