Where it Began / Michelle Frost
The plane descends through a small puff
one white cloud blue sea of sky
I walk across tarmac to this terminal where I have departed and arrived since 1977
Flying in over cornfields farms and streams Autumn's golden shelterbelts of trees
My uncle's nickname for me 'shelterbelt'
Tomorrow I will lunch with cousins
I am here in my hometown on the Plains
Not a toddler or teen but six decades deep
Ancient memories will emerge this week
New memories will weave into time mine
A dear friend fellow bookseller has died
found sitting with a book in her lap
The news shocking as it is each loss
reminds me Care deeply Live today
Joni Mitchell just turned 83 I was 6 when I
saw her on TV 1960s her singing of clouds golden hair golden dress glowing guitar
so clear I remember it still heartfelt timeless I was 8 when Mrs. Shurtz began nudging me
My poems in a tiny locking diary from mom
They knew what I needed indeed loved
And yet I really don't know clouds at all
Forgiveness / David Hadbawnik
The workers in Lund’s are talking
about having to cover shifts on
Friday, Saturday, Sunday
“Now we have to cover shifts
on Friday, Saturday, Sunday”
one says to another
A woman in stretch pants tilts
a bouquet upside-down to check
that it’s not leaking through its wrapper
“The one in the front?”
says the woman behind
the deli counter; “The one
in the front,” the man answers.
“I was going to get that one
over there.” Earlier today
we worked on haiku, I
and the middle school kids,
clapping to count syllables:
You wanted to own it—
you couldn’t – so what is it
you’re bringing home?
A man and a woman talking
with such bright cheer it must be
a job interview
Feeling myself melt
from the waist down,
turning into something else
each ripple a link
in a chain delicately forged – forgiveness
trailing off into silence
untitled / Alexander Shalom Joseph
in a speech by a Hopi elder
recorded not long ago
we were told to know our water
and I used to think I did
for looking up at
the snow covered mountains
from my backyard
I could imagine
the slow melt
being what fed the pipes
but now there is no snow
up there beyond the city
10,000 year old glaciers
are shrinking to nothing
and I no longer know
where my water comes from
for it does not rain
and it barely snows
and yet my neighbor
in november waters his lawn
while another sprays off his car
maybe for those
who live in the east
all this talk of water
seems overblown
but here in the dried out west
every time I run my tap
it hurts
Juniper, Thoreau / Sally Kuzma
Pour me a gin, I remember her saying,
to ease into evening conversation,
and mute the seething nerve
down her leg.
I remember its scent and its source,
a dark berry on a low shrub. Juniper
was common in Thoreau’s territory
but shows up mostly in Cape Cod walks,
four instances:
the first a reference to gin-spiked ale,
half a stoppered bottle of it
which still smacked of juniper
found in shipwrecked debris,
relic of a rowdier world;
elsewhere juniper sits in the constellation
of oaks, pines, sassafras and other sweet woods–
its scent well known to settlers,
a welcoming, familiar medicine.
untitled / Rachel Lee
You were never a victim
Just lost in your thoughts
A big dreamer
But maybe that's what caused you to get lost
So many attempted chances to do right
Never saw the gold, so you gave up the fight
Now you're killing yourself
Is this all out of spite?
To get back at your 'caregivers' cause they never showed you the light?
Well, I'm telling you now kid
You're walking on a tight-rope
Laying on the train tracks wishing you'd find hope
When all you feel is fear
Locked inside your head hoping death will find you there
Hold back another tear
It's mental warfare and it never goes away
You are your biggest enemy
But who you gonna blame?
Mom, Dad, that bitch that drove you insane?
I'm only writing this for you because I feel your pain
There's a fire inside of us and it's here to stay
My little brother is gone, no more love to convey
My best friend is missing, cry and call it a day
You have to act tough to hide that you never grew up
Keep rolling them dice
You'll never find luck
I played the game too
You're just gonna get stuck
Don't forget your niece and nephew
They still need their Unc
Life's a never-ending struggle
It never get's easier
Good and bad
Just learn how to juggle
I hope you comprehend the words that I'm writing
Get over the 'trap life' and don't be such a liar
All I'm asking of you is to start fighting
Because you're not a victim
Stella Rossa / Lincoln McElwee
The doctor said, stop drinking, but that’s like telling a bird it can’t fly. Don’t tell the bird. Show it the broken wing: the abnormal test results, the enzyme spikes, the fatty liver scare. Make a scene. But it will still try, won’t it? Be there then when it falls. Show it from how high. When your birthday rolled around, I wanted to honor you. I looked for a libation. I went to Total Wine to find non-alcoholic Stella Rossa. Stella Rossa Black, it was labeled, and I thought you’d find that funny. I bought a bottle and drank the whole thing. When I told my sister that I found a non-alcoholic version of your favorite wine, she too wanted to honor you. But when we went to the store, it was nowhere to be found. I felt for a moment like I’d made things up. Like I was so deep in grief that I only imagined the wine. In the absence of libation, what do we offer the dead? A life for a life. Here, now, in a state different from your resting place, I look at the shelf of wine I barely drink. I think of you and pour the wine out.
Attempt at a eulogy for my cat who left today / Michelle Stoll
Smokey Joe Churchill
9 years and 10 months
appeared from beneath the neighbors' flat-tired Neon
in Waynesboro, Virginia
One of a feral colony
determined to find
a better life, he was
sheepish, silly, always
looking for a lap to fill
with grateful purrs,
furniture to cover
with cottony gray hair
From 6 pounds to 18,
then 8 at the end
but a never-small heart
His love of treats made
sitting still for insulin shots
easy, his gratitude for chin rubs
unsurpassed, abundant head- bumps given freely in return
His leaving is a wench
hooked around my sternum, pulling ribs from muscles
opening the cage of me
to prove my heart still beats
How dare it
Sweet.
I know everyone says this
about the animals they love,
but every last person
in the clinic circled my boy,
stroked his bony sides, wept,
said goodbye
Beloved beloved beloved
