Tag: nature (Page 2 of 7)

Found a poem

13 June 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Burt Rashbaum

I walk alone in pre-dawn lantern light
sometimes two golden
eyes stare back
other times a hundred
tiny golden orbs all
different heights on the move
a heard of elk
most times a sky of stars a sliver of moon
as the morning light still sleeps
as the bloodshot horizon teases
dawn from the night
a small circle of silver visibility leads the way
beyond its edges the darkness mute unknowable
like a dream.

Burt Rashbaum’s publications are Of the Carousel and Blue Pedals. His poems have appeared in Storms of the Inland Sea (Shanti Arts Press, 2022), Boats Against the Current, The Ravens Perch, Valiant Scribe, The Bluebird Word, The Seraphic Review, and The Nature of Our Times.

First Light

4 June 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Sam Barbee

Snow surrounds the wide pond.
Squirrels bound edges.
Silence begotten by still water.
Catalyst for green leaves,
and April hymn.

Crystal glaze bursts open in sun–
ice will submit, sepia dispelled
with winter’s consent.
Trees resemble
black keys against white horizon,
flats and sharps to swoon the rabbit
down the slope.
Chill abides
with brown bear and cub.
Downey woodpeckers tap notations.
Nature’s fresh overture
spills treble,
underlies with bass notes–
morning song
and dirge alike.
A red fox waltzes
extinction. Toppled trunks and stumps
ossify, and
shadows absorb imprecise
light. A lively etude evolves
with the immaculate meadow.

Evergreens sway, fallen cones
freckling drifts. Each impact
an apostrophe
to this frozen canticle.
Dwindling imprints reminding
we dance alone.

Sam Barbee’s newest collection is Apertures of Voluptuous Force (2022, Redhawk Publishing). He has three previous poetry collections, including That Rain We Needed (2016, Press 53), a nominee for the Roanoke-Chowan Award as one of North Carolina’s best poetry collections of 2016; he is a two-time Pushcart nominee.

Above Omena Lake

26 May 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Sarah G. Pouliot

We lounge on the ledge of your grandfather’s dock
with two poles and a punctured cup of crickets,
watching snow geese ascend in an arrow,
black-tipped wings slicing dawn,
bellies blurred in billows.

Saltwater taffy cements to our molars;
toes wiggle in ripples, the whip
of your translucent line cracking
Omena’s mirror—when I tell you,
“I’m afraid of heights but not falling.”

Catapult me in the air—
a diving gannet searching for sardines,
a leaping Devil Ray, the sway of an oak
surrendering to wind like the smoke
from your after-breakfast cigarette.

Falling is familiar:
a scraped knee and sideways bike,
a plugged nose and cannonball plunge,
the plop of your soaring bobber brushing
the water like a sloppy morning kiss.

Sarah G. Pouliot is a poet and editor from Titusville, Florida. She believes that poetry has the power to bring stillness and meditative reflection in the midst of life’s chaos, and she hopes that her writing can do this for you—even if only for a moment.

This morning, I woke early

13 May 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Stacie Eirich

This morning, I woke early, stepped out
when eastern light was rising. A cool breeze
brought goosebumps. Two blue finches
flew fast, diving and calling from tree to tree.
The thick hanging branches of palms swayed,
hiding flashes of feathers beneath green tents.
The rumble of motors began to whir as the hour
turned, the roar of engines breaking through air
as titanium wings soared above, over and over
hulking giants of steel passing in dawn’s light.
The day bright with golden sun, the noise
of so much life, so much commotion.
My heart beats small, silent, my ears unable
to stifle the sounds throbbing around me.
I go back inside, sip my coffee, read a few lines.
Listen to the sounds muted, watch the light creep
over the trees, the rocks, the pool’s edge.
Watch how the water almost stills, its flow
small and constant, a moving blue-green mirror.
Feel how time moves slowly, how in this space
there is only air and light, cool and warmth,
flowing water and rough-hewn rock.
How they live and breathe in the midst
of our human clutter and noise and need
of so much, of more, of everything.
How the only thing they need is the rising
of rays to ascend heavenward— how the branches
reach the light, fingers of fronds dancing
beside a blue jay’s quick winged perch.
How when I step outside once more, my fingers
can’t quite reach, touch, my skin can’t feel
this brightness. My heart moored elsewhere, my soul
seeking peace in a place that can’t be mine. Even with
all this light, all this life— all these things.
What is enough? I wish to be a bird, to fly and call,
fleeing and free, quick and light as dawn, rising
with silver-tipped wings into golden sunlight. Here
then gone — bright, beautiful. A small burst
of feathered joy in golden sunlight, a brush of dawn, a rush
of feathers, a voice ringing loud, blue-silver streak
of a bright, exuberant heart.

Stacie Eirich is a mother of two, caregiver, and poet. Her book, Hope Like Sunlight (Bell Asteri Publishing, 2024), is an illustrated memoir benefitting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Her poems have recently been published in The Amazine, The Bluebird Word, and Synkroniciti Magazine. She lives in Texas. Visit her at www.stacieeirich.com

Memory, a Satellite

1 April 2025 / Editor

Poetry by KB Ballentine

Oh, my grandmother’s hibiscus!
Her begonias were bright and beautiful,
but her hibiscus was magic. Sunbaked
and salt-sprayed, filaments and anthers
waving wild in Florida rain brewed an elixir
that made the hummingbirds chirp.
An instant brightness, that shocking red
(matching my skin one summer),
where bees hummed praises and nuzzled
into the honeyed hearts. Forget the oranges
bulging behind blossoms, hibiscus let me know
I was home—wherever I happened to be.

KB Ballentine’s latest collection All the Way Through was published in November 2024 from Sheila-Na-Gig Inc. Other books are published with Blue Light Press, Iris Press, Middle Creek Publishing, and Celtic Cat Publishing. Additional writing has been published in North Dakota Quarterly, Atlanta Review and Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal. Learn more at www.kbballentine.com.

Tracking the Fox

11 March 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Terra Miller

sticks and stones
encased in ice
shine in the eye
of the hidden sun.
her

pawprints hide beneath
fallen birch tree
and between broken
boulders.
she will not escape me.
but

while snowflakes fall into
the wind
making white mounds
of rubble
out of autumn

a voice creeps into my ear:
rest.
what have i
to lose
or gain?

i stand
ankle deep in snow
on a wet stone,
ready to sharpen my mind
with silence.

i’ll let the vixen tread another trail
for me to find tomorrow.

Terra Miller is a tired senior at Palm Beach Atlantic University in Florida. Her poetry has been published in Living Waters Review and Westmarch Literary Journal. Even though she’s had the opportunity to live in many states, she would call Hawaii her home, leaving half her heart behind after moving.

Plumage

20 February 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Sam Barbee

The red cardinal, whose head-feathers
have fallen out, sits on the wooden fence.

He notices our yard full of movement, shapes
big and small imparting various shades –

blue sky with white clouds, zinnias.
Dogwood wavers with breeze he does not see.

Motionless, one coarse and knotted branch
cradles the nest he feeds. The birdbath

bends a murky prism, a reflection of scruff
on his grey-red tuft. Unlike full-feathered

finches, and pileated cousins pecking a maple’s trunk,
he can only imagine a proper bonnet of feathers –

not molt or baldness from mites. Not scar
of low-branch wound. Perches content without

storybook color or crest. His grandeur resets
the order. A quest for tranquil, preening wings

on the wooden fence. Sanctified to guard
against squirrels or Cooper Hawk carnage,

he flaps to the nest of hatchlings,
content with reimagined beauty.

Sam Barbee’s newest collection is Apertures of Voluptuous Force (Redhawk Publishing, 2022). He has three previous poetry collections, including That Rain We Needed (Press 53, 2016), a nominee for the Roanoke-Chowan Award as one of North Carolina’s best poetry collections of 2016; he is a two-time Pushcart nominee.

Tsuga of the Pine Family (Haiku Sonnet)

13 January 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Kersten Christianson

Soft-needled hemlock,
sculpted by edged breeze, you are
both branched, bare-barked, your

evergreen voice notes
a wooden, wild chime chanting
against trunked neighbor.

Tonal clopping, wood
on wood on wood, whispering
needle, shuffling dried

pages of gale, tea-
tossed fluttering paper, winged
winter hummingbirds.

Twinkled spell of fête, nip, rime,
you are welcome in our home.

Kersten Christianson is a poet and English teacher from Sitka, Alaska. She is the author of Curating the House of Nostalgia (Sheila-Na-Gig, 2020) and Something Yet to Be Named (Kelsay Books, 2017). She serves as poetry editor of Alaska Women Speak. Kersten savors road trips, bookstores, and smooth ink pens.

January Walk

6 January 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Laura Hannett

Trudging in my brilliant scarf
my coat, my hat, my gloves
I see that
as much as any other creature
I am an adornment to the world
The cardinal
so lavishly and recklessly red
in the black-and-white tracery of snowy branches
is not more bracing to the eye

Shaking not a little
from the pitiless wind
I fear that
as much as any other creature
I am a trifle to the world
The rabbit
huddled with ruffled fur
beneath the spirea’s bones
is not more exposed to the cold

Returning home
to warmth that bathes my icy face
I own that
I am some fortune’s darling
The cats
so thoroughly and sensuously lost in sleep
on this freezing afternoon
are not more spoiled than me

Laura Hannett lives in Central New York with her marvelous family. She is a graduate of Hamilton College and the College of William and Mary.

Jam Cakes

27 December 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Lo Riddell

Here comes nature’s peace
offering: pale landscapes

with feather-brush forests
licking the first snowflakes

straight from the sky.
Invisible sun shines through

shadow-bellied clouds, turning
blue skies white with promise

of more snow. My grandmother
alchemizes the last of her summer

blackberries into cakes that fit
kindly in my open hands.

Dusk comes early once again,
creeping in through kitchen windows

to steal a piece of fresh-baked bread
from the stovetop. The holly berries

light up the roadside like string lights
for families of deer trotting by.

At last, December takes her stage
and exhales the passing year.

Lo Riddell is a lesbian writer from southern Ohio, currently based in New England. She received her BFA in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State University in 2022, and now spends her free time writing poetry, prose, and essays on pop culture. You can find her on Instagram at @vintagelouisa.