Tag: reflection (Page 1 of 7)

Infinity

1 January 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Jeanine Stevens

Here at the beginning of the year,
dinner of broiled scallops,
Sonoma Valley wine.

In twilight, Venus forever shy, wavering.
I sit in the redwood gazebo
goblet in hand

In my worn Uggs and infinity scarf
not allowed to go in just yet.
Faint starlight, orange slit of sun—
my hands folded.

A heavy presence, maybe a spirit,
even more than one, muscular
and brown, apart from the living.
Perhaps a thing unfinished,
still wanting.

And with intention
just this night, in the quiet
of late commuters I stay long
in the retreating hour.

Wind chimes hold zinnia’s dust,
each day alike, not exactly the same.

Jeanine Stevens has a number of poetry collections and award winning chapbooks. Poems have appeared in Rosebud, Poet Lore, Evansville Review, The McGuffin, Comstock Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Chiron Review, and Two Thirds North (Sweden), among many other publications. She is Professor Emerita at American River College.

Winter Grief

1 January 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Catherine Prentice

In the cold, bleak midwinter
Creeping mists descended
Holding her branches and twigs
In an ever tighter embrace
Restless life in twists and turns
Seized into waiting for rebirth
Could not lift spirits or comfort
Her beating heart, broken in place
The gnarled frame of love itself
So heavy, ready to give, to yield
There, touched by dark winds
Freezing her tears to her face

Catherine Prentice is an emerging writer who enjoys being an active member of The Alexandra Writers’ Centre Society in Calgary, Alberta. Originally from the UK, she moved to Canada with her family in 2007, where she trained, and works as a Registered Nurse. Catherine volunteers many hours with Calgary Wildlife rescue.

Kinds of Snow

1 January 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Ruth Zwald

and suddenly you are back in your grandmother’s tiny kitchen / she warms
fresh milk / stirring in sugar and cocoa powder / until it is smooth and rich

this kind of snow that travels through time

and then remembering snow where your sled won’t fly / too heavy / your
fingers frostbitten / it hurts so much as you begin to thaw out by the radiator

I know you know this kind of snow when life is cold and painful and stuck

and there is magic snow / just before Christmas kind of snow / when the moon
reflects the crystals / you want to watch all night to glimpse what might be

this kind of snow in the dark where anything is possible

and there’s the “I’m so glad I don’t have to drive anywhere” snow / where you
can spend a day in front of the fire / read a novel about other people’s lives

this kind of snow celebrates the quiet of your own life

and there are whole winters of sorrowful snow / layered and buried in the still /
whole winters of the digging out through memories / shovel by shovelful

this kind of snow that gifts you with time to wander

On her farm in West Michigan, Ruth Zwald lives close to the earth through her lifestyle and spiritual practices. Upon retirement, she started to unearth words. Winner of the Michigan Writers Cooperative Press in 2024 for her chapbook, Bones And Breath, and recently published in Farmer-ish Journal and The Guided Weathervane.

Photo by Richard Pasquarella on Unsplash

Back Then

1 January 2026 / Editor

Poetry by John Attanas

Back then
after January’s first wallop
I would venture out,
camera clutched
like a family heirloom,
to capture the drifts,
the overwhelmed shrubs,
the laden branches,
bending under the weight
of the watery white powder.
Back then
the cold didn’t
press on my heart,
tear at my cheeks.
I was one
with the silence
of the snow filled streets
certain that morning was
more beautiful than any
that had come before.

Now
I sit on a Florida patio
watching the waves
lap the sand
pull on a sweater
it’s barely 65.
Now
I walk the beach
one mile in each direction
imagine swimming to Portugal
then clean my toes
of sand and muck
before I head back
for lunch,
a nap,
and a half-hearted attempt
to put pen to paper
before the evening news.

John Attanas recently graduated from the MFA program at the City College of New York. He is 63 years old. His poetry has been published in Promethean, Mistake House, The Marbled Sigh, Steam Ticket, The RavensPerch, and Abandoned Mine.

First Snow, Final Page

30 December 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Amber Lethe

The year ends quietly –
a book settling into its spine.
Snow falls in soft punctuation marks,
periods on windowsills, commas on evergreens,
ellipses hanging in the hush of afternoon.

Inside, the kettle clicks a familiar prayer,
a small applause for warmth still here.
We hold our hands to the steam and remember:
the burns, the blessings, the almosts,
the moments we meant to speak but didn’t.

Outside, the world turns blank, crystalline, kind –
as if offering us a clean margin,
urging try again, try softer, try braver.
We turn the page with mittened fingers,
ink still drying on our names.

Amber Lethe is an emerging writer whose work blends intimacy, atmosphere, and quiet surrealism. She writes about memory, seasons, and the small rituals that shape us. When not writing, she plays Vivaldi on piano, knits imperfect scarves, and reads classic books with her pug, Sir Merlin, snoring at her feet.

Orange at Christmas

16 December 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Cecil Morris

The dwarf mandarin in the back yard is
so loaded with fruit it is more orange
than green, more fruit than tree, more and more,
an abundance beyond all eating
of our reduced family, children gone
to their own lives. We eat 8 or more
a day. We fill bags for neighbors right
and left and across the street, and still
fruit remains, grows soft, falls to the ground,
and rots, wasted. This lone tree presents
a bounty too great and makes me think of
“My Cup Runneth Over” and Ed Ames,
his rich baritone, and Psalm 23,
the goodness and mercy and plenty
and not the evil or shadow of death,
and my parents who told me oranges
were a luxury when they were young,
a treat, a Christmas gift and, some years,
the only gift. My parents, children
of the Great Depression, filled our lives
with gifts. On Christmas mornings before
we could play with anything, we had
to arrange all our gifts on our beds,
a display of how far they had come,
a proof of how they spoiled my sister
and me. When I see my mandarin tree,
its wealth of miniature oranges,
I see that embarrassment of riches.

Cecil Morris is a retired high school English teacher, sometime photographer, and casual walker. His first collection of poems, At Work in the Garden of Possibilities, came out from Main Street Rag in 2025. He has poems in The 2River View, Common Ground Review, Rust + Moth, Talking River Review, and elsewhere. He and his wife, mother of their children, divide their year between the cool Oregon coast and the hot Central Valley of 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.

In a Mirror Clearly Now

23 October 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Judith Yarrow

for my sister

Sometimes, looking in a mirror,
I turn my head just so and
I’m brushing my sister’s hair.
Her same movement.

Conversations that started
when she was born keep on and on.
Antiphonal chorus. Me. Her.
Mine. Hers. I can sing all the parts.

We circled each other until at last
who chased, who fled, who followed,
who led, I don’t even know.
The mirror says, see how alike you are.

That long ago push her pull me?
Just the place we started—no more
separate than fingers on a hand.
connected at the source.

Judith Yarrow been published in two chapbooks and various literary journals, most recently in Hedgerow, RavensPerch, and Medusa’s Kitchen. She was the featured poet in Edge: An International Journal, and her poems have been included in the Washington State Poet Laureates’ collections. Find more of her work at jyarrow.com.

Orb

1 September 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Ed Meek

If you too could extrude silk
From your body to weave
A net of fragile filaments
Like gossamer wings
Arranged in a pattern
Of encircled squares,
Strong enough to entrap
Your prey with the aid
Of goo. Would you sacrifice
Your two legs for eight
To hang your clever work of art
like a hammock
between the plants,
Immersed in a world
foreign to man?

Ed Meek‘s book of poems “Great Pond” comes out in 2026 with Kelsay Books. He has had poems recently in Amethyst, Humana Obscura, and The Baltimore Review.

Annual Accounting

1 August 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Sharon Scholl

I wake to find a ray of light
was stolen from the bank of night,
filched in some dark, furtive way
and added to the bank of day.

In due time, day will repent
and by December will have sent
every ray of pilfered light
back into the bank of night.

Sharon Scholl is a retired college teacher who convenes a poetry critique group and maintains a website of original music compositions free for small, liberal churches. Her poetry collections Seasons, Remains, Evensong, and Classifieds are available via Amazon Books. Poems are current in Rattle and RedRoseThorns.

Tag: reflection (Page 1 of 7)

Infinity

Winter Grief

Kinds of Snow

Back Then

First Snow, Final Page

Orange at Christmas

Reflection

In a Mirror Clearly Now

Orb

Annual Accounting

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