Avowed Love

by Lisa Fields

Today,

moving through the conifers

vanilla-maple ponderosa

wafts faintly,

bereft of sun warmth

My legs revel in motion

eyes feast on sky,

leaves,

shapes of rocks, their colors

I watch the dogs,

experiencing this place

through scent

filtered uniquely

through moist, leather-button noses

sifting the air

as they float on agile

stick legs

the expanse of this time

so different 

for their senses

our tie of

avowed love

draws us

into shared

delight

* * * * *

Lisa Fields is a contract agricultural journalist for Professor Quirine Ketterings, and occasionally others at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.

YIN

by Charles Rossiter

When I am a woman

I move down the street just so

I am aware of my body

and all the parts

fit together just so

the hair on my neck

is like a warm breath

when I am a woman

the light is longer for me

waiting to cross the street

I see the way cars slow down

when I am a woman

the first step out the door

is a double dutch dare

I am prepared to back up

I am determined

when I am a woman

I listen to the night

my sisters and I

look to the sky

my six senses work overtime

when I am a woman

I become dark

and move more slowly

I stay near water

there is music in my head

you might not know

I'm singing

* * * * *

"Yin" was first published in Paterson Literary Review.

Charles Rossiter, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Recipient, hosts the twice- monthly podcast series at www.PoetrySpokenHere.com. His work has been featured on NPR’s “Poet and the Poem” and he’s taught and led workshops at literary festivals, senior centers, community organizations, libraries, prisons and schools throughout the Eastern and Midwestern U.S. During the 1990s he produced and hosted Poetry Motel, a cable television program seen on community access stations around the Northeast. His recent books include: All Over America: Road Poems; Winter Poems; Cold Mountain 2000: Han Shan in the City and Lakeside Poems.

Along the Shore

by Holly Day

We walk hand in hand between the concrete pilings, mindful

Of broken beer bottles and the occasional raccoon-gnawed dead fish.

She squeals as we step into the water, lets go of my hand

To chase after the tiny silver fry darting away from her shadow.

Just a few feet away from us, the sand slopes sharply

Into a pocket of darkness. I point out the deep blue shadows

Of danger just ahead of us, warn her to stay close, stay right by me.

She asks me if there are monsters in those depths

Some great river snake coiled at the bottom of the murky sinkhole

Giant sturgeons slumbering beyond the fishermen’s reach.

She asks about these things in such hushed, reverent tones,

That I am aglow with delight at this tiny glimpse

Of the world inside my daughter’s head.

* * * * *

Holly Day has taught writing classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, since 2000. Her poetry has recently appeared in Big Muddy, The Cape Rock, New Ohio Review, and Gargoyle, and her published books include Walking Twin Cities, Music Theory for Dummies, Ugly Girl, and The Yellow Dot of a Daisy. She has been a featured presenter at Write On, Door County (WI), North Coast Redwoods Writers' Conference (CA), and the Spirit Lake Poetry Series (MN). Her newest poetry collections, A Perfect Day for Semaphore (Finishing Line Press) and I'm in a Place Where Reason Went Missing (Main Street Rag Publishing Co.) will be out late 2018.

Out of Reach

by Holly Day

the hand comes down

and pushes me down

and reminds me

that the wings that keep

trying to break through my skin

are not

to be trusted, that wings

are not for me. I let the hand

tear out

the feathers, the sinew

the brave new appendages

that would allow me to fly away

let the hand carefully bind

my broken skin

my bloodied back

in bandages that keep

new feathers from sprouting,

new wings from unfurling

overnight.

* * * * *

Holly Day has taught writing classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, since 2000. Her poetry has recently appeared in Big Muddy, The Cape Rock, New Ohio Review, and Gargoyle, and her published books include Walking Twin Cities, Music Theory for Dummies, Ugly Girl, and The Yellow Dot of a Daisy. She has been a featured presenter at Write On, Door County (WI), North Coast Redwoods Writers' Conference (CA), and the Spirit Lake Poetry Series (MN). Her newest poetry collections, A Perfect Day for Semaphore (Finishing Line Press) and I'm in a Place Where Reason Went Missing (Main Street Rag Publishing Co.) will be out late 2018.

RITES OF PASSAGE

by Marguerite Guzmán Bouvard

Positions call out to us as if there were

ladders in our daily lives, and to reach

the upper rungs often means

listening to a person in order to use

her thoughts, but the thoughts keep rising

in that person like a spring

in the midst of a meadow. This is one

of the constant stories of our lives,

either to become prominent

and celebrated, or to turn away

from ladders to see roses

blooming on fences, how miniature

wild flowers rise from the cracks

of an asphalt road, to listen to the water

cascading over centuries

of serrated rocks that place us

in the center of creation, a monarch butterfly

alighting on a blade of grass,

for in the vast expanse

of the universe, enmity pales

and we are all just blades of grass.

* * * * *

Marguerite Guzmán  Bouvard is the author of 9 poetry books two of which have won awards, as well as a number of non-fiction books on women and human rights, (Revolutionizing Motherhood; the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo) human rights, social justice, illness and grief. She is a former professor of Political Science and Poetry, and currently a Visiting Scholar at the Environmental Studies Program Brandeis U. 

THE MUSIC OF OUR DAILY LIVES

by Marguerite Guzmán Bouvard

The leaves on the birch tree

are singing in the wind, a melody

with its own rise and fall of notes,

and in the distance a child's voice at play

reminds us to live in the moment.

There are so many different melodies

in our lives, the lies that are tailored

to divert attention and turn our minds

to smoke, with right and wrong

continually changing their notes,

without any transparency of words

in speeches. There are so many different

melodies in our lives, a mother's reassuring,

voice, the harsh words that wound us,

for we all carry wounds, like the Somali boy

who was threatened with deportation

and trekked for days to Canada, carrying

the voices of his parents who were

slaughtered in Somali, his fatigue making him

collapse on the frozen ground,

until a Canadian border guard lifted him

up in his arms, and assured him that he could stay

-- the music in the cosmos of our hearts,

that uplifts us, and cannot be silenced.

* * * * *

Marguerite Guzmán Bouvard is the author of 9 poetry books two of which have won awards, as well as a number of non-fiction books on women and human rights, (Revolutionizing Motherhood; the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo) human rights, social justice, illness and grief. She is a former professor of Political Science and Poetry, and currently a Visiting Scholar at the Environmental Studies Program Brandeis U. 

Happy day after the full moon. This month there is a second Moon Prize. The twenty-first Moon Prize goes to Marty Eberhardt's poem "Bluestorm," posted on Writing In A Woman's Voice on March 14, 2018. A powerful poem about being caught in our compromised world.

Bluestorm

by Marty Eberhardt

It’s not rain, it’s

Hail

Pummeling the junipers,

And now the berries

Fly across my path.

Icy-blue berries and

Hailstones;

Which is which?

Both make me stumble.

Both glow

In the thunderous light

Of late summer gone rogue.

The balls land loud

On my nylon hood,

Bounce off my ungloved hands

Seed cones and ice, together:

They catch a little light

From the sun

As it jockeys for space

With the clouds

Racing together

To capture the sky.

A berry under a pinyon

Is bluest of all;

Impossibly blue.

It’s plastic.

I pocket it.

I could

Bemoan the desecration

Of this wild and chilly moment;

Denounce the oil

That beckons a child

With bright blue beads

That do not melt

Or grow into fine old trees.

I could

Despair

That my grandchildren

Will find more beads than berries

In their wild walks.

I could

And I’ve a good mind to.

Or I could

Feel thunder rumble my feet

Smell the sharp crack

Of lightning closer

Than I expected.

I will

Run through the blue seedstorm,

The hailwind.

Through the shaking shrubs,

The spinning leaves.

A moment ago,

I pondered

With oh-so-human logic.

Now, like a bird

Diving for the deep branches,

Like a leaf carried

Rock to rock

Down the arroyo,

I am

Routed by rain.

* * * * *

 “Bluestorm” was first published in The Wilderness House Literary Review.