haiku by Kenneth B Thompson

Morning silence

jet trails

fence the sky

 

 

Kenneth B Thompson, New Jersey, USA

The View from Behind by Sr Anne Higgins

Tapestries look

like battlefields

from the back.

Threads like soldiers

in hand to hand combat -

who is most resilient?

Arms locked,elbows out,

clenched fists of knot

scattered

like small skirmishes

across the expanse.

Who is most flexible?

Stitches quarrel

in overbearing voice,

rush to trenches,

maintain positions.

Colors invade

each others' territory,

singing violent

victories

of light.

All clamor, all struggle,

it faces the wall of faith

while the weaver

and the watcher

work from the front.

Sr Anne Higgins, Maryland, USA

Reflected Light by Penny Smith

Remember how this winter day gave light
to country fields where frost and snowflakes lay?
It held at bay the terrors of the night.

When phantoms lurk and prowl our inner sight
and blackest thoughts intrude and bar our way,
remember how this winter day gave light.

Its hoarfrost beauty kept the landscape bright,
intending evening darkness to delay...
It held at bay the terrors of the night.

To those who'd choose to flee to calm their fright
there's scant advice to give, except to say
"Remember how this winter day gave light."

Then their unease must give way to delight;
although the sun had seemed to hide away,              
it held at bay the terrors of the night.

And should your future self meet such a plight,

in each reflective moment, do, I pray,

remember how this winter day gave light;
it held at bay the terrors of the night.

Penny Smith, Havant, UK

 

Daily Diary by Michael Keshigian

All day,  

every day,

through the night

while you sleep,

dust floats upon airy parchment

to silently describe the moment

and soon

another page is complete.

Early, when it’s quiet,

the faint sound

you think you hear

is a streak of sunlight

that sings

the chilly dawn breeze

into a story. 

Even snowfall covers

a page of barren countryside

with white ink,

transforming blank to verse,

rain erases most mistakes.

On a bright day

you may catch hand shadows

swirling fair weather fonts

into words

in front of the sun,

creating a gust

that inspires leaves and twigs

to choreograph the landscape.

When the inkwell runs dry,

the rattling pen resounds

a thunderous clap

and the dark hand pulls

upon the spigot moon.


Michael Keshigian, USA
.

 .

Michael Keshigian,  USA

Ponderance by Chris Crittenden

comes that late exhale of day
which marks the sun’s ritual loss.

effusions tint the Earth fiery
even as she shuns the sky dome’s paling.

trees reach from intent shadow,
audacious as wicker calyxes,

entrancing the scleral moon.

in conjugal aeries, wind-combed clouds
march in rolling dresses,

or equally drawn-out suits.

if, now, a winter rabbit
ghosted from a pod of shorn birch,

with fur so wise it married
a humble snowdrift,

who would see?


Chris Crittenden, Maine, USA

Replanting the Great Caldonian Forest by Simon Kewin

In those days, Scots Pines lawned the Highlands
The Mesolithic Marten that ran through the branches
Could see both seas and never leave the touching leaves
Of giant cathedralling trees, shepherding their green,
Endless, restless hush, that rustled with death and life
>

With only island peaks visible above the flood
The Cairngorm Archipelago, the Cuillin Ridge Atoll
Until, in that first great clearance of the land,
By axe and ovine tooth, numberless trees fell one by one
Strewn like jackstraws, the devil playing at dominoes
>

Not that the mountains noticed the denudation
To them all living things are just fluff and dust
Titanic, elemental, their minds on bigger matters,
They grind each other's gradients, clash with the clouds,
Try to overtower the moon and pierce the sun
>

But sitting here on Sgurr an Airgid
It seems a shame all those trees are gone
And time that something was done
So I finish my apple and hurl the core,
Packed with its seeds, onto some fertile ground
And think to myself
That at least it's begun.

Simon Kewin, UK 

Brotecito / Little Seedling by Amelia Modrak

Brotecito

Crece, mi brotecito, crece,

Antes de que cambie el clima,

Antes de que lo hayamos alterado

De una forma irreversible.

Conviértete en fronde joven,

Y luego en bosques frondosos,

Inunda la Tierra de verde

Y absorbe todo el carbón;

Ese carbón tóxico que respiro,

Esa nube caliente, hija del egoísmo,

Ese veneno invisible

Que asesina nuestro destino.

Crece, mi brotecito, crece,

Antes de que cambie el clima,

Antes de que lo hayamos alterado

De una forma irreversible.

***

Little seedling

Grow, my little seedling, grow,

Before the climate changes,

Before we have altered it

In an irreversible way.

Become young foliage,

And then luxuriant woods,

Cover The Earth with green

and absorb all of the carbon;

That toxic carbon I breathe,

That hot cloud, daughter of egotism,

That invisible poison

which assassinates our fate.

Grow, my little seedling, grow,

Before the climate changes,

Before we have altered it

In an irreversible way.

Amelia Modrak, Edinburgh, UK

Japan Washes Ashore in Oregon by Catherine McGuire

I.

Two years later, debris scuttles onto the shingle:

fishing boats, brass bowl, a temple gate,

scrap wood, a window frame, shop sign –

there's no closure to some wounds.

Buried in black and beige sand drifts:

someone's smashed mirror, holding

fractured clouds, broken sky.

II.

Unseen, uninvited, radiation floats

then burrows.  The vast currents

that trawl the sea

leave long, invisible streamers.

The truth leaks more slowly

than cesium, plutonium, tritium.

Data, well buried. Don't connect

neighbor's cancer,

the slowly dying trees, those shriveled,

Cerebrus-headed sunflowers.

Don't think about hungry ghosts

devouring flesh and leaf

in the night.

Catherine McGuire, OR, USA

Letting Go of the Conceit by Holly Day

Imparting tiny grains of colored sand with intricate thoughts

One giant flower covering the ground. It was so beautiful

I wanted take it home with me.

After it was done, he smeared great swaths of color against itself until

It was nothing but white sand.

It should have changed my life. I should have taken it away with me

Let his day disappear in the pursuit of beauty, but just the beauty of the moment.

I fully intended to go home and erase everything I had ever written

With the artist’s apparent satisfaction at the act of creation

Should be enough for me, too. 

Holly Day, Minnesota, USA 

The Black Button by Richard King Perkins II

It could become

part of a teddy bear or snowman

but it’s held the portion of my coat

nearest my heart together for three years

and there’s no reason

for major alterations at this time.

In the still darkness of morning,

I stand in front of her

as she sews the button back in place.

She grimaces when she sees

that the thread she thought

was black is instead brown.

She worries that the contrasting

blossom of thread will spoil

the polished elegance of my coat.

I kiss the top of her head

and remind her it’s not

the color of the string that matters,

it’s only the attachment that counts.
.
.

Richard King Perkins II, IL, USA