Tag: life (Page 2 of 7)

At the Lakefront, beside Sunshine

1 July 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Stacie Eirich

Glittering waves in wind
sunlight high in the sky
beaming into blue
you marvel at the beauty
in a dandelion, proclaim it
not a weed but a flower
pick its yellow head
put it in my palm.

My hand in yours, you skate past
girls on scooters, boys on bikes
a dog you call Toast.
We listen to the roar
of a mower, the slap-slap of water
the cries of shorebirds
from beyond the beach, where two kids play
in cold waters, brave in bathing suits.

You turn on pop songs, sing along beside me
dance a jig, weave your arm in mine, say thank you
for bringing us here, stop to swing, then ask
for snowballs & ice cream.
We savor mint chocolate and cherry chip
in the warmth of the shop, you watching and listening
to a little brother and his sisters, me watching you
quietly spooning cold sweetness to our lips.

I finish first, sit content, tell you
to take your time.
That it’s what we came for
to take time.
To hold and warm each others’ hands
to find and follow sunlight
the rush of the wind, the sweetness
of this life.

A gift to open slowly
you singing like starlight
you next to me, beside the water
your fingers pressed
into mine, time shimmering
like waves on sand
tall white sails
rising into the distance.

I touch the dandelion head
in my tote pocket
spread its yellow cup
in my fingers
feel the sun
feel you
beside me
still shining.

Stacie Eirich is a mother, poet & singer in Louisiana. Her work is forthcoming in Synkroniciti Magazine. Her poem “Blossoms” published in Susurrus Magazine in 2023 was nominated for The Pushcart Prize. In 2023, she lived in Memphis while caring for her child through cancer treatments at St. Jude. www.stacieeirich.com

Photo by Gabriella Clare Marino on Unsplash

For the Love of Color: Ochre

1 May 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Linda Allison

Ochre is a wanderer
Embarking from deep yellow, it charts its way across the palette,
eventually landing somewhere in the vicinity of terracotta.
Ochre is the paprika in my soup and the cinnamon on my toast.
It is a farm-fresh egg, dark yolk dancing in the skillet,
and a hoo-doo rising from the floor of the Palo Duro Canyon.
It is the west Texas sky moments before the sun drops below the horizon.
My memories of Big Bend are all in ochre.

I am a study in ochre. Lids dusted, cheeks rubbed, warm golds and earthy red-browns,
Maybelline Autumn Copper and Almay Sunkissed Bronze
My hair and my sister’s hair, too, different ends of the spectrum: ginger and auburn
both now faded by the years

Isn’t it interesting that what ancient cave art remains was all drawn in ochre?

After forty years in finance, Linda Allison is enjoying a second life as a writer, photographer, and explorer. Her work has appeared in Bright Flash Literary Review, Pile Press, 2023 Utah’s Best Poetry and Prose Anthology, and others. Find her photography in Persimmon Tree and Burningword Literary Journal.

Birthplace

1 March 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Alexander Etheridge

—for W.S. Merwin

Out under clouds in the broad wheatfield
is a certain breed of silence
where only the perfectly hushed
give voice
Wind through the stalks
A sound of colors blending everywhere
in fine webs of shadow and light

After hours here you can start to sense
God’s breathing
like slow shifts in the clockwork
of ancient life
Then you may leave your body

as you lie in the delicate wheat
to return and find yourself
new once more
as you were long ago

your eyes wide
in the freshly formed world

Alexander Etheridge’s poems have been featured in The Potomac Review, Museum of Americana, Welter Journal, The Cafe Review, Abridged Magazine, Susurrus Magazine, The Journal, and many others. He was the winner of the Struck Match Poetry Prize. He is the author of God Said Fire (2023) and Snowfire and Home (Belle Point Press, 2024).

Photo by NASA Hubble Space Telescope on Unsplash

The Pillars of Creation*

1 March 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Arthur Ginsberg

The pillars of creation fill my sight,
in ways I cannot fathom make me pray
and revel in the origin of light.

Though Galileo knew the stars were bright,
he could not know red dwarfs, light years away.
The pillars of creation fill my sight.

The James Webb telescope has taken flight
with golden panels opened wide today
to gather in the origin of light.

Men who’ve slipped earth’s bonds can ignite
the rapture mortals see in cosmic clay.
The pillars of creation fill my sight.

We peer now into space beyond the height
where angels fly and clarion trumpets play
and revel in the origin of light.

Beloveds who passed through tunnels, brilliant white,
came from the stuff of stars at which we gaze.
The pillars of creation fill my sight,
I revel in the origin of light.

*molten rock and dust in the shape
of pillars seen through the Webb
telescope, glowing in deep space

Arthur Ginsberg is a poet based in Seattle. Past work appears in the anthologies, Blood and Bone, and Primary Care. He received the William Stafford prize in 2003. He holds an MFA degree from Pacific University in Oregon. His most recent book, Holy the Body was published by Kelsay Books.

Storms

1 February 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Diana Raab

Life is scattered with storms—
emotions and weather
that have run wild.

After a seven-year drought
I finally see rain trickle
down my bedroom window

as I rejoice that our reservoirs
will fill. This also makes me think
about how often life flows,

when a swift storm hits our psyche:
while trees and debris clutter
our path, and then,

during our psychological
clean up we pave the way
for clarity to be followed
yet by another storm.

Diana Raab, PhD, is an award-winning memoirist, poet, blogger, speaker, and author of 13 books. Her latest poetry chapbook is An Imaginary Affair: Poems Whispered to Neruda. She blogs for Psychology Today, Thrive Global, Sixty and Me, Good Men Project, The Wisdom Daily and many others. Visit: www.dianaraab.com.

Breath

1 February 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Jeff Burt

In the shower from a hose
over tomato vines, an Anne’s hummingbird
entered and rinsed and hovered
a foot from my face, then landed
on my chest to catch a breath,
feet gripping my shirt like a newborn.

I thought of the forty beats
per second of its wings
that I could both hear and feel,
wondered if it slowed and felt the torpor
of stasis come over like sleep,
but in the moment my mind wandered
the hummingbird had flown.

To catch a breath, to enter the mist
and rest on the dusty, arid day–
I thought of the taxi driver
from Eritrea who said he drove
each day until he couldn’t stop,
then he’d stop, he laughed,
he had many mouths to feed,
and hustle is all he knew, cabbie, valet.
When I touched his shoulder,
I could feel his heartbeat slowing down,
body harbor below my hand.

So many months have passed
and he stayed in my thoughts
in the mass where I store
random things I cannot place,
but today I knew,
he was a hummingbird,
beating his wings all day
against the dead air
to stay alive for others,
clutching for a foothold
and turning his throat
skyward for a breath.

Jeff Burt lives in Santa Cruz County, California. He has contributed to Williwaw Journal, Rabid Oak, and Willows Wept Review, and has a chapbook at Red Wolf Editions and a second chapbook available from Red Bird Chapbooks. Read earlier fiction and poetry in The Bluebird Word.

Perhaps

22 October 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Anne Leigh Parrish

We map disaster
Perilous seaways
Treacherous mountain passes
Forbidding terrains of all kinds

Do we hold it in common, or
Is there one map for you, and another for me?

We find ourselves on a tiny plot of land
In a strangely calm sea

How do we escape?
The map is blank
Faded and burned by the sun

We’ll draw a new one, you say
With clear paths and gentle views
No, I say, that’s a silly fantasy
You say, perhaps, but some call it faith

Anne Leigh Parrish’s new poetry collection, If The Sky Won’t Have Me, was recently published by Unsolicited Press. Her next novel, A Summer Morning, arrives in October 2023, also from Unsolicited Press. She lives in Olympia, Washington. Explore her writing at www.anneleighparrish.com and her photography at www.laviniastudios.com.

Wednesday in the Neighborhood

22 October 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Bonnie Demerjian

Because my dearest friends are dead or distant
I eavesdrop on the sparrows’ whispered conversation in the blue-green grass.

Because the red-hot scream of chainsaws makes the forest weep,
I bury my face in the cool fountain of lobelias.

Because the flag is like a furious fist,
I melt into the marbled eyes of my old-lady dog.

Because lies multiply like hawkweed on the highway,
I harvest the truth of blueberries.

Because the longed-for heat of summer became instead a fiery furnace,
I rejoice in rain and the chance to pull on socks again.

Because the whirling hulla hoop of years slows and settles,
I putter among exuberant late-blooming lilies. They have no foretaste of grief.

Because these burdens must not win the day,
I beckon to the easeful gulls to lift our weight.

Bonnie Demerjian lives in Southeast Alaska and much of her writing is flavored by this place of forest and ocean. She has written four non-fiction books about the region and her poetry has been published in Blue Heron Review, Pure Slush, Tidal Echoes, and Alaska Women Speak, among others.

Circumlocution When Speaking of Water

13 October 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Sharon Whitehill

I don’t want to talk about water.
How it feels on the body, or in the mouth:
the salty surprise of a first ocean swim;
or bathwater swaddling your body in heat
on a wintry day; or such crystal clear springs,
filtered through sand, as Michigan’s Kitch-iti-Kipi.*
I don’t want to talk about iron-tinged water
tasting of blood, of snow creeping into the mittens
and chapping the wrists; or of the lake
that swallowed and swallowed and swallowed
that girl until the lifeguard dove in. Nor about water
as currents that roil the rapids or crest into waves;
or pond water swirling with creatures that shock school children.
Truly, I don’t want to talk about water.

Rather, I want you to notice what springs to your mind
about trees, clouds, or water: these are yours,
yours alone, to express. Which will free me
to sit here in silence, looking back on my personal trees,
looking out through my window at Florida clouds,
looking inward to contemplate water—
that power that governs my zodiac sign,
that mutable element pulled by the moon into tides,
that sustainer of life and relentless dissolver—
in my own way.

*Ojibwe for Big Cold Stream

Sharon Whitehill is a retired English professor from West Michigan now living in Port Charlotte, Florida. Apart from poems published in literary magazines, her publications include two scholarly biographies, two memoirs, two poetry chapbooks, and a collection of poems. Her chapbook, This Sad and Tender Time, is due Winter 2024.

The Scent

12 August 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Barbara Siegel Carlson

The heart’s fingerprints are everywhere.
Richard jackson

From somewhere in the city
come the colorful pungency
of oils and spices,
the scent of wet stone,
a woman perspiring
in her high heels that click by,
and the smoke a squinty-eyed man
exhales as he taps
his ashes to the ground
a few feet from the doorway
where a raw-cheeked woman sleeps
under a blanket of particles
near a piece of mooncake some pigeons
& sparrows are sharing.

Barbara Siegel Carlson‘s third book of poems What Drifted Here was published by Cherry Grove Collections in 2023. Her previous books are Once in Every Language and Fire Road. A chapbook Between the Hours was published in 2022. She teaches in Boston and lives in Carver, Massachusetts.