Jennifer Brookland: Holding On When Leaving Feels Like Letting Go
I spent four years in the military and remember it in fuzzy flashes. The little I do recall leaves me with a vague sense of awkward incompetence, confusion, and shame.
Frida Berrigan: This Is My Song
What I Can Still Love about My Embattled Country (and World)
Michael Simms: Elderberry Magic
In the Native American tradition, the elder is sacred. The soft whistling song I often hear in the branches has been heard by others as well. Elder’s long association with wind instruments suggests that the magical sound comes not from the wind but rather from the tree itself, as well as any instruments carved from elder branches.
Christine Rhein: Sunflowers
The whole world
has pictures, explosions
we hold in our palms
Christine Rhein: Our Corner Acre, April Afternoon
Side by side, we dig in the withered flowerbed,
the sudden warmth, and once again you say, See
how much the light has shifted. I nod my head
at another changing season, our aching knees.
Joan E. Bauer: The Sisterhood of Buddleias
Sarah plants a butterfly bush
for the purple, nectar-rich splendor in a pot.
Hannah wants some pink extravagance
to beckon hummingbirds.
Oliver Sacks: Why We Need Gardens
In forty years of medical practice, I have found only two types of non-pharmaceutical ‘therapy’ to be vitally important for patients with chronic neurological diseases: music and gardens.
Sharon Fagan McDermott: Sharon In Wonderland | Dandelion
The view from here? A prophecy
of how light, wind, and earth conspire
to play their role in dandelions’ flourishing—
then aids them in their vanishing.
Sharon Fagan McDermott: This Against the Night
Sweet hyssop and the sweltering hives
from which sail bees, their resolute flight
into July, into my garden.
Philip Terman: Such Abundance
When he called for help,
they put him on hold
longer than he could stand
and he broke
the phone in half.
Hayden Saunier: After Watching the Attorney General Testify, May 1, 2019
I’m back outside, hands deep in dirt and dirt’s
the only thing that’s telling truth today.
Deonna Anderson: These Indigenous Women Are Reclaiming Stolen Land in the Bay Area
Through a voluntary land tax and donations from land owners, this organization is working to create an alternative land base for Indigenous people in California’s East Bay.
Sharon Fagan McDermott: Meditation on a Sanctuary
And still there is shelter in shade
and pummeling rain, in the produce aisle
with its mounds of lemons, nectarines.
Vox Populi 