Tag: observation (Page 1 of 2)

Wonder Makes Me More Alive

1 July 2026 / Editor

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.

In the Same Foggy Outline

1 July 2026 / Editor

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.

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 / Editor

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.

Sunflowers

22 June 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Natasha Abell-Cwietkow

The thing about the sunflowers
Sat on the shelf, the ones that gaze at the street
From their tall pink glass house,
When they start to wilt and they start to fade
They will still be sunflowers though they may not be the same.
They will still be yellow and still called the same name.
The thing about the sunflowers
Sat on the shelf, wilting and wanting
From their tall pink glass house,
When petals are falling from minutes to hours
They may not be living but they are still
Flowers.
They may not be mine, but they were once ours.

Natasha Abell-Cwietkow is a poet and self-acclaimed adjective lover from a rural town in England. Her work explores love, grief, loss, and the ways we endure and change through life. She writes openly and honestly, showing little restraint with raw emotion, wearing her heart on her sleeve.

It’s the Kind of Thing

7 April 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Melanie Faith

if I wrote it you might
not believe me, but I’ll
write it anyway.

For a second, I mistook
riffs of an electric guitar
on the radio
of a passing car

for a stray cat or kitten
and looked up
from my book
for a tail and a lean cat needing care.

The breeze held ice and calm
and September hope in it,
though still plenty of August
in the sun, in the hot pink
of potted deck geraniums. It wasn’t

the velvety electric blue,
nor the soft ebony
of a dress, nor the yellow almost green
said to bring happiness,

but it did: the root-beer brown butterfly
with buff and dun and a patch of white
like a paintbrush smudge
on its one wing, as if made with

too-wide bristles and wrong for the job—
with flowers not a foot away, he landed
on my right kneecap
of my soft green velour pants—even when

I moved just slightly and uncrossed
my crossed legs, he kept his perch
astride my kneecap. Antennae, black
buggy eyes scanning sideways

as I studied him
wings at rest, he stayed at rest on me.
It is no small thing to be chosen
by a child or a gown person as a confidant,
as a particularly close friend, is no small thing.

To breathe out, to breathe in
watching a brown butterfly
with a white smudge like perfectly imperfect
paint and the music floating over and
the morning radio as a song ends,

another song begins. Was it five minutes
or twenty or a touch of eternity
until the butterfly
lifts up and away again?

Melanie Faith is a poet, writer, educator, photographer, and frequent doodler. Learn more at melaniedfaith.com. Her craft books for authors through Vine Leaves Press offer tips on numerous genres. Her latest poetry collection, Does It Look Like Her?, follows Alix, a forty-something artist and the famous painting of her.

On the Cusp of Spring

1 April 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Stacie Eirich

She walks the river slow, savors
the soft touch of air and glow
of sunlight on her skin. Listens
to the rush and ripple of water,
watches squirrels climb trees and ducks
forage grass for worms. Feels the gentleness
of the coming spring, a space
in her mind, heart, lungs, womb
opening for it, welcoming it.

She leans into
this brightness, inhales—time blooming
into bursts of birdsong and promises
of what the world can still mend
and create anew. This season
of beaming gold, of riotous laughter,
of gentleness, of tenderness. Care-born
from love, love for windswept wings,
branches bright in April’s light.

Winter’s shadow trailing behind
the cusp of spring, gathering
to carry her—into buoyant light, into a song
brilliant with hope, burgeoning with wonder
promising this time
will be softer, this time
will be easier.

She begins to believe this might be true
as she walks: listening, letting what we feel come
then releasing it, letting the glow
of sunlit cyan waters, the slow burn
of gold and blue and green settle
into her, allowing space
for spring to crack open
like a robin’s egg, breaking open
joy, beginning anew.

Stacie Eirich is a mother of two, poet and singer. Hope Like Sunlight (Bell Asteri Publishing, 2024), is her memoir benefitting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital & Ronald McDonald House. Her poems have recently been published in The Poetry Lighthouse, Soul Poetry, and The Amazine. She lives in Texas. Read more at www.stacieeirich.com

Photo by Sam Jotham Sutharson on Unsplash

On Trust

30 March 2026 / Editor

Poetry by John Zedolik

The rabbits will remain to be counted
upon the evening lawns, satisfied
in sweet clover, some even splaying
hind legs, if I deign not to walk this dusk,

having scratched the itch to stretch
my only legs this recently departed bright
afternoon, for the evenings will repeat,
I do believe, beyond this pleasant one

though one should not assume too much
in this world of inconstancy, a spinning top
whose force might fail—yielding a stop
with no return and return of what circles

or has done so, bringing the bunnies out
to hop and munch under the cooling sky,
I aver without seeing, relying upon precedent,

a wise mentor—never yet—let me down

John Zedolik has published five full-length collections: Salient Points and Sharp Angles (2019, WordTech Editions), When the Spirit Moves Me (2021, Wipf & Stock), Mother Mourning (2023, Wipf & Stock), The Ramifications (2024, Wipf & Stock), and Lovers’ Progress (Wipf & Stock). All these collections are available on Amazon.

The Great Bear

23 March 2026 / Editor

Poetry by John Grey

He sits on a rock,
legs and arms folded
before him
in the last rays of daylight.

His brown fur
ruffles like prairie grass.
His eyes scan slowly,
see nothing more
than what he feels himself to be.

Such power, such strength,
held in at perfect peace –
if earth and heaven ever needed
a dividing line…

Any moment now,
I expect him to growl.

But my Buddha scratches instead.
Fine…so he itches…
that means something.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, River And South and Tenth Muse. Latest books, Subject Matters, Between Two Fires and Covert are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Paterson Literary Review, White Wall Review and Cantos.

Snow

1 January 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Aidan Russell

While in the night we soundly slept,
A winter storm came by
and covered all the world in white,
With snow banks piled high.

So in the morning we awoke
And looked out at the sight,
Of all the city buried deep,
in snow so clean and white.

We dressed ourselves and wandered out
Into that wonderland,
And sought to find ourselves some fun,
Though nothing we had planned.

In trudging down the empty street,
We saw no other soul,
And so alone we went along,
A solitary stroll.

Then at the park we found a bench,
Beneath a bare oak tree,
Where we decided then to sit,
The snow-filled world to see.

So there we sat upon the bench,
Just you and me alone,
And watched the winter world grow still,
And heard the cold wind moan.

What sacred beauty there we saw,
As flurries seemed to grow,
The world without mistake or flaw,
White blanketed with snow.

Aidan Russell is an American poet and filmmaker. He was a finalist in the Unity in Verse Poetry Contest. He is also the writer and director of a number of short films, most notably: A Criminal Misunderstanding and The Legend of John Henry. He lives in Southern California.

Reflection

1 November 2025 / Editor

Poetry by AJ Saur

When the 7 a.m. sun suddenly
beams your windshield, you may discover

yourself in the back window of a city bus
a great deal more serious than you knew.

Perhaps it’s not surprising considering
how you flew out of the house without

your morning coffee, without a goodbye
kiss, without a single word shifting the new air.

Now, thanks to traffic, you’re inching
toward yourself, cautious, uncertain

of this one who acts in opposite
at every turn. Enlightened, block after

block, by the set chin, high cheekbones,
those steely eyes spanning

the distance from a someone so thoroughly
other you catch yourself, for a moment, wondering

where he’s headed on this average Wednesday
and, if you flash a smile, will he follow?

AJ Saur is the author of five books of poetry from Murmuration Press including, most recently, Of Bone and Pinion (2022). AJ’s poems have also appeared (or will soon appear) in Abandoned Mine, Front Range Review, Glimpse, The Midwest Quarterly, Muse, Third Wednesday, Willow Review, and other journals.

Tag: observation (Page 1 of 2)

Wonder Makes Me More Alive

In the Same Foggy Outline

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

Sunflowers

It’s the Kind of Thing

On the Cusp of Spring

On Trust

The Great Bear

Snow

Reflection

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