Category: Issue 26.1

longer days… leaving winter behind a glove at a time

winter thaw a stream broadens my perspective

crossing into spring northside ice at the bridge  

first crocus ice breaking the Susquehanna  

river of mist a breath between mountains

mild spell – an exit hole in the molehill

nearing spring a little nest of a heart  

finding her name in a word search spring snow  

Taking the only thing she could to her grave family secrets  

meditation retreat… my day measured in breaths  

sunny spell the intoxicating scent of hyacinths  

fading beneath the fading cherry blossoms cherry blossom viewers  

old age daylight we can’t keep in the room    

old hands my shared ancestry with a leaf

there’s a certain marsh you know the one if I could return just once I would dream in colour again

sepia streetscape out of the blue a Jacaranda

mizzling rain the slow accumulation of tax forms  

plans forgotten old penny jar

faraway shores my lucky coin for the ferryman

adopted language finding a new family of gods  

painting his despair the red of a siren

smoke stars fading to fire

starling speckles . . . I find the stardust within me

canyon crow answering itself  

a porcine squeal from the microwave breakfast sausage  

small town waitress the slight sadness behind her smile  

clear down to its stony bottom Adirondack lake  

above all the beneathness earthworms

having seen enough already mayfly  

between leaf and sun the damselfly’s electric blue  

morning blush the sunset flames in the rosebuds

gone from us… a last bloom on her heirloom rose  

spring rain hearing my mother’s voice in the names of flowers  

no end to this grief. . . reheated tea  

funeral hymn time and again the same wave resurfacing

fading light . . . she takes off her bangles to play the guitar     (Originally appeared in Frogpond 48.2)

calm day the still wind chimes play a bit of Cage

jazz fest the morning after bass of a bullfrog

bluebells… the adagio of a honeybee

blue sky & then there’s the blues  

creek song a rainbow thrashing against sky sculling the undercurrent of conversation   (Tan renga written by Billie Dee and Lorraine Padden)    

Saturday night the same war on every channel

light snow an interpreter of crevices

blank sheet the last turn of the Zamboni  

deep freeze “We’re the ones that’ll kill you,” the furnace repair man looks me in the eye. “Sure, the plumber could flood your house, and the electrician could set your

halfpipe a snowboarder hangs above the void  

hard freeze the warmth of old journals in the fireplace  

autumn wind a streak of white in his daughter’s hair

autumn into winter further tests  

second opinion wild geese veer as one

healthcarefree spinning the syringe  

election crisis— the chess king hides behind the pawns  

fogbow turtle eggs near the tideline scattered and soaked

golden hour a gray whale swallows the sun