Journal

Cluxewe

Late October, the rains come, just
as the maples turn yellow, the alders brown.
The creek swells, deepens its voice,
an adolescent river, testing its tumultuous
pubescence against rocks that yesterday
stood well away. Where the tide eddies,
crimson salmon churn in the
pebbled scent of home.

Dawn eases out of night; mist hardly
distinguishes from cloud or forest’s edge.
Raindrops pock the water, ripple out.
A tethered fly whips out and back,
lights gently upstream and drifts back
on limp line, dragging silence.
Gulls cry famine, and across the stream
a small black bear sniffs a new rendition
of the ancient dance of water, fish and riverbed.

Time stretches, languorous like a cat.
Over its shoulder the rain has always
sung the salmon home. Someone stands
here always on the sandy bank to welcome them.
The bear will always push through salal
because winter comes and the berries will be gone.
The gulls cry again and there is only now.

 

Hugh Anderson lives on Vancouver Island in the unceded territory of the Snaw-naw-as people.  He has grandchildren and thus the world gives him both dreams and nightmares. Recent publications include Vallum, Right Hand Pointing, Praxis Magazine Online, Panoplyzine and 3elements review.  He has one Pushcart Prize nomination.

Unforseeable

–Remember that one grain of grit can ruin
 a whole dish—Katherine Anne Porter

Sometimes an otherwise fine Greek
meal will have grit in the spinach.
Your plate overflows with pan-fried perch,
sautéed baby portabella mushrooms, rice and spinach,
when you comment, “My, this spinach is gritty.”
Your lover, the cook, will rest his hand on the table
and glare at you long after you eat

the spinach and your words.
Sometimes an oak limb will suddenly
break, crushing a car or jogger one dry
summer’s day. Once, a limb crashed through
a bedroom window, killing a mother and
her toddler, who’d run to her bed
frightened by the storm. Once a limb crushed
a jogger, who lived to become a paraplegic

governor. Sometimes a green hummingbird will hover
inches in front of your nose more than one morning
when you are quietly reading in the garden.
And you will imagine it’s your recently
dead mother greeting you, showing off,
checking in. Just like she’s the mourning dove
perched on the eave, cooing
at daybreak. You see her everywhere

saying, take joy in being alive, love the grit.
Somewhere a dog is barking. A small dog
with the kind of bark that hurts your ears.
Two hummingbirds settle in a high vitex
branch, then fly off, looking for nectar, cheeping
in short, high-pitched chirps that sound like toy
ratchets. As usual, doves sit on the telephone
lines. Once I found a hummingbird nest lying
on the ground. Inside were tiny eggs
I mourned.

 

Susan Ayres is a poet, lawyer, and translator.  She holds an MFA in Creative Writing with a Concentration in Translation from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a PhD in Literature from Texas Christian University.  Her work has appeared in Sycamore Review, Cimarron Review, and elsewhere.  She lives in Fort Worth and teaches at Texas A&M University School of Law.

The Owl Counter

–for Jim Holyan

The owl counter walks the forest edge,
his silent boots slide from stump to stump.
He has a plot of land he hopes to count
and sits upon a stub at dusk to blend in.
He hoots and whistles like his prey and notes
the owl’s calls and jots them down.

He’s done this all his life, he looks the part.
His nose the beak, his eyebrows grand as tufts.
He’s stealthy walking when he hunts and sees
quite well at night. This counter seeks the peace
of stars and owl eyes that blink afar.
He tilts his head, looks high above to see
the blinking lights on hidden limbs and trunks
that give away the raptor’s resting perch.

The night is long, eyelids get heavy.
An eerie screech disturbs the silence, brings
the counter back from sleep. His dreams were simple,
all his life, his pulse was steady, shy but true.
He likes the work, avoids the crowds, and spends
his time in solitude, with parliaments
of birds that breathe in solo night like him.

 

Frank Babcock lives in Corvallis, Oregon and is a retired Albany middle school teacher and owner of a bamboo nursery. He writes poetry to share the strange thoughts that rattle around in his head and to get them off his mind. He started with an interest in the beatnik poets, Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg.  He has a long way to go and much to write before he sleeps.

Winter Fog in High Desert

Frigid foggy fingers creep in moonlight.
Tendrils coalesce, enshroud, then tatter,
Spreading through the silent, frozen night,
Sucking warmth from those of fur and feather.

Pogonip they call it; know its menace.
Bitter death in white will take the careless.

Drifting ‘round the formless clumps of trees,
Twining ‘tween their ghostly twisted trunks,
Winter barren, floating on a sea
Of mist, like ancient, aimless junks.

Icy wisps retreat from morning sunlight
Leaving crystal gems to sparkle bright.

 

Nan C Ballard is a poet and novelist who made her home in the high deserts of the western US before resettling in the greener pastures of the Willamette Valley. She has published one science fiction cowboy novel titled Carico Trails, and its sequel is expected out in spring of 2021.  Her poetry reflects her interests in the natural world, rural life, and family history.