Author: Editor (Page 19 of 62)

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Imprint

11 October 2024 /

Poetry by Carolyn Chilton Casas

How much of my essence
is imprinted for perpetuity
on the objects I hold dear?

My favorite coffee cup
stamped with a dragonfly,
stashed on a higher shelf,
waiting to be filled with a favorite,
freshly ground roast,
frothed cashew cream stirred in,
cinnamon sprinkled on top.

The colored notepads where I write
to my heart’s abandon,
or the dusty keyboard
with its smooth, black mouse cupped
for hours in my right hand.

The special pruning shears
and gloves only I use
while speaking kindly to each plant
and flower I trim.

A fraction of my being
infused into items often touched.

The rose-gold, ruby diamond ring
my grandfather presented
to my mother’s mother
almost a hundred years ago,
her legacy, the one she placed
in my sixteen-year-old palm
days before she died.

Carolyn Chilton Casas writes for energy and wellness magazines in several countries. Her poetry has been published in numerous journals and anthologies including The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace and Renewal. More of Carolyn’s work can be found in her second collection of poetry Under the Same Sky.

willow leaves touching lake
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In My Father’s Backyard

7 October 2024 /

Poetry by David Athey

There is a weeping willow
in sunrise

wild with ravens
singing in the crown,

a raucous song, a tantrum
of cries; and there is

a hint of a wind
like a gentling hand

brushing branches away
like hair from sorrow;

and there is silence
in the crown when the ravens hush

and the willow begins—and here
is my father—to laugh.

David Athey‘s poems have appeared in many literary journals, including Iowa Review, Poet Lore, California Quarterly, Seattle Review, and the Wallace Stevens Journal. Athey lives in South Florida on a small lake with large iguanas. His books, including the Florida spoof, Iggy in Paradise, are available at Amazon.

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Hawaiian Sunset

4 October 2024 /

Nonfiction by Alice Lowe

“You’re going to Hawaii with your ex-wife?” It wasn’t a question, despite the upspeak. The question mark underscored my befuddlement as I woodenly repeated what he’d just told me. A statement of fact, offered up nonchalantly like a gesundheit after a sneeze.

“Yeah,” he said. “Cool, huh?”

Garrett wasn’t my boyfriend, but that’s where we seemed to be heading. We’d worked for the same organization for two years, but in different locations. We didn’t see each other frequently, but we became friends. I met his wife, Willie (can you imagine naming a child Wilhelmina?), on various occasions. We can’t know what any relationship is really like, but they seemed like a happy and compatible couple, so I was mildly surprised when he told me they’d separated.

He and Willie had drifted apart, he said, saw different directions for their lives. I liked that he spoke respectfully and fondly of her, that they remained friends. Over the following months we started spending more time together, hiking in the nearby San Diego mountains, exploring quirky rural towns with musty shops full of bric-a-brac, driving to Rosarito Beach for margaritas and shrimp burritos. We shied from the label, but we were pretty much a couple.

Willie was a flight attendant, and as her husband, Garrett could fly with her at no cost when opportunities arose. She suggested the trip, his last chance, since their divorce would be final soon. “Couples go on honeymoons—this can be our sunset.”

I shrugged off my apprehension. Worse case, they’d get back together, and if so, good for them. My ego might be a little bruised, but I wouldn’t be broken-hearted.

He sent me a postcard from the Kona Coast, “thinking of you.” It made me recall a story my boss at one of my first jobs told me when I made a terrible typo in a letter, one that could have cost us an important client. He tried to assuage my guilt and chagrin by telling me about the man who went to a tropical resort on a business trip and sent a postcard home to his wife: “Wish you were her.”

He brought me a puka shell necklace and showed me pictures of palm-lined beaches and ominous-looking volcanos, himself and Willie sipping rum drinks with orchid blossoms floating on top from shaded decks with ocean vistas. He told me how they were fussed over by amused and possibly envious passengers and crew on the trip over after telling a flight attendant about their “sunset” voyage.

Never very fiery, our relationship gradually cooled. Still friends, we formalized its closure over beers and popcorn at a beach dive. As I recall, it was an overcast day, the sunset barely visible through the clouds.

Alice Lowe writes about life, literature, food and family in San Diego, CA. Recent work has been published in The Bluebird Word, Change Seven, ManifestStation, South 85 Journal, Eunoia, Tangled Locks, MORIA, and Dorothy Parker’s Ashes. She’s been cited twice in Best American Essays. Read and reach her at www.aliceloweblogs.wordpress.com.

vibrant red poppies in summer field
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When the Column Blooms

1 October 2024 /

Poetry by Jackie McClure

There are green things
we’ve planted here.
There are things that grew
which we never planted.

Had I weeded more
while my mother was dying
I would have never
discovered the poppies,
dormant in their seed-encased husks,
under the matting of grass,
masking an old garden spot.

So you see,
we did some good here:
ripping up squares
of thickly rooted sod
to unwittingly scatter
millions of seeds,
and, unknowingly,
we fed them.

When first they rose
above the weeds
in the new-broken soil
I was spending daylight
hours by my mother’s side,
urging her to eat,
helping her to move.

When I noticed they
were to be flowers,
she had gone home,
lonely, broken, and frightened.
It took longer to reach her.

When they burst
into scarlet bloom,
dwarfing the hearty weeds

I knew they were for her:
tall, lipstick-red poppies
garish, erect, unexpected,
floating
on the thin stems
upon which everything rests.

Jackie McClure writes poetry and fiction aiming to illuminate commonplace segments of our shared landscapes. She has an MFA from Goddard College and has published most recently in Humana Obscura and Hellbender. She lives near the Salish Sea in Northwest Washington State. Her preferred state of being is swimming.

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At the Heart of It

29 September 2024 /

Nonfiction by Sandra Marilyn

Lying in the bed next to you, the summer breeze softly poofing the curtains, the night is so quiet I can hear time moving by without us. My head on your chest. My ear to your heart that beats with the consistency of waves stroking the sand. I want to see inside you. I want to understand how it feels to live inside your body, to see how you manage the life that was fashioned by the uniqueness of your experiences, as different from my own as another language.

Another night voices with edges so sharp they could slice soft belly skin. All my fears, losses, demands, unfilled chasms, unjustified expectations, thicken the air that is already crowded with the sounds of every woman who ever cried before us in the rooms of this antique house. Women in long skirts moaned their sorrow faintly to harmonize with my own. My longing collapses me. Your heart is as closed as your rigid face. Your body backs away from my touch.

Another day you walk through the door after entertaining the neighbor’s blind cat and voluntarily washing the pots and pans they left behind when they rushed out to catch a plane. You sing a high-pitched nonsense song to the silly wag-tail dog, who listens with tall ears. You are gathering your tools to work in the sidewalk gardens you have created just for the joy of passers-by. Your heart is so big I wonder if it will burst through and float away, too huge to be contained. A surreal orb valiantly competing with the sun.

And today I sit in the darkened to gray room in the cardio wing of the hospital listening to the forever buzzing and clicking of the machines that will assess the competency of your heart, the viability of your life. The technician sits at a slight angle between you, reclining on the table, and the monitor where the graphs are changing every second, a festive march of flashing neon colors. Your heart is beating a percussive background in sync with the lightshow on the screen. I shift my chair to see the images over the shoulder of the technician, the images that have no meaning to me beside the riveting spectacle of their color and movement.

And then she finds exactly the right position on your chest and there it is. There is your heart, magnified and magnificent, pulsing on the screen. A splendid red-brown muscle. Squeezing, opening, squeezing, opening, squeezing, opening with a sensuous loyalty.

I was presented with the most precious thing, the most personal thing you could offer me. The very essence of your being, of your spirit, exposing itself to me. I remember the years of needing to see you better, to grasp your true meaning, to see inside your heart. And here in this room hidden away from the street noise and the sunshine, and the people forever grasping for happiness and meaning, I could see inside your heart.

As you lay almost sleeping, hypnotized by the sounds, soothed by the darkened room, unable to see what I saw on the screen, unaware of my emotional journey into your heart. My hand on my own heart, tears gathering, I had never felt closer to you, never loved you more.

In a world of isolated people, Sandra Marilyn cherishes the love that has sustained her. This love has been sending its roots deeper and deeper for decades and yet there is still more to learn, more to feel.

Read more of Sandra’s flash nonfiction essays on The Bluebird Word from October 2022 and June 2024.

footprints on snow covered ground in drone shot
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Footwriting

1 September 2024 /

Poetry by Russell Rowland

Hand it to the blank slate
of new snow—entire days could be written on it.

There’s plenty of page for me
and the child, with her closer-spaced footwriting.

If it’s a long walk we take, and we turn
to look behind, we discover
we wrote exactly that: “Love took a long walk.”

The tiny fieldmouse’s penmanship
is a fine hand, its thin tail writing a narrow line;
correct footprint punctuation—“I’m

easily overlooked, and thank you very much.”

A snowshoe hare leaves a lot of white spaces,
scrawling “Fox alert!” in haste.

Ethereal deer have a streamlined logo. It reads,
“No comment.”

Russell Rowland writes from New Hampshire’s Lakes Region, where he has judged high-school Poetry Out Loud competitions. His work appears in Except for Love: New England Poets Inspired by Donald Hall (Encircle Publications), and Covid Spring, Vol. 2 (Hobblebush Books). His latest poetry book, Magnificat, is available from Encircle Publications.

red flowering tree
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Clare’s Boots

1 September 2024 /

Nonfiction by Julie Lockhart

I’d never admit in public that it’s OK to benefit from someone else’s hardship, but the black leather Italian boots my friend with cancer recently gave me, make me giddy. Clare received a terminal diagnosis last fall. I wandered around in a shock of sadness for days. She’s doing chemo to keep some of the most horrible symptoms at bay and is responding well.

I visit Clare before Christmas in the new, one-level home that she and her husband quickly bought after the diagnosis. Clare’s elegant taste shows in the attractive décor, open floor plan and view of a well-landscaped garden with forested hills in the background. While we chat, Clare rests on the comfortable, yet chic white couch with colorful patterned throw pillows. She’s thin and pale, yet happy to see me. A young woman helper decorates her Christmas tree. I notice a plentiful pile of gifts awaiting placement under the tree and the arrival of her family. Clare’s husband, Sam, is preparing their dinner, and I wonder how he’s holding up. He looks tired.

Clare is wearing a classy black two-piece warm up, with red piping and a bronze zipper. I love her haircut, shorter on one side, with the rest of her brown hair sweeping across her nicely chiseled features. Clare shares about family visits, making amends, and doing what she can to enjoy the life she has left. My heart swells to witness her strength.

Our conversation moves to the things she can’t wear anymore. She lifts a swollen ankle for me to see and mentions she’s looking for someone who wears size 8.5 shoes. My hand shoots up like a schoolgirl. She leads me into her well-organized closet filled with sophistication reflecting years as a successful businesswoman.

Turning to a floor-to-ceiling shelf, she starts pulling out shoes and boots—all designer. I’ve never spent that kind of money on footwear. I step into three pairs of casual sandals, and check to make sure she wants me to have them. Then she pulls out the Italian boots. My belly flutters with glee as I slip them on. They fit perfectly. Smooth black leather envelops my foot, with a low heel, quilted boot fabric rising up my leg, leather again at the top, and a buckle in back—mid-calf height. Perfect. I don’t want to appear greedy for more, so I put the sandals and boots in a paper bag she has given me and express my thrill and gratitude.

When I get home, I don my skinny jeans and pick up the boots to look closer. They’re lined with a silky-feeling plaid fabric. I pull both on, run my hands down each, and walk out of the closet to show them off to my husband. He loves them too. Later that evening, we head out to dinner, and I again put on the cozy boots. Walking from the parking lot down the street to the restaurant, I picture myself looking stylish, like I’m taking something of Clare’s essence with me—her big heart with an ethos of right action and generosity, especially for kids’ causes. In her boots, perhaps I can walk a little closer to understanding and supporting her journey.

I wonder why I’ve never bought myself nice boots like this. I experience delight with every step and in every place I go. Spending my shopping time in consignment and discount stores, I scour everything for a good deal, even though my mother taught me to love designer clothes. A few lean years in my career led me to frugal spending habits. Yet my finances in retirement no longer require that I be so stingy with myself. I imagine myself boot shopping, and wonder when things in the downtown stores go on sale. Maybe it’s time to loosen up and buy myself nicer attire regardless of discounts.

With the holidays behind us, I make a quick visit to give Clare a poetry book that I hope she and her husband will find meaningful. I hesitate to put the boots on, and choose something else, not wanting to flaunt what she could no longer wear. She looks radiant when I walk in, like she’s gotten her vitality back. I observe the loving interaction between Clare and Sam. He looks good, too—brighter, with a big smile.

The three of us launch into a short but deep conversation about what’s important in life. Sam says, “No bullshit, every moment is precious.” Agreeing, I can see that the two are growing through this difficult time together—with grace and caring. The love between them sings so sweetly. It’s true that we never really know what tomorrow will bring. Looking from one to the other as they talk makes me grateful to witness glimmerings of their process.

I am about to get up to leave when Clare asks for a favor. “Of course,” I respond.

Clare wears a sheepish grin before asking. “You know those boots I gave you? Well, my ankles aren’t swollen anymore, and I’m wondering if I can get them back? I have athletic shoes, but nothing for my nicer clothing.” My heart sinks into my belly for a brief moment—oh those beautiful boots. Yet a few seconds later, I feel elated that she has experienced physical improvement—enough to wear her Italian boots again. Clare apologizes for wanting them back.

Smiling, I say “Absolutely. I will bring them over tomorrow.”

This morning I again slip on the boots that give me such pleasure. I take a deep breath in, with an intentional outbreath of letting go. Material things don’t mean anything next to the treasure of Clare’s friendship and trust in me during this difficult journey. I can buy my own boots. I pull them off one by one, run a little shoe polish over their surface to cover some scuff marks, and slide my feet into my consignment shop clogs.

Julie Lockhart loves an adventure in wild places. Her essays have appeared in The Journal of Wild Culture, bioStories, Feels Blind Literary, Women on Writing Essay Contests, and Minerva Rising. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee. Julie lives in Port Townsend, WA. Find her online at: julietales.com.

Photo by Niclas Lundin on Unsplash

The Big Dipper

1 September 2024 /

Poetry by Lana Hechtman Ayers

This unseasonably tropic night in Oregon in June, fir and spruce trees
so thickly interwoven, barely enough space between branches
for shadow, let alone the glass teeth of stars, and I am orbited back
to one lime Jell-O and orange cream popsicle summer,
another unseasonable June, air thick as guttural slurs,
when everyone in all five boroughs flipped on their air conditioners
at once, sucking the power dry as thistle, lights dowsed in the great
28-hour black out, and New York City became a meadow again,
a pristine prairie, the streetlamp and skyscraper bruised sky
brighter than the red and green blinking signals of jet planes
that thunder-growled low over us from nearby JFK every night,
brighter than the scarce fireflies already flickering on extinction,
my daddy and me sweating and swatting mosquitoes
on the two-chair porch, he teaching me about the stars,
his hands spread above us thumb-to-thumb,
the rest of his fingers upright to frame the constellations,
and there he hung the Big Dipper for me,
the Big Dipper with its long ladle handle and rectangular bowl,
and perceiving this mystical silhouette for the first time
was a kind of epiphany, with my daddy retelling the many sagas
of the Great Bear Ursa Major from indigenous cultures
around the world, chronicling the true accounts
of how in our own nation this constellation
saved the lives of many slaves
who followed its stars north to freedom,
and I understood how our stories,
back to the beginning of man,
are made of such fragile connections,
dot to dot to dot, twinkling beacons of meaning,
how imagination is part dream,
part real-life experience,
that we can all slake our thirsts from this well,
dipperful by dipperful,
so that each time I spy the Big Dipper in the sky now
it is also the tender tale of a father and a daughter,
his patience and our laughter,
so much laughter I still feel its pulse
orbiting the fatherless galaxy of my heart.

Lana Hechtman Ayers, architect of the “Severed Sonnet,” has shepherded over a hundred poetry volumes into print in her role as managing editor for three small presses. Her work appears in Rattle, The London Reader, Peregrine, and elsewhere. Her ninth collection is The Autobiography of Rain (Fernwood Press, 2024).

Carousel by Cheryl Sadowski

Farewell, in black and white

1 September 2024 /

Nonfiction by Cheryl Sadowski

We rode the Central Park carousel all summer. By winter, the painted horses and gilded carriages stood still. To be part of B’s life in the suburbs is what mattered more than anything now. Arrangements were made, boxes packed, and on a dishwater day in January, the moving truck rolled down West 58th Street with my meager belongings.

I spent the last night in my empty apartment alone, lying on an air mattress staring at electric outlets. I listened for the familiar, persistent clang of the trash chute, the groan of pipes. Oddly, nothing. Only black silence and the dim glow of barren white walls. New York City seemed intent upon my leaving without a nod. Across the courtyard rows of windows darkened and blurred, and eventually I fell asleep.

Snow fell all night, thick and gauzy as cotton candy. I woke in the mauve morning light to find the windows frosted over. I threw on clothes and boots, grabbed my coat, and stomped through meringue drifts toward Central Park. Inside the park, sienna tree limbs bowed beneath white icing and black streetlamps tipped their tall, snow top hats. This was no cold, curt goodbye, but farewell on the most elegant and grandiose scale. The city had seen me after all, and she made sure I knew.

I spun around, eyes watering, and cleared off a park bench to sit down. Life with B. could wait an hour, or two.

Cheryl Sadowski writes about art, books, landscape, and nature. Her essays, reviews, and short fiction have been published in Oyster River Pages, The Ekphrastic Review, Vita Poetica, After the Art, and other publications. Cheryl holds a Master in Liberal Arts from Johns Hopkins University. She lives in Northern Virginia.

green leaf plant
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Impossible Love

1 September 2024 /

Nonfiction by Leslie Lisbona

Mom and I were talking. “I know what you mean,” she said. I didn’t have to explain much and somehow she understood. She got me in a way no one else did. She used to say, recalling Oscar Wilde, “Take away all my necessities and give me only luxuries.” But for me, having this mom—my mom—was everything. I didn’t need anything else but her.

I was unmarried and about to turn thirty. My boyfriend lived in Mexico, and if I married him, which everyone wanted, I would have to leave her and live there.
Mom and I sat side by side on the couch. I held Paul Auster’s book, Leviathan, on my lap. We had both just finished reading it. “I want to go to the Strand during the week,” I said.

“I’ll meet you there after work,” she said.

We both sighed simultaneously, and this made her laugh.

With my toe, I pushed the ashtray a few inches over on the coffee table. It sat unused and shiny since she had quit smoking. Still, her asthma came suddenly sometimes, and the furniture had a faint smell of cigarette smoke. She examined her nails and looked disappointed with them.

“Shall we go to a movie together?” she half-whispered.

“Yes!” I said, and I reached for New York Magazine to do research. I found My Fair Lady in the city.

“Let’s go now!” she said.

I ran upstairs to get ready. I felt like I was five and someone had handed me an ice cream cone. Afterwards, on the drive home on Queens Boulevard, we sang “I could have danced all night” as we both looked straight ahead.

It wasn’t long after this that I lost her—with no warning. Her not being with or near me was inconceivable. I married a year later, someone I really loved and who lived nearby. We have two grown sons. But the luxury of having someone who understands me so deeply remains elusive.

Leslie Lisbona has been published, most recently in Wrong Turn Lit, The Bluebird Word, and Dorothy Parker’s Ashes. In March, she was featured in the New York Times Style section. She is the child of immigrants from Beirut, Lebanon, and grew up in Queens, NY.

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