Gaby Garcia: Heat
When the world burns, we will be like the women
of Pompeii who left their bread loaves to bake—
our laundry mid-cycle, newspapers turned
to the op-eds, windows open to catch a breeze.
Barrett Swanson: The Soldier and the Soil
Their prose often stood head and shoulders above the standard freshman drivel, exhibiting a certain rigor of thought and depth of feeling that perhaps comes from having witnessed whole anthologies of trauma—entire villages razed by fire, wide-eyed children draped in gore, wives screaming beside mutilated husbands.
Judith A. Brice: Notes On A Postcard
The picture would portray a few
flowering apple trees profuse in bloom
their parchment petals set
to sail with the wind, take off
Stephanie Hiller: COVID-19 Sparks a Rebirth of the Local Farm Movement
Could this be the beginning of a new food economy?
Christine Skarbek: Musings with the Nightingale
A friend in Connecticut has lost
over 40 friends and relatives to covid-19.
Overwhelmed with grief,
he can no longer speak.
Robert Wrigley: The Consciousness of Everything
That time’s lost now, when a stone could hurt,
when a feather missed its wing,
when sky kissed clouds and grass kissed dirt
and nothing thought itself just a thing.
Luara Ferracioli: For a child, being carefree is intrinsic to a well-lived life
Is being carefree a special good of childhood? Is it something that confers meaning on the life of a child, without doing the same for adults? Or do adults need to be more carefree, and so be more like children, in order for their lives to go well?
Stephon Alexander: The Physics of Jazz
Physicist Stephon Alexander narrates how he came to understand the parallels between quantum particle theory and jazz composition.
Video: Logic tells us that antimatter should have annihilated the Universe. So why hasn’t it?
If there’s no more matter than antimatter in existence, then the Universe should have annihilated itself soon after the Big Bang – yet, here we are. This brief animation breaks down this extraordinary, nearly century-long science puzzle, detailing some of the surprising explanations posited by contemporary physicists.
Pam Uschuk: Like Obsidian’s Idea of Itself | Operation Uplift During the Pandemic
Each day my friend asks us to share
evidence of grace, photo trails of kids laughing,
prayer flags strung with petals
W.S. Merwin: Shore Birds
While I think of them they are growing rare
after the distances they have followed
all the way to the end for the first time
Video: This bird-of-paradise in New Guinea sounds like something from another planet
This video from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology provides a glimpse into the world of this idiosyncratic little bird, which has proven notoriously difficult to photograph in its rugged natural habitat.
Jade Begay: What Indian Country Remembers About Survival
Community is central in the Indigenous response. Identify who in our community is most vulnerable and strategize the best ways to protect them.
Joan E. Bauer: W. Eugene Smith in Minamata, Japan 1971
Smith frames: Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath
The mother cradles Tomoko, her misshapen daughter.
Light through a dark window.
A post-modern pietà.
