Tag: reflection (Page 4 of 7)

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Longing for a Close Family

2 December 2023 / Editor

Nonfiction by Sherri Wright

In little boxes I see living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms and a lovely turquoise pool. Spread out over six states all eight siblings’ faces appear on my Zoom screen. I see white hair, wrinkled faces, sagging necks, thick rimmed bifocals. We have all aged precipitously since our parents’ memorial two years ago.

In my memory I see us young and laughing, amid a sea of Christmas gifts and children, Mom cooking, and Dad shooting grainy 8mm movies.

As young adults we did everything together. Wilderness camping — my older brother rigging ropes and pulleys to hoist food packs in trees away from the bears. Being a bridesmaid in my younger brother’s wedding. My sister and I taking our daughters to Hawaii when neither of us could afford it. Driving to Florida with my youngest brother and our kids through a snowstorm the winter after our divorces. Playing soccer and running a marathon with another sister. My siblings were my best friends.

My youngest sister announces brightly that she just had a COVID vaccine and asks if everyone else has. Moving screen to screen everyone nods yes. A granddaughter in Alabama had a mild case, another in Colorado is recovering. Florida brother asks, “So you all listen to the news and believe that crap about masks?” Minnesota sister cuts in abruptly to describe her beach vacation with her daughters and grandkids. No more talk of COVID.

I ask about a niece who lives in Brooklyn Center where protests continue after the shooting of a young Black man. Her dad is terse. “She lives far from that police station. She’s safe.” I say, “Oh good, I’m glad.” Nothing more. No mention of Black Lives Matter although we grew up in Minnesota where it all began.

Arizona brother sold his Arabian horses since he and his wife can no longer ride. Minnesota sister’s weight has stabilized and anti rejection drugs have been decreased since her heart replacement. As her face appears in the large center screen I see how thin she is. Utah sister makes us laugh. Her daughter in NYC adopted a cat because her apartment has mice. We smile when a curly black puppy crawls over Minnesota brother’s shoulder. We ooh and ah at old oil portraits of Mom and Dad on New York sister’s wall and remember them hanging over the fireplace at our parents’ house. The fireplace of so many Christmas Eves.

For a moment I feel a warmth that used to be so easy.

We long for that close family but none of us will dip below the surface. Over the years we’ve learned where the sharp edges are. Who veers right, who veers left, and who wants no conflict. Eight individuals raised under one roof by the same parents, we know how divergent our beliefs, how passionate our politics. How fragile the connection. So we tiptoe around the hearth, drop a few twigs and dry grasses on the ash and dart quickly away. No one wants to spark the fire.

Sherri Wright is a member of the Rehoboth Beach Writers Guild and the Key West Poetry Guild. Her work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, Dreamer’s Creative Writing, Persimmon Tree, Ocotillo Review, Delaware Beach Life, Raven’s Perch, and Quartet. Read earlier work in The Bluebird Word.

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.

Letter to an Estranged Father

3 October 2023 / Editor

Nonfiction by Angela Kasumova

Recently, on my way to visit a friend, I drove by Kitty’s Restaurant and Lounge in North Reading. Do you remember the time we went there? It was a Saturday, late summer, either in ‘94 or ‘95, and we’d come from Lawrence where we picked up my school uniform. We stopped by Kitty’s for lunch on the way home. It was a throwback spot: dim lighting, torn booths, cigarette smoke. The bathroom was all red tile and red vinyl and red toilets, like something from a horror movie.

We waited a long time for the food to arrive, and when it did, I remember giggling as I looked down at the brownish steak tip gristle sitting in oil placed in front of me. I don’t remember what you or Mom had, but neither was good. It was one of the worst meals we’d ever had. Comically bad.

I think we left without paying.

Despite the badness of the restaurant this memory is a happy one. We laughed and smiled in unity over the awfulness that was Kitty’s.

Not a day goes by where I don’t think about the tragic outcome of our family, my mind filling with “whys” and “what ifs” and “if onlys.” Lately though, I’ve begun widening the lens, allowing a little more light in.

Turns out we had our good moments, like bonding over bad meals.

Angela Kasumova is an emerging writer of creative nonfiction with over a decade of experience working in the fields of mental health and education. She lives with her husband and sons near Boston, Massachusetts. Read her first published piece on The Bluebird Word from June 2023: For Sale: Kawai Upright Piano, $1,250.

silhouette photography of trees near water — Photo by Blaque X on Pexels.com

Fall Sun

12 August 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Sharon Scholl

rises reluctantly through ground mist,
travels on the fringe of the horizon,
sinks into a cloak of early dusk.

I find the last of it in a tiny pool
and savor its remains reduced
from August lake to dim reflection.

Leaves enough remain to catch its light
and send their shadows dancing
with a scatter of dry weeds.

Lingering squashes dangle on shrinking
vines while single pumpkins sit deserted
in a field of empty furrows.

This is the season of farewells
to spring wonders worn and drab,
to the past that fades in memory.

Sharon Scholl is a retired college professor (humanities) who convenes a poetry critique group and maintains a website (freeprintmusic.com) that donates music to small, liberal churches. Her poetry chapbooks, Seasons, Remains, Evensong, are available via Amazon Books. Her poems are current in Third Wednesday and Panoplyzine.

Some Days

22 July 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Carole Greenfield

Some days it feels like I will never be free from dread,
never escape the darkness, always be lugging those bushels
of rocks, the weight I drag behind me.

Some days it feels like I will never have time to say thank you,
never have heart to share love, never know grace to let go.

Some days it feels like I am trudging through a swamp
filled with skunk cabbage and quacking of frogs
and when I stop to listen I know their voices
are pure silver, a chorus of answers and questions.

Some days I remember all I need is to stand still
and let the quiet rain of their chirps, squeaks and creaks,
the half-notes of their small hearts fall into and over and through me.

Carole Greenfield grew up in Colombia and lives in New England. Her work has appeared in such places as Amethyst Review, Humana Obscura and The Plenitudes. Read her poem “Trace Fossils” published in The Bluebird Word in October 2022.

piano keys — Photo by Andrik Langfield on Unsplash

For Sale: Kawai Upright Piano, $1,250

12 June 2023 / Editor

Nonfiction by Angela Kasumova

Available now! A Kawai Upright Piano, in excellent condition, beautiful walnut finish. Purchased new eight years ago by a father for his daughter. She’d been taking lessons for six years and practicing on a broken, hand-me-down piano, but when her father started having an affair, new things suddenly materialized. Like a computer, to replace the typewriter she struggled to write school papers on, and then a few months later, the piano. The daughter treasured this piano, its timely arrival allowing her to finally take pleasure in playing her most practiced and favorite pieces: Daydream by Tchaikovsky and To a Wild Rose by Edward MacDowell. And though she only played it for a year or so before she stopped lessons, it was the one thing she absolutely had to bring with her when she and her mother eventually fled. It moved with her from her semi-rural childhood house to an urban apartment, and finally to the condo her mother purchased upon her divorce, where it resides now. It’s been gently used these past few years to play Christmas songs or figure out melodies the daughter and her boyfriend enjoy, like Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, which is much harder than it sounds. It breaks this daughter’s heart to be selling this lovely instrument, but she needs extra money to pay for student health insurance, and this is the only item of value she owns. She doesn’t know how much she’ll miss this piano or how much she’ll regret letting it go. She doesn’t know how she’ll wish she’d found another way. Financial worries and unprocessed grief cloud her vision, but perhaps her loss may be your gain. See above: excellent condition, beautiful walnut finish.

Serious buyers only, please.

Angela Kasumova is a lifelong writer and reader with over a decade of experience working in the fields of mental health and education. She lives with her husband and sons near Boston, Massachusetts.

Winter, Snow

28 May 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Luke Nadeau

I am a child of the North,
At the first signs of fall,
It’s like a switch flips,
I’m eager

And by the time those soft, white flakes fall to the ground,
My heart grows tenfold

My skin readily turns pink in that winter chill,
Curious,
That my face should flush the color of spring buds.
When the warmth of longer days is long forgotten,

I recall playing in the snow as a kid,
Making snow angels, snow men,
Doing cartwheels in the snow in my bathing suit,
Then jumping right back into my friend’s hot tub,

But somehow,
In the theater of my mind,
I am not cold

My chest, rather, is warm,
I find solace in these snippets of my past,
Where the biting chill of winter cannot reach me

I wrap myself in the coat of my memories,
Let the scarf of tethered dreams wrap around me,
Keep me safe

With any luck,
I shall never freeze

Luke Nadeau is a student studying Creative Writing at Anoka-Ramsey Community College living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. When they aren’t putting pen to paper, or hands to keyboard, they are trying desperately to find their next big CD.

assorted color stained glass window — Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I learned self-destruction from a cartoon

23 April 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Esther Sadoff

All morning, sweat springs from Arnold’s brow
as he awaits the beatdown at the end of the day:

a pummeling between him and a huge kid
and everyone knows who’s going to win.

I’ve been lowered a few rungs by self-deprecation.
Folded myself into impressive origami-smallness.

I’ve thrown in the towel, waved a white flag, and run
for the hills but in this episode of Hey Arnold!,

Arnold actually starts to hit himself in the school yard,
a dizzying kaleidoscope of faces spinning round,

but what stands out most are their egg-shaped
eyes vacant and hungry for action.

Arnold gives himself such an insane beating
that he scares the bully into submission.

I’d like to think of myself exactly like that:
two sides of the mirror fighting each other,

a reflection that won’t quit, myself standing over
(or under) my other self and declaring it some kind of win.

Esther Sadoff is a teacher and writer from Columbus, Ohio. Her poems have been featured or are forthcoming in Little Patuxent Review, Jet Fuel Review, Cathexis Poetry Northwest, Pidgeonholes, Santa Clara Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, among others.

Feather Meme

10 February 2023 / Editor

Special Selection for One-year anniversary issue

Poetry by Marianne Brems

Hikers before me have left feathers
stuck in the cracks of a wooden trail marker
at a junction.
Small feathers with downy barbs
flutter in the fall breeze
where delicate shafts may not hold.
Large feathers with curled edges
and sturdier shafts sit deep and solid.

As memes they stand
to carry the import of one road taken,
not another,
on this day, not that.
This small family of Kilroy was Here
gather in good company
to speak to a public not yet come,
inviting them to leave their own mark
across a waiting space.

Marianne Brems is the author of three poetry chapbooks from Finishing Line Press. The most recent, In Its Own Time, is forthcoming in 2023. Her poems have also appeared in literary journals including Nightingale & Sparrow, The Sunlight Press, The Lake, and Green Ink Poetry. Website: www.mariannebrems.com.