Author: Editor (Page 21 of 62)

Going up Gorham

12 August 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Anne Rankin

Nature is an expression of intelligence and necessity.
PLATO

Here where mountain marries earth to the sea, I open like a prayer.
The climb begins with a sigh as I scour the trail for the wag of his tail.
Clouds form stepping stones into the horizon, and I wonder how
to find a way to tomorrow. Or if I even want to hear the silence that follows.
The spirit of the dog walks beside me;
his step keeps pace with my grief.

One year since. A cool morning then, just like today. A whisper
of early autumn air being polite, nothing more. One of those days you’re blind
to the darkness that’s coming. Gulls and ravens trade places
in the sky, but I’m resigned to the gray that lives between.
I’m in the kind of place where you can’t get there from here.
The way you sometimes need rain to move air.

A bird out of sight offers up its lone song, but all I can hear
is, Still gone, still gone. Far below, ocean keeps sending itself onto shore,
tending the earth’s wounds with waves. Above, the sun rises
over the trees, turning up the volume of the sky.
As the trail stretches skyward, I’m searching what’s near, seeking
what’s revealed in the rooms of the climb.

Autumn huckleberry bleeds into the surrounding hills,
but I’m tuned to the pitch of the path, the blazing red leaves
saying more than I can bear. My eye catches a common tern
sweeping the sea, and I hand myself from rock to rock,
finding solace in the scratch of shoe against granite. I struggle
to unlace the root-studded trail, only to find myself entwined instead.

On this mountain that hands land to sea, the breeze reminds me
of something worth knowing, and I breathe deep,
lungs grateful for all that salt air can relieve.
Ahead, a stand of scrub pine raises questions I can’t answer.
As views of Sand Beach keep turning my head, I’m wondering
what word the sea might offer for grace.

But further along the trail I spot a cairn
stacked in place by some fellow wanderer
who needed to assure me with something only stones can say:
You will find your way, even as the earth turns below your feet.
The spirit of the dog walks beside me;
his step keeps pace with my grief.

Anne Rankin‘s poems have appeared in The Healing Muse, The Poeming Pigeon, Hole in the Head Review, Passager, Scapegoat Review, Atlanta Review, Rattle (forthcoming), and elsewhere. Her poem “Small Primer on Loneliness” received Honorable Mention at the Belfast Poetry Festival 2021.

The Marimekko Dress

10 August 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Katharine Davis

My mother bought me a Marimekko dress,
a dress from Finland, a cool and distant land replete
with fjords, icebergs, wild reindeer and elk.
A dress to wear following my wedding at
my grandmother’s farm, a dress for going away.

All went as it should: a tent in the garden,
dahlias robust and in bloom on a blazing August afternoon,
with views of the covered bridge across the field.
A small gathering of family and friends,
my father in a blue blazer, my mother in gauzy watermelon pink.

Tea sandwiches followed by cake and French Champagne.
No music, no dancing, the scent of mown hay wafting in the white haze,
my sisters, flowers in their hair, sneaking cigarettes behind the barn.
After tossing the bouquet, I slipped on my Marimekko dress,
neatly pressed, blue and white, wavy horizontal stripes.

My Marimekko dress was cool against my skin. Expensive, well-made,
the perfect fit, just right for starting another life.
My mother died two years later. The farm was sold, and fifty years have passed.
But in my dreams, I see it still, a shirt-waist dress with silver buttons,
worn by me, but chosen by my mother.

Katharine Davis is the author of three novels: Capturing Paris (included in the New York Times suggestions for fiction set in Paris), East Hope (winner of the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance 2010 award for fiction), and A Slender Thread.

Priced to Go

7 August 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Michael Lyle

our yard-sale discards
shabby in daylight’s glare
only undo me
when I spot treasure—

twiggy high chair
where grandparents fed
during mother’s recovery,
like graying cardinals
on a final nest—

sturdy wooden rocker,
where little limbs
rehearsed dancing,
hello and goodbye

folding lawn chair
with one missing web
beckoning rest,
a soak of sun

impressioned recliner
from beside the window
still ready to hold a wave
like a child
sighting a parade,

all priced to go
like yellow goslings
straying an open field
under a hawk’s hungry eye

Michael Lyle is the author of the poetry chapbook, The Everywhere of Light, and his poems have appeared widely, including Atlanta Review, The Carolina Quarterly and Poetry East. Michael is an ordained minister and lives in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Visit him at http://www.michaellylewriter.com.

Photo by Valentina Locatelli on Unsplash

Way Back When

1 August 2024 / Editor

Nonfiction by Meredith Escudier

My little sister is seven, bundled up in a brown, corduroy car coat. I am nine, sporting a pair of orange polka-dotted pedal pushers and feeling fairly fleet-footed in my canvas Keds. Together we are walking home at dusk from our neighbor’s house where we have enjoyed yet another game of Chinese checkers.

“Can we play orphans?” she asks. Orphans. It’s a familiar game of ours, influenced by the thrill of childhood literature – The Boxcar Children or Oliver Twist or any number of hair-raising fairy tales that filled our impressionable psyches. According to the game’s unspoken rules, we must identify a house friendly enough to ask its current residents to take us in – two bedraggled sisters who have only recently escaped from the workhouse.

Perhaps in our mind’s eye, we are barefoot, ragged, dirty, but also surely sweet-faced, hopeful, and plucky. After some faux-hesitation, we will, of course, choose our own house – what else? – but the exercise allows us to flirt momentarily with independence and adventure, only to be flooded by a warm, familiar security afterwards. Our chosen scenario, as usual, unfolds with a practiced, codified dialog:

“How about this one?” she suggests, as we walk past a large corner house.

“No, too dark,” I respond on cue, shaking my head vigorously as we march along.

“Then this one?” She points to a house whose front lawn has recently been edged. A forgotten rubber ball is wedged between a planter box and a picket fence. I appear to inspect her choice before disqualifying it with a “Naah,” aligning myself perfectly with the unwritten script. “Not cozy enough,” I announce.

“Then how about this cute little house? It looks sort of friendly,” she says, tacking on a hopeful argument for good measure. Hmm, I take a look. She could be right. Among the cookie-cutter post-war housing that went up fast in the Fifties and that provided the parents of baby boomers a decent, if not charming, place to live, this house – with its ruby red front porch and generic cement driveway – just seemed to stand out. Well, at least to us.

We stop and peer in, evaluating the odds, wondering if this family might adopt our lonesome selves. Will they show mercy? Human kindness? Would they like the addition of two beseeching little girls around the dinner table tonight? I notice the glow from the light in the kitchen and guess at our older sister studiously setting the table, carefully placing our father’s milk glass at the helm. “Yes,” I agree companionably as we turn into our own comfortable driveway and trot up the front steps. Out back, between the clothesline and the dangling tether ball, is a likeness of our handprints, marking the day when three sisters leaned down and opened their hands, stretching and splaying their fingers wide as they pressed their palms into fresh cement.

Meredith Escudier has lived in France for over 35 years, teaching, translating, raising a family and writing. She is the author of three books, most recently, a food memoir, The Taste of Forever, an affectionate examination of home cooks that features an American mother and a French husband.

Keeping Diana Alive

1 July 2024 / Editor

Nonfiction by Jennifer Pinto

The plant I carried was so bulky and cumbersome that when I hugged it against my chest and carried it to my car, I could barely see where I was going. I had to peek through the small spaces between glossy, dark green, oval shaped leaves that seemed to emerge directly from the soil. The brown stucco pot was heavy and I struggled not to drop it while slipping and sliding across the icy funeral home parking lot. I was desperate for a reminder of my dad, something that might bring me peace after his sisyphean battle with liver cancer and my increasingly contentious relationship with my step mother.

At my dad’s funeral, this solitary plant was displayed atop a pedestal next to his casket. A peace lily in all her glory, standing sentry. There were also a few flower arrangements, but most people, at the request of my step mother, slipped cash in the donation box next to the entrance to help pay for the funeral costs instead. At the end of the service when everyone was lining up to head over to the cemetery, I snuck back into the funeral home and stole that plant. I knew it was the only possession I would ever have of my dad’s and, in my twisted logic, that plant belonged to him.

Back home, I looked for the perfect spot for the plant. I googled Peace Lilies and found that they adore bright sunlight. In fact the article said, “the more light your plant gets, the happier it will be, the faster it will grow and the more it will bloom.” It was obvious that sunlight was the key to keeping this plant alive. In the years leading up to my dad’s death, between calls with the oncologist and trips to the Cleveland Clinic, I hadn’t felt like enjoying the sun. My blinds remained shut most days. But for the sake of the plant, I let the light in. I placed the pot directly in front of the patio door and named her Diana.

If my dad were a plant he would have been a succulent, the kind you could leave in the corner windowsill for weeks at a time without a thought or a drop of water. He wouldn’t have minded. That’s how he was, easy to please and uncomplicated. Despite being neglected, he would continue to grow, his roots digging deep for water and his stem quietly reaching for the sun. He was kind to a fault and expected as little from others as possible, a people pleaser who stayed out of the limelight. I was the one who insisted that dad get the liver transplant, encouraged him to get radiation and then chemotherapy. I fought with my step mother over hospice placement, stubbornly refusing to give up.

It only took me a few days to realize Diana was dramatic if nothing else. She demanded water by collapsing in on herself. Her broad emerald leaves wilting down and falling over like a diva fake- fainting on a velvet settee. After her thirst had been slaked she popped back up, white spaths held high as if nothing had happened at all. Only to repeat her theatrical performance a few days later. Unlike my dad, she wasn’t afraid to demand what she needed. She wasn’t polite or demure; she had no qualms about turning her leaves brown to show her disapproval.

Following my dad’s death, I was paralyzed by grief. But as the weeks went by, I found myself distracted by Diana. I watched her carefully, moved her from window to window to get the correct amount of sunlight, stuck my finger deep into her soil to make sure it was moist and wiped the dust off her leaves with a damp cloth. I talked to her and laughed at her melodramatic ways. She may not have brought me peace in the way I had imagined but at least I know what it takes to keep her alive.

Jennifer Pinto writes creative nonfiction. She lives in Cincinnati with her husband and a Goldendoodle pup named Josie. She enjoys making pottery, cooking Indian food and drinking coffee at all hours of the day. Her work has been published in Sundog Lit, Halfway Down the Stairs and The Bookends Review.

Annual Report

1 July 2024 / Editor

Poetry by William Swarts

Exaggerate old metaphor, expand it
out of all proportion, over-inflate
the usual occasion: each tulip is
a microphone broadcasting the season,
every daffodil a brash loudspeaker
trumpeting a processional for the sun.
Now a glory of color covers the earth,
stridently smothers the hush of grass
growing green and too abundantly
while spring waxes the way to winter.

William Swarts is the author of “Harmonies Unheard,” “Strickland Plains and Other Poems” and “Treehouse of the Mind.” He won First Prize in the Litchfield Review‘s annual Poetry Contest. He studied with Bolligen Prize-winner David Ignatow at the 92nd Street YM-YWHA Poetry Center in New York City.

Notes We Cannot See

1 July 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Mary Baca Haque

today was flawed but not forever–
for when the morrow rises, the will
of first light reflects off leafy trees
halfway healing the disarray, ceasing

yesterday’s melancholy, sailing
on silver seeds of the aged lion’s tooth
dissipating in the new air

to the tune of the devoted cardinal
at first light playing advantageously
in backgrounds

carrying on winds
in notes we cannot see, but feel
the chorus in the promise of a new day

with new breath
under yellow shades with azureous skies.

Mary Baca Haque prefers to capture the essence of the natural world, hence her forthcoming publication, Painting the Sky with Love (2024-Macmillan). Her poetry can be found in Wild Roof Journal, Cosmic Daffodils, Amethyst Review, Closed Eye Open, and Seraphic Review (2023 and forthcoming in 2024). She resides in Chicago, Illinois.

Maternal Fabric

1 July 2024 / Editor

Nonfiction by Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew

The Christmas before she died, my mother gave seven-year-old Gwyn a mint-green Hello Kitty sewing machine. Believe it or not it’s a decent machine, she said, despite its small size and ridiculous color. The two of them spent the week making Gwyn’s first patchwork pillow, my mother’s gray chemo curls mingling with Gwyn’s untamed ginger. Gwyn took to sewing as I never had. Afterward I told myself if my mother were to die tomorrow, at least this happened, at least grandmother and grandchild shared days of fingering fabric and winding thread and loving what they both love.

She died that May. And one month later we needed fabric for Gwyn to sew pillow cases as a wedding present for her birth mom. Time was short so I took her to a tiny store just a mile north, a store we’d never been in because the faded mural of a quilt chipping off the exterior made me assume it would be filled with quilt kits and the cheap fabric my mother scorned. As soon as we walked in I knew otherwise. The shelves were saturated with color: bolts in batik, Japanese indigo, elegant floral cotton. It was my mother’s dream store. While Gwyn pranced between shelves I stood in the doorway, aching for my mother. Gwyn discovered the enormous bank of thread and pulled me over: “Look, Mama!” A tidy, exuberant rainbow, and she adored every spool. Gwyn’s delight soothed my sorrow. At least she’ll carry forward my mother’s sewing legacy.

Then, from the thousands of lovely artisan cloths, Gwyn chose a cutsie retro kitten print. In red, teal, and baby blue. My mother in me reared up—no, no, no! Wide-eyed cats pawing balls of yarn were the epitome of kitsch—beneath us, somehow. With every other fabric in this store Gwyn could make something beautiful. Except that Gwyn and her birth mom love cats. Gwyn was the seamstress. She knew what she wanted.

The fabric was perfect.

And just as suddenly I was grateful my mom was gone. She would have held sway in the name of good taste and reputation. For decades I’ve heard her voice in my head, sometimes heeding it, sometimes rebelling, but now her voice is disembodied. She’s dead. She’ll never see the pillowcases, which are adorable and of which Gwyn is terrifically proud. Her birth mom rests her head nightly on Gwyn’s love. The woman at the counter thumped the fabric from the bolt and snipped with long, black-handled scissors, cutting for us both a measure of freedom.

Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew is a wisdom teacher and writing coach dedicated to facilitating creative emergence. As a writer she elicits the spirit’s movement within stories; as a teacher she supports transformation within writers and on the page. You can connect with Elizabeth at www.spiritualmemoir.com and www.elizabethjarrettandrew.com.

Peregrine

1 July 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Stephen J. Cribari

Two years ago we had peregrine falcons here.
They bred in a nest under a nearby bridge
That spans the Mississippi River. I
Stood riverside the day the three chicks fledged
Dropping from the bridge’s understructure,
Falling in a wild, flailing descent
And finding just before they hit the river
What wings mean, solving the secret code
That opened a doorway into the halls of the sky.

A month later curious I returned.
The empty nest, but there up in the sky
High up in the sky a black speck
Like a piece of protein floating across the eye
But reaching speeds that edged beyond my vision.
Like a thunderbolt loosed from the sky it bolted down,
Leveled to a plane above the river,
Screamed through the bridge’s latticed understructure
Then turned as bolting horse will dead stop turn

And flaring into the bridge’s latticework
Settled on the beam where its nest had been.
And there it began to preen, as if nothing at all
Let alone something utterly extraordinary
Had just happened. And I thought of you.

Stephen J. Cribari has been writing poetry for over sixty years. In a parallel life he was a criminal defense attorney and law professor. He resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Still Life (2020) and Delayed en Route (2022) are published by Lothrop Street Press.

At Home

1 July 2024 / Editor

Nonfiction by Joseph O’Day

When her uncles and aunts tried to embrace my nine-month-old granddaughter at our Thanksgiving dinner, she cried and struggled for freedom. I rescued her into my arms, and they called me baby hog. “She’s not yet comfortable with you guys,” I said.

I didn’t think it would take long. I’d been babysitting since September and she had settled in with me, crawling through my house using her bum shuffle—her left leg tucked underneath as her arms and right leg slid her forward. She shuffled over, then sat back and raised her arms, and I lifted her up and we toured the kitchen, the bedrooms, the dining and living rooms, and the TV room, where we watched Daniel Tiger and Rafi and Cleo & Cuquin’s rendition of La Cucaracha. She became so comfortable with me and my house that she led me on tours, moving ahead of me and turning around periodically to make sure I followed.

Our Christmas and New Year’s gatherings did the trick; familiarity bred comfort. She started initiating contact with extended family, snuggling with Aunt Patricia, Uncle Joe, and Aunt Kat as they read her books, leaping into Uncle Josh’s arms as he soared her through the hallways.

At her house months later we celebrated her first birthday. We watched as she ate yogurt-frosted cupcakes, watched it smear on her face and arms, the chair, and anyone who got near. When the party wore down, her mom gave her free reign, placing her on the hardwood floor while we washed tables, threw paper dishes and cups into the trash, and collected scattered bows and gift wrappings.

My granddaughter shuffled around the place so rapidly that it took my breath away: from living room to kitchen, from her aunts’ legs to her uncles’ arms, from her baby walker to the open dishwasher. We had to take care where we stepped. She suddenly appeared at our feet, then vanished, moving with the buoyancy of someone savoring the secure, loving, surroundings of home.

Joseph O’Day’s writing has appeared in Oyster River Pages, Spry Literary Journal, The Critical Flame: A Journal of Literature and Culture, bioStories, Patchwork Lit Mag, Adelaide Literary Magazine, and Molecule: A Tiny Lit Mag. Joseph received his MA in English (Creative Writing) from Salem State University.

Author: Editor (Page 21 of 62)

Going up Gorham

The Marimekko Dress

Priced to Go

Way Back When

Keeping Diana Alive

Annual Report

Notes We Cannot See

Maternal Fabric

Peregrine

At Home

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