Month: July 2026

image of flying yellow-bellied quetupi bird
Original artwork "Quetupi" by Narges Anvar

Madari/Maternidad

1 July 2026 /

Poetry by Alexandra Newton Rios and Artwork by Narges Anvar

The language of a young bird
is flight
the preparation
the take off
the planing, gliding, soaring
flying alone and with others
singing, singing, singing.
The language of motherhood
has been a giving
the gestating
the carrying from far away distances
to give each child what each may need
to begin on her own to reach her dreams.

As a mother you were no different.
You gave and gave to a little
yellow-bellied quetupi who had fallen
from his nest in a thunderstorm
onto your wooden doorstep –
umbral in Spanish word as a threshold to more –
as if it were your child
only the little yellow-bellied quetupi
had been an unexpected gift
to feed and shelter until it could
take hold of its life
and be free as we all are free
to be our best
for this world to fly.

Giving is not so easy
to keep silent when necessary
to think of others and not yourself.

[Note: Madari in Persian and Maternidad in Spanish mean motherhood in English. Madari/Maternidad is a joint project between Rios and Anvar as mothers about motherhood. Rios writes a poem and sends it to Anvar who paints an answer back. The painting featured is titled “Quetupi” using acrylic and lace on handmade paper.]

Alexandra Newton Rios was raised in New York City, holds an MFA in English from the Writers’ Workshop and MFA in Translation in Comparative Literature from the University of Iowa. Nueva York Poetry Press recently published Poemas de Georgia/The Georgia Poems, one long poem to Georgia O’Keeffe. Mother of five children, she ran the New York City marathon in November 2025!

Narges Anvar is an art & design teacher, artist, and graphic designer. She received her BFA and MFA from Parsons School of Design. She lives and works in New York City with her family. Together with her husband and two daughters, they enjoy creating art, playing musical instruments, going on hikes, and snowboarding!

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Burying the Watchman

1 July 2026 /

Poetry by Allan Scherlen

My foot sinks
and snow crunches softly
before Charlie’s tombstone.

Beneath snow far below,
the deceased night-watchman
lies buried.

My boots filled with snow
as I read the headstone
of the watchman;

the stone was short, thin
and almost
submerged in snow.

His sister, poorer than Charlie,
charged the cost of his tombstone,
too expensive for her cleaning wage;

the etching was delayed,
written too shallow to read,
devoted to Charlie’s night work.

Allan Scherlen is a poet and librarian at Appalachian State in NC for twenty years. The mountains have inspired him. Poems have appeared in many journals including The Bluebird Word, Azahares, Appalachian Journal, As the Crow Flies, Progenitor, The Hong Kong Review, and Galway Review. Read more at https://scherlen.squarespace.com/.

Photo by Nancy Hughes on Unsplash

Next Time

1 July 2026 /

Poetry by Brian Christopher Giddens

If I were to be granted reincarnation,
and the powers that be asked my opinion,
I’d choose to return as a Zinnia.

The flower dazzles in late summer,
when the earlier blooms are on life
support, parched and fading. The stem
stands tall and sturdy, not easily swayed
by a late season rainstorm. And the burst
of primary colors, whether orange, purple
or the sunniest of yellows, demand applause
from even the most cynical of gardeners.

Yes, bring me back as a Zinnia. Grace
me with a short, but brilliant life.

Brian Christopher Giddens writes fiction and poetry from his home in Seattle, where he lives with his husband, and Jasper the dog. Brian’s writing has been featured in The New York Times (Tiny Love Stories), Passager, The Bluebird Word, Rabble Review, Hyacinth Review, Roi Faineant, Amazine, Glimpse, and other publications.

Photo by Dmytro Koplyk on Unsplash

I Want to Be Kinder to Myself

1 July 2026 /

Poetry by Arvilla Fee

less like frozen snow that crunches underfoot
more like tender purple blooms of crocus,
their heady scent perfuming sun-warmed air

less like bare branches scraping windowpanes
more like robins hopping through new grass,
red chests puffed out with sacred song

less like blue lips, shivering in winter’s shadow
more like buds bursting green from apple trees,
a kaleidoscope of tulips reflected in my eyes

Arvilla Fee lives in Ohio, edits poetry for October Hill Magazine, and runs her own online magazine, Soul Poetry, Prose & Arts Magazine. She is a widely published author and has three published poetry books available on Amazon. For more info: https://www.soulpoetry7.com.

Photo by David Monje on Unsplash

Wonder Makes Me More Alive

1 July 2026 /

Poetry by Carolyn Chilton Casas

How is it possible two juvenile
cottontails know how to play leapfrog?
Through the window, spellbound
I watch as they run back and forth
across our lawn jumping over each other.

On the other side of the road, young alpacas
are sporting first haircuts.
Like wet cats, these animals
look so thin without their plush,
camel-colored and chocolate brown fur.
They remind me of the bendable Gumbys
we played with in grade school.

And this morning, after an early rain,
I witness vultures perched
on the tops of telephone poles
and eucalyptus trees in the distance,
wings spread wide to dry their feathers.

I can’t remember a time when my body
didn’t vibrate with curiosity.
As a young girl the woods called to me
and despite being cautioned,
I was lured to explore,
gathering birds’ nests and walnut-sized,
broken blue shells left by their babies,
digging up arrowheads,
discovering flowers I’d never before seen.

My heart holds a tenderness for living things.

To exist on this fascinating Earth
without a full measure
of reverence and wonder
would surely be a life half full.

Carolyn Chilton Casas’ poetry has appeared in journals such as Braided Way, Grateful Living, and One Earth Sangha and in anthologies including The Wonder of Small Things and Thin Spaces & Sacred Spaces. Her website is www.carolynchiltoncasas.com, and her newest book of poetry is Under the Same Sky.

Photo by Megs Harrison on Unsplash

More than pretty wings

1 July 2026 /

Poetry by Mackenzie Kelley

Often,
when the wheel beneath me spins
faster than I can run,
I think of the butterflies, the monarchs.

Born of earth and leaves,
stayed roots and hollow stalks,
no one could guess a destiny bound in the sky.
how limbs of silk and thread, tiny masters of physics,
would some day
take reign of winds.

Sometimes,
collapsed on the floor,
a ragdoll of tired limbs,
I think of planes that master air,
fragile wings that keep company with hawks,
how millions of snowflakes together can bend trees.

of what we could learn from butterflies
if only we admired more
than pretty wings.

Mackenzie Kelley is a Virginia-based writer with a love of nature, animals, and all things wild. When not writing, Mackenzie is hiking with her dog, baking something chocolate, or cozying up with a novel.

Hudson Park - Photo by Pippa Storey

What the Dog Knows

1 July 2026 /

Nonfiction by Pippa Storey

It’s a sunny midsummer’s day in New Rochelle, on the edge of Long Island Sound. A couple stroll into Hudson Park just ahead of me, their lanky white mutt prancing excitedly around them. They climb the flank of a promontory overlooking the bay, then separate and stand a ball’s throw apart.

Slowly, teasingly, the man draws back his arm, watching the dog quiver with anticipation. He pitches toward the woman, and the dog catapults in her direction. She catches his shot neatly with both hands, barely a pawbeat before the dog reaches her. Then, grinning down fondly, she returns an underarm lob, and the dog bolts off again.

Back and forth they throw, the dog racing eagerly between them. But there’s no ball! It’s all a charade. Nevertheless, the dog is completely enthralled, ears flapping in the wind as he gallops across the grass.

Just a conditioned response, my mother will later surmise. But I can see—from the adoration in the dog’s upturned face, the frenzied wagging of his tail, his rapturous joy in their laughter—that he understands: the game was never about the ball.

Pippa Storey grew up in New Zealand, studied in France, and now lives near Hudson Park in New Rochelle, New York, where this interaction occurred. For more of her writing, digital artwork and videos, please visit pippastorey.com.

Photo by Ryan M on Unsplash

In the Same Foggy Outline

1 July 2026 /

Poetry by Eugene O’Connor

Dawn broke not early
but as usual, though the sun
will not shine today.

Some things merely
are unwilling to shine,
to glow, to experience
anything but hoary light

filtered through clouds
over gray water. But enough
for Matisse to have worked
day after day for years

painting the blocky spires
of Notre Dame, so recognizable
in the same foggy outline, each
of a slightly different color

as the day’s light changed
or else the artist’s vision
seemed to fail, but for
an inner sight or just a glimmer

of something else before night fell
which would scarcely be relieved
by the feeble street lamps
to create a different light.

Eugene O’Connor lives with his husband in Columbus, Ohio. His poems have appeared in the arlington literary journal, The Avocet, The Comstock Review, Connecticut River Review, Mead, OASIS Journal, Poetry Pacific, Pudding Magazine, and elsewhere. His chapbook “Wanderer at the World’s Edge” was published by Blue Light Press in 2022.

metal ladder leaning against wall with black shadow
Photo by Lance Grandahl on Unsplash

Ladder-Day Saint

1 July 2026 /

Poetry by Brian C. Billings

He climbs the rungs with confidence—
the left hand clutching a paint-can handle,
the right one reaching up clawed, tense—
when he suddenly steps free of a sandal

and drops toward the prickly aloe leaves
curling toothily like lounging crocodiles.
In the middle of the tumble, he receives
religion never realized in the aisles

of his worn and musty Sunday church.
He flings the can on high in offering.
The placid black inside ascends to search
for signs along the nearby wall and bring

to life two splashed doves that pour
hosannas on their anointed author.

Brian C. Billings is a professor of drama and English at Texas A&M University-Texarkana. His work has appeared in such journals as Ancient Paths, The Bluebird Word, Confrontation, Evening Street Review, Glacial Hills Review, and Poems and Plays. Publishers for his scripts include Eldridge Publishing and Heuer Publishing.

framed artwork and frames leaning against wall
Photo by Jackie Hope on Unsplash

What remains after the walls are stripped bare before the whole house is painted after thirty years

1 July 2026 /

Poetry by Susan Hodara

The nails that held the artwork
The holes left by nails that once held different artwork
The chipped plaster wounds around nails improperly but relentlessly pounded in
The narrow strips of glue that ensured the tiny print wouldn’t fall off the wall that now won’t come off the wall themselves
The never-resealed square opening in the basement stairwell where my husband had to cut through to retrieve a dropped wire, forgotten until the vintage metal Ambre Solaire advertising sign was removed
The thumbtack in the window frame where I dangled a ceramic angel

The cracks that slash from floor to ceiling
The crumbling plaster that has broken through the paint on the lower corners of so many windows
The yellow brush-stroked circle with yellow rays that my then-teenaged daughter painted up near her ceiling
The shard of masking tape from an unframed poster replaced long ago by something framed
The flaking paint everywhere

The smudges of dirt from this bump or that, a box rubbing, a suitcase banging
The black scrapes made by straightening the corners of canvases, a little up on the right, now down to the left
The stinkbugs that congregated, then died, along the top edge of the window in our bedroom
The phone jacks emitting wires that no longer lead anywhere
The dust that clings to the backs of bookshelves and paintings and dressers and furs the walls and moldings behind them, like dirty gray clouds

Susan Hodara is a memoirist, journalist, and teacher. Her work has been published in The New York Times and assorted literary journals. She has taught memoir writing for nearly two decades. She is co-author of Still Here Thinking of You: A Second Chance With Our Mothers (Big Table Publishing, 2013). Read more at susanhodara.com.

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