Rachel Hadas: Sustainable Systems
Hummingbirds in the bee balm. Scattered showers.
What rubric, what barometer, what headline?
Rebecca Gordon: The Hamster Wheel of War
On Ending Dreams of Revenge in Israel, Palestine, and Elsewhere
Tony Gloeggler: Goodbye
no one seemed to accept
or understand I love Jesse,
that the way he will never fit
in the world reminds me of me
Matthew J. Parker: One of Those Years
They had found a body in Phoenix, she said, and the cops were convinced it was John. But the body had no tattoos, and my mom had convinced herself that John, like my younger brother Mark and I, had at least one tattoo. I, however, knew better, and told her so.
Dawn Potter: Ode to the Haverford Park Apartments
Stubbed-out cigarettes & the Ramones playing loud at 2 a.m. on a stereo
that the guy you’re with paid for by flipping burgers all summer & it
has the best speakers he wastes so much time telling you how great
these speakers are & you are annoyed you are like Take my clothes off
but you don’t say it out loud because christ isn’t it obvious
Thom Hartman: Trump’s Similarities to Hitler Prove It Certainly Could Happen Here
There are few Americans alive today who remember Hitler. But Donald Trump is bringing it all back with a fresh, stark splash of reality.
Connie Post: Auto Immune
One part of the body
turns against the other
Naomi Shihab Nye: Jerusalem
He’s painting a bird with wings
wide enough to cover two roofs at once.
Video: Paint & Pitchfork
Painting is about light.
It’s about the way that we choose to cast light
on one thing, or to allow that to rest in darkness.
Michael Simms: The Song
The young man and the older woman met at an artist’s colony. They were both in the habit of walking on the wooded paths in the afternoon, so they began … Continue reading
Stuart Sheppard: Rebellious Spirits
Some historical events seem so fantastical that they sound like myths when retold, while others are so intrinsic to our nature that they could be today’s news, and actually help us understand our contemporaneous existence more deeply.
Tashi Nyima: Gratitude
With gratitude, I remember the people, animals, plants, insects, creatures of the sky and sea, air and water, fire and earth, whose joyful exertion blesses my life each day.
Video: Dreamcatcher
As an elderly Yakama woman looks back on her life, the line between reality and fantasy are blurred.
Kim Stafford: Wren’s Nest in a Shed near Aurora
Three tiny eggs in thistledowncupped in a swirl of grass in the pocket of the tool beltI hung on the wall of the shedwhen it finally stood complete—will be three … Continue reading
