Children at Descanso Gardens

                                                                        by Pauli Dutton


explain to their moms and dads
what the sun means.
Why it shines and why it goes away.
So the flowers can grow,
and we will sleep better. 
Parents bend to listen. 
Yes, yes, they say again and again.

They race to the duck pond,
giggle when the mallards splash,
laugh when they somersault 
with webbed feet wobbling in the air,
then glide across the blue green water
like experienced boatmen showing off.

When I die, I wonder if will I return as a loved child?
Will I have a mother who listens patiently to me?
I listened to my daughter. Her every word,
her little voice, sounds of her clapping, skipping,
bouncing on our bed made my heart sing.
I sang to her and she sang to me.
We still sing like children unashamed.

If I sang my poems would they sing around the earth?
If I laughed my poems would they make bellies giggle
across the world? Can I live as a child now?
Laugh with the dishes, sing with the broom,
and dance with the laundry?

Sundays my daughter skypes from Scotland.
I watch her six-year-old and four-year-old boys
run about the house in their superhero capes,
fall, laughing into their Lego houses,
roar their Hot Wheels and Thomas trains,
wear tortillas on their faces. The baby yawns,
and I know there is nothing more remarkable,
phenomenal, more luscious than this.

Except maybe hugging,
Will I ever get to hug them again?


* * * * *

Pauli Dutton has been published in Verse Virtual, Altadena Poetry Review, Spectrum, Skylark, Mudpuppy, Imaginary Landscapes, and elsewhere. She was a librarian for forty years, where she founded, coordinated and led a public reading series from 2003 through 2014. She served on the Selection Committees for The Altadena Literary Review 2020 and the Altadena Poetry Review from 2015 - 2019. She co-edited the 2017 and 2018 editions. Pauli holds an MLS from University of Southern California. 

MOON OVER NINOMIYA BEACH*

by Emily Black


I look deeply at a Japanese woodblock print,
and almost become the small figure standing
on shore surrounded by frothy sea foam.
A graceful evergreen perched on a craggy
cliff bends its boughs in prayer over a curving
coastline far below. Clouds in the night sky
appear to be tangible like spun sugar.
 
I don’t know where I must have seen this print
before, but every aspect of it rings in my soul
like a bell that tolls to call me into that world.
I must have been a painter or a photographer in a
past life. I see things as though a frame encompasses
my view and gives me a unique perspective, a place
to focus. I sink into the viscous texture of this print.
 
A full moon over low, striated clouds illuminates their
ghostly presence and turns the sea’s horizon silver. A
solitary figure, in silhouette, walks along a sage-green
shore, embraced by heaven and earth, kissed by moonlight.


* * * * *

*Here is a link to a print of MOON OVER NINOMIYA BEACH.

Emily Black, the second woman to graduate from the University of Florida in Civil Engineering, engaged in a long engineering career as the only woman in a sea of men. Lately she’s been busy writing vignettes of her life and has two poems in the March issue of Verse-Virtual and more to be printed in the June issue of Door is A Jar and the October issue of Sac Magazine. Emily was selected as Poet of the Week by Poetry Super Highway for the week of March 22-28, 2021.

A MEMORY OF CROWS

by Emily Black

 
I feel dizzy from looking at leafy shadows
falling on an open notebook where I sit
in my garden. Spring has truly come at last
after a hard winter of isolation.
 
Birds seem happier than usual or maybe
I am hearing them with new ears. I watch
robins bounce around like happy children,
jays squawk and fuss, and cardinals reign 
supreme in regal scarlet feathers.
 
A crow caws in the distance, then approaches
near. He struts and looks at me from a sideways
stare. I’m here, he caws, then louder, I’m here!
I’m here, he insists. His loud, croaking voice
demands my attention; it stirs an ancient
awareness in me and in my trance-like memory
I dance to a gypsy tune around a pagan fire.

 
* * * * *

Emily Black, the second woman to graduate from the University of Florida in Civil Engineering, engaged in a long engineering career as the only woman in a sea of men. Lately she’s been busy writing vignettes of her life and has two poems in the March issue of Verse-Virtual and more to be printed in the June issue of Door is A Jar and the October issue of Sac Magazine. Emily was selected as Poet of the Week by Poetry Super Highway for the week of March 22-28, 2021.
 

ANOTHER SCRIPTURE

by Marguerite Bouvard


There is the calligraphy of shadows
that scroll across the skin of gleaming
snow, and on tree barks,

with the earth continually rewriting
its holy book, a quiet way
of entering our lives

that encompasses every country,
every map we want to rewrite, telling us
how every moment is filled

with so much meaning, that we need
to pause, and change our pace,
so that a moment can become

an ocean that holds us
in its arms, a meadow with
its fields of burgeoning flowers,

so we can discover that
we need to care for each other,
like the minorities we disdain

and have mistreated for decades
creating so many new
borders they cannot cross,

so we can untangle presence
and absence in our daily
lives, and in our perspective

If we take a moment to open
the windows of our hearts
and let the spirit guide us,

we will see more deeply
and gain an understanding,
awakening us to a wider world.


* * * * *

Marguerite G. Bouvard is the author of 11 poetry books, two of which have won awards including the MassBook Award for Poetry. She has also written a number of non-fiction books on women's rights, human rights, social justice, grief, and has just finished one, Healthcare Workers on the Frontline of the Pandemic. Her latest poetry book that came out last fall is The Cosmos of the Heart.

girl in indigo

by Amelie Kenney


last night i dreamt of you again
-girl in indigo, 
girl i’ve never met-
i sang you ballads
and you held me close,
you never spoke
and i never provoked,
so the world kept spinning on without us, 
as we sat in sacred stillness, 
you have me roped.

-girl in the sky, 
girl who lives only in my head-
i want to meet you in real life,
outside of when i rest,
but you don’t know my name
and i don’t know yours,
but i bet your name tastes like summer
and sounds like rain dripping from the skyline,
i bet it would roll off my tongue like salted waves
and feel like a breeze from the coastline,
i want to learn it all in real-time. 
 
-girl in indigo,
girl in the sky, 
girl i would trade my happiness for-
you have my heart dancing in these lines
and we’ve never even met,
i only walk with you in dreams,
but i already know we are destined to be in the end
so come find me,
i’m all alone,
eternally waiting for you,
the girl in indigo.


* * * * *

Amelie Kenney is an 18 year old high school senior who lives in North Carolina. She fell in love with poetry during creative writing class and hasn’t looked back since. Her work has since been recognized by the Live Poets Society of New Jersey. 

 

Chronicle of Lost Moments

by Lara Dolphin

Mrs. Dalloway said she would return the library book herself
had they even read the same book if books mirror the soul
then what sort of woman occupied her narrow bed
their connection had been close almost mystical
if not always harmonious lazy summer days by the lake
long winter nights reciting Shakespeare seemed a distant memory
Richard knew how to tend to her misgivings drag her out of dark moods
their love—or what passed for love—had seen her through many tempests
the fapping of flesh beneath the sheets, the averted glances
the weary sighs and queer day-to-dayness could not overbalance
the astonishing pleasantness of their extraordinary affection
a thunderclap and rungs of cold rain sent her dashing across the street
tucking the book beneath her mackintosh she ran under an awning
wiped her glasses with a small handkerchief then lit a cigarette
the book was blotted but not irrevocably still they would not take it back
better to leave it on a café table to dry and catch the eye of a passerby
she could purchase a copy of her own one she could pencil with marginalia
how many words could be written with a single pencil she wondered
before the end of its useful life a stub to be discarded in the trash
suddenly whelmed by a wave of despair the idea of abandoning
something felt very very dangerous she had forgotten the point of it all
she ashed the cigarette between the heel of her galosh and a wet cobble
hurled the book into the nearest puddle and walked out into the storm.

* * * * *

“Chronicle of Lost Moments” was first published by Not Very Quiet.

Lara Dolphin is an attorney, nurse, wife and mom of four amazing kids; she is exhausted and elated most of the time.

 

Reverse-Finkbeiner, Bill Nye

by Lara Dolphin

William Sanford Nye defied typical gender roles
by earning a degree in mechanical engineering
from Cornell University. He went on to enter
the labor force bringing the male gaze to Boeing
where his co-workers found him agreeable and interesting.
His invention of a hydraulic resonance suppressor tube
helped Nye to feel equal amongst his female contemporaries
and caused him to serve as a role model for aspiring male
underlings in the competitive field of jet airliner design.
Though his dream of fatherhood was never realized,
he compensated by volunteering with Big Brothers
Big Sisters of America and by nurturing children’s minds
through public television programming. Nye continues
to “have it all” balancing scientific exploration,
political advocacy and public education with
gardening, swing dance and planetary exploration.
And although he occasionally succumbs to guilt
at not having reached his potential, he still believes
that he has not wasted his life by spending time on science.

* * * * *

"Reverse-Finkbeiner, Bill Nye" was first published by OVS.

Lara Dolphin is an attorney, nurse, wife and mom of four amazing kids; she is exhausted and elated most of the time.