A Small Thing by Kathleen Brewin Lewis

In second grade

my daughter fell in love

with origami,

her fingers becoming

more and more adept

as she folded and pressed

the brilliant paper

into whales, frogs, cranes

the size of her fist,

then began to make the cranes

smaller and smaller

until she had created a bird

as tiny as her fingertip.

It seemed impossible to--

would be impossible for--me,

but she rose

and walked with great grace

to come and place

her delicate masterpiece

in my hand. 



Kathleen Brewin Lewis, Atlanta, USA

Physics by Angelica Joy Romans

She pressed flowers,

Calla Lilies, Scarlet Pimpernel, Bindweed

In her physics book, page one hundred

  and thirty-four

where forces defined motion

"Weightlessness is not zero"

she skipped that sentence,

of reason and explanation

and settled for the crumbled

mummers of Biology

snug in the corners

of her physics book

Angelica Joy Romans

Werrikimbee by Joe Massingham

The brown earth snake winds up the hill.

We travel on it, ants in space

held in by tree upon tree upon tree,

one dropped by bat or bird to mark

each year since the start of counting

four hundred million years ago;

and ferns for festivals and feasts

in case the months go unremembered.

Somewhere in a green curve

the firework bursts of two hydrangeas

dazzle the eye, pull in the breath, attract

butterflies, their very familiarity

reminding us we both are strangers.

Author’s note:  Werrikimbee is one of a number of rainforest National Parks on the north-east New South Wales coastal escarpment.


Joe Massingham, Australia

Stopwatch by Jason Sturner

Everyone is dead.

Slumped against steering wheels,

on the floors of kitchens and bedrooms,

face down in swimming pools.

Bodies litter the malls,

the halls of prestigious universities,

they're in hospitals and sports bars,

at desks in corporate offices.

In the center of the oval office

lays the body of our president,

maggots crawl out

from beneath her eyelids.

The rats beneath the streets

lift their heads and twitch their noses.

Vultures fly off trees

into waves of decay.

Remnants of humanity crumble,

are buried, eroded and grown over.

We are dust and fossils; we are history.

The planet is lush and productive.

Out in an unnamed ocean

a new breed of dolphin is born,

its flippers more like modified claws.

One day, it will use them to grasp the shoreline.

Jason Sturner, Illinois, USA

This poem was  first published in Down in the Dirt Magazine, June 2009