Elizabeth Romero: This is me without you
I cannot be with the birds
With their mites and their feathers
And their hot little bodies
Their impassioned but inscrutable
Comments on their world
David Hassler: Intensive Care
Children under the age of fourteen weren’t allowed in the ICU. I was eleven, and my brother was thirteen, but no nurse or doctor was going to stop us from seeing our mother.
Audio: Robert Frost reads ‘West-Running Brook’ and ‘The Death of the Hired Man’ (with texts)
‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.’
Video: Adjany Costa | A Roadmap for Indigenous communities to reclaim stewardship of the land
Conservation efforts should center those who know the land best, enabling them to tailor solutions to their unique environmental, social and economic realities.
Mel Packer: Hots and a Cot
Payphone only cost a dime
in 1963 Wickenburg Arizona
where I had bedded down
courtesy of the local police
Valerie Bacharach: Chaos
There is no word for parents who have lost a child. Our language is chaotic. We are not widowed or orphaned. We are without, we are incomplete.
Robert Service: Compassion
For God knows it is good to give;
We may not have so long to live,
So if we can,
Let’s do each day a kindly deed,
And stretch a hand to those in need,
Bird, beast or man.
Patricia Nugent: It Feels Bad
It feels bad that we are the only industrialized nation that doesn’t have women’s equality built into its constitution.
Jose Padua: Nirvana
enjoying the
path I’m taking
and the unobscured view
of blue mountains
as my hair
slowly turns
gray
Mike Vargo: Ancient Footprints and Bighorns
The Valley of Fire, northeast of Vegas, is a maze of canyons and towering rock formations in hues from yellow to red…. And on some of those, Indigenous people 2,000 to 4,000 years ago scraped figures and shapes into the varnish.
Arlene Weiner: Another Art
Put it on eBay, ka-ching, ka-ching—
keep nothing but the things that give you cheer.
But so many objects seem to want to cling
Andrea Mazzarino: Children of War
Armed violence has percolated into just about every aspect of this country’s being — from violent video games to still-spiking mass shootings to local police forces armed with weapons of war.
Edward Harkness: Pelicans Diving
They skim so close to waves
they must themselves be waves.
Derrick Z. Jackson: Ethylene Oxide Adds to Toxic Burden for Memphis Residents
Children are particularly sensitive to ethylene oxide exposure as it can damage their DNA.
Vox Populi 