Tag: river

blue herons

1 September 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Rose Brightree

this river is scented by its mother
the sea
salt water running upstream
coming to meet it halfway

out of this reunion arise
two blue herons
wearing the sky
on loosened wings

legs floating in midair
like a dancer’s
orange-lily beaks lifted
to the rising sun
gamboge eyes that see the way
light does touching what cannot be touched
any other way the tips of mountains
flight of water that is a
cloud

and as they raise themselves
to the high winds that will
carry them
as their bodies join the far-flung distance unfurling
its wide blue wings
i know they continue to teach me
how to live

Rose Brightree is a poet, artist, classical musician, and passionate nature lover and supporter. Her poetry has appeared in Room Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, Sistersong: Women Across Cultures, Other Voices, the anthologies Revelation and Winners’ Circle (Canadian Authors Association), and in other print and online publications.

The River God’s Daughter

1 November 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Angela Patten

Here I am on the river again
gliding my kayak past a row of turtles

their shells gleaming in the sun
like freshly washed dinner plates.

I turn to see a muskrat’s muzzle
parting the water like a butterknife.

Around a bend a heron stands
knee-deep in weeds and water

like my father in black rubber
boots fishing on the River Boyne.

Although he loved rivers and streams,
he hated the sea with equal fervor

distrusting its relentless waves
its monotonous unremitting motion.

But back to the heron and the mystery
of that bony beak, that frozen pose

that alien cranium with its opaque eye
the shriek and fluster of its wings

as it takes off creaking into the air
like an early flying machine.

Unlike my father, I loved the sea
and the cold consecration of salt water.

But now I am a convert to the river
that flows through marsh and mudflat

town and village, state and country
the wayward weather its only god.

Angela Patten is an award-winning Irish poet, author of five poetry collections and a prose memoir. Her work has appeared in literary journals and magazines in the U.S. and abroad. A native of Dublin, Ireland, she is a Senior Lecturer Emerita in English at the University of Vermont. Read more at www.carraigbinn.com.

Like a Tree Planted by the River

1 August 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Rochelle Shapiro

As if summoned by a dream to this bench
along the Mohawk where cherry trees weep
pink and white blossoms that spill into the river,
I hear a congregation of birds:
an oriole whistles and chatters,
a blue jay performs its whispery song.
Hidden among the reeds, a bittern
thrums its low heartbeat like words
that take shape as if spoken before.

This is my cathedral:
a roof of sky, a river edged with sedge,
the swordlike veined leaves of Sweet
Flag, the white bell-shaped flowers
that dangle from the arcing vines
of King Solomon’s Seal,
and the Fiddlehead Fern
that curls like my granddaughter’s hair.

[Author Note: Poem title from Psalm 1:3]

Rochelle Jewel Shapiro has published in The New York Times (Lives). Nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, her short stories and poetry have been published in Prism, The MacGuffin, Euphony, The Iowa Review, The Atlanta Review, and more. Find her at http://rochellejshapiro.com, @rjshapiro, and @rochelle.j.shapiro.

Tag: river

blue herons

The River God’s Daughter

Like a Tree Planted by the River

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