Willawaw Journal Winter 2018 Issue 5

Zukunft Blick

Once-fat glaciers of the Eiger,
Monch, Jungfrau, soften and melt

like warm cheese, rot and slide
from the mountains’ dark bones.

Waterfalls foam and gush,
roar in torrents over the cliffs.

There is no more coldness
to staunch the hemorrhage.

Eiger, Monch, Jungfrau,
their ancient faces fall away.

So much white blood, pulsing
to the valley of the Lauterbrunnen.

Karen Jones is a teacher, poet, and life-long learner from Corvallis, Oregon. Some of her past work has appeared in Tower Poetry, River Poets Journal, Paperplates Magazine, and Willawaw Journal.

The Only Eternal

Once in the river delta where the current slows
to lazy ripples like fabric of a flag unfurling

in a soft breeze, in the pale blue morning before
the heat of the day, I crouched with bare feet gritty

to gold anklets, feet peopled with my father’s
stubby toes, held my clothing away from encroaching

tide, fingers finding a muddy handful of pebbles
and fish bones. A boy poled past in a skiff

like shelf of a whale breaching, his brother
laughing, draped over the prow, gathering sequin

droplets with the glee of one suddenly wealthy.
In the silence of the mountain, three monks labored

over piles of white river-washed rocks, marking
each with the sacred circle in red ink as sunset spilled

over the monastery wall in vermilion ribbons.
Leaving empty cloisters, their bare feet took

dusty paths, their stones scattered at the source.
I uncupped my hand. In my palm: one white stone,

two fish-shaped, the fourth a fragment of blue glass,
edge softened, a horizon calling me with steady fire.

Nancy Knowles teaches English and Writing at Eastern Oregon University in La Grande, OR. She has published poetry in Toyon; Eastern Oregon Anthology: A Sense of Place; Torches n’ Pitchforks; War, Literature, & the Arts; and Oregon East, Her poem “Sixth-Grade Homework” is available at War, Literature, & the Arts Journal

Dawn

Bud Lacy had a fly shop
in the front of his little house
just shy of where the fly water begins.
During the 50s, raising a daughter
on fish and stories,
he provided a regular stop on our way upriver.
My father and I would check out the flies
and see if any useful information drifted out.
Dawn and I were in high school
late 50s, early 60s.
Smartest kid in the school,
automatically a member
of the twelve person honor society.
I remember her discussing books
I’d never heard of with Mr. Drake.
She listened when I had something to say,
which wasn’t what I normally expected.
A full scholarship to a Portland college
and she was gone.
Later, I heard she’d gone to San Francisco
but little else.
Twenty years pass and so does Bud.
The following year I notice his house
changes from blue to pink
and there’s a sign out front,
PSYCHIC READINGS on a hand
with an eye in it.
I’m coming back from fishing
and see Dawn in the garden
beside the house picking tomatoes.
The next time I stop.
She’s reserved and I don’t stay,
but she says stop in again.
I do, and have a cup of tea.
There are herbs drying on strings
and a lot of books.
From what I gather, from her
and others, she rambled around,
was married to a history professor
and taught school herself,
that she was a person people would come to
for advice, so when her father died
she decided to come home.
I’ve heard of her splinting a broken leg
and others stopping with a problem
with a lover, or trying to figure
out what to do with a child.
I’ve seen her concentrate
by not concentrating,
staring through me
then offering tea.
One day I asked her why she came back
and she said, “You have to live somewhere,
and I like the way the light changes
in the canyon.”

Gary Lark’s recent work includes: River of Solace, Editor’s Choice Chapbook Award from Turtle Island Quarterly, Flowstone Press, 2016; In the House of Memory, BatCat Press, 2016; and Without a Map, Wellstone Press, 2013.

Delores Pollard’s talent for art was recognized by the age of six. She won first place at 18 in a city art show. At college she started a group of urban sketchers, discovering collage. In the seventies she co-founded the Woman’s Center, and created the Women’s Herstory Mural, now a historical landmark in Helena, Montana. Later, trained in preschool education, she painted murals. She rediscovered collage after she retired. This piece is part of her solo show at Pegasus Gallery in Corvallis, Oregon.

In View of the Fact That; Considering; Inasmuch As

perhaps she should have known
perhaps she did know
did not know precisely

perhaps she could have pieced
the clues, his constant tread-milling
cleaning up the house

putting his life in order
she would have guessed
did think it from his probable

cancer the tumors &
she was glad they were benign though
nightly she dreamt he died

did not tell him
not wanting to give voice
to Death

leaving her
the Steller’s Jay the cat brought in almost
but not quite alive

After the Eulogy

When all has been said, when we blow our noses, retire to the kitchen, remove plastic wrap, shove the proper serving utensils into steaming pans of mostaccioli and lasagna, cold cuts, cheese slices, potato salad, salad-salad, baked beans, fruit and veggie trays, ranch dressing, Rice Krispy treats, chocolate scotcheroos, cheese cakes, homemade cookies, when we’ve had our fill and are milling about or sitting down. Before we leave the church. When we are breathing again and functional. When a random guy in a black leather jacket puts his arm around me, tells me I am still hot, recalls my burnt orange Tornado, tells me the years have been kind, when he asks me if I’m happy. When I say yes. When he asks isn’t that your sister. When I say yes and she’s married. When he thinks about it and says …well don’t you have another. When I say yes and she is single … and she would surely love some company—though she does have dementia but she does recall the past vividly. When I still can’t conjure him / our past. A week later when I feel bad that perhaps I should have heard his story, when I contact a friend, she tells me how he shot his father a couple of years ago (non-fatal injuries) and he’s just hangin’ around but when pressed she recollects that at least he didn’t go to jail.

Widely published, Laura LeHew’s latest collections include: Buyer’s Remorse, Becoming, and Willingly Would I Burn. By day, LeHew owns a computer forensics consulting company. She co-hosts the reading series, Poetry for the People, in Eugene, Oregon, and edits/owns the small press, Uttered Chaos. (lauralehew.com).