Michael Simms: The Crows
We barely recognized ourselves
But the crows knew
Who we were and where we’d been
Why we returned
The True Story of Thanksgiving
The Thanksgiving story you know probably goes like this: English Pilgrims, seeking religious freedom, landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where they found a rich land full of animals and were greeted … Continue reading
Robinson Jeffers: Hurt Hawk
I’d sooner, except the penalties, kill a man than a hawk; but the great redtail
Had nothing left but unable misery
From the bones too shattered for mending, the wing that trailed under his talons when he moved.
Adam Patric Miller: Blood Orange
How do you get ideas for your poems? The visiting poet says he goes into the woods to catch a deer but always comes back with a rabbit or a … Continue reading
Sean Sexton: Shirts
And now I come to wear your clothes, shirts
that no longer fit, you barely wore in the end
arranged in piles to divide and sort, of
three sizes—which was the measure of you?
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: The Garden
Because everything I learned from the stained
glass windows I was told to kneel under
still remains thorned & stained & torn,
& all the teachings I was told to believe, still
leave me dis-believing & I wish it were not so —
Timons Esaias: No Boat
There is no boat there
on Ararat’s strong shoulders.
Ignore the astronaut
and take my word.
There is no boat there
and no trees, either.
Byron Hoot: On That Day
In a few days, it will be the anniversary
of my father’s death and I will have
to see if grief visits or stays away.
Christine Gelineau: Artificial Intelligence
It was Kristallnacht that motivated
my mother-in-law’s parents
to put her and her younger sister
on the Kindertransport train
to England
Edward J. Curtin Jr: A Luminous Tapestry of Truth
The martyred heroes’ tales recounted in this book are sorely needed now when the survival of our planet is at stake.
Walt Whitman: I Hear America Singing
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown…
Charles Davidson: Are We Prepared for the Knock on the Door?
Brutality has become ICE’s signature policy. Trump’s “barbed-wire” signature has dictated the ungodly means and ungodly ends of what rapidly has become the Trumpian version of the Nazi Gestapo and the Communist NKVD.
Michael Simms: Last Testaments
at dawn you’ll arrive
having thrown your luggage in the River Styx
and we’ll drink from the silver cup of day
Barbara Crooker: Praise Songs for Autumn
Each day, we must learn
again how to love, between morning’s quick coffee
and evening’s slow return.
