Felled trees in the Forest

Felled trees
In the forest
Just lying about
In all directions
Broken
Torn
Splintered
Some leaning
Against a
Rooted tree
Dead wood
Waiting to be
Claimed
Cleared out
Recycled
Felled trees
In the forest

Why do they
Fall
Lightening
Wind
Rain
Ice storms
Shallow roots
Or
Could it be
The life
Cycle
Has ended
Silently
Felled tree
In the forest
Do other
Trees know
When
A nearby
Trunk collapses
Like soldiers
In a battle
Field
Some stand
Some fall
Some not at all
The forest
Floor
Absorbs it
All
Silently with
Grace
Felled trees
In the forest.

-  .Vera DeCicco, Poet at large

The Bicycle Path

​Along the bicycle path,
Time’s light flickers.
Trees peal their pastels to fuller shades
And finally to brown.

Nearby, the sea flutters with imaginary fish,
Slips beneath quickening mallards,
Stirs the meringue shore.

I pedal in and out of seasons,
Tracing footfalls below a teal sky,
That speaks of summer’s morning or winter’s afternoon.

Here the clouds hold the sun
A marble in their billowy cheeks.
Thickets hold their berries
From late August through to June.

In time,

The gulls that toss black shells
To the stone-cluttered beach,
Will drift like decoys on the swelling sea.

The marsh grasses that whistled like children
And pull at the wind with silvery teeth
Will shift from silver to a dryer gold.

And we will walk
The Bicycle Path,

Growing young,
Growing old.

- Nina Yavel

Belonging

This locust branch
shaped like a wishbone, juts out sideways
from the tree’s trunk. Rather this branch radiates
outward, its impossible weight & furrowing,
makes its way into the unclaimed nothingness.
This is its joy. This branch
companioned by lichen’s cling
in feathery green flakes,
leafy crust, powdery dust . . .
I can’t tell from where I sit.
I only see the sun trembling upon the bark,
and I praise its difference long, the branch,
the green, first light
 vanishing into the root of day
that belongs as much to the raft
of ducks paddling beyond.

-  Vivian Eyre

Striking Their Chord

My ninth grade class, cool players-hard sell
listen to Poe, Dr. Seuss and Lin Manuel.
Today
Game on: Nail the balcony beat
“ O Romeo,” a sound where love meets.

A first
Enrico with ear buds hanging
looks into my eyes.
Now
His long, strong fingers slowly drum the desk.
Class in play: One by one the pattern resounds.
Till
The stressed sounds of star-crossed lovers
pound
within our souls.

-  Pat Gallagher Sassone

Disney Adventures

It all starts with a magical express
From the east to the west
When we arrive
We dine
The next day
To the Hollywood studios
We play
After that
We have a blast
At the magic kingdom
To the future of Epcot
We experience the world
The next day it happened
Into a jungle of animals
After that, it is time to go
That is the end so and so

- Trevor Nieuwenhuis
Vera DeCicco

Remember Me

Perched in my arms, you gently examine my necklace.
As your fingers slide the charm carefully along the silver chain,
you smile up at me to share what you have found.

“Be back soon,” I say to convince myself I no longer need
your body imprint on my own.
Breathing in your mix of sleepy dust, milk, and soap,
I hold you tightly against my chest,
storing up your baby smell

Back in the carriage, you wait
while adults dance their kiss, hug, promise rituals of parting.
Then, you too wave a puzzled hi-goodbye.
For one last time, I slide your small hand between both my aging ones.

There they are: Nana saying goodbye to my sons,
my own Grandma saying good bye to me,
Generations of grandmothers come to life in the gesture I did not know I knew.
“Be back soon, “They say, “Remember me.”

- Published in Oberon Poetry Fifteenth Annual Issue, 2017

Ageism

I asked the eggs
who am I?
You are the generation passed
and we are the coming
they replied,
before I made my omelet.

- Max Gottesman, MD. PhD.
New York 2015

On One’s Place in Nature

A sparrow lit
on my arm

Honed his beak
on my elbow

- Max Gottesman, MD. PhD.
Branch, Southold, 2017

Heidegger in Tobago

Why are there essents (things that art) rather than nothing?

I fed up with de dry white wine,
love de luscious nectar from de vine

I am not confined to any particular essent;
What is the primal ground (ur-grund) of beingness?

The scarlet hummingbird sips the Flamboyant flower
And the Frigate bird scans the aqua ocean

Is the most fundamental question because it is the broadest
And deepest
And conversely

For the silver Kingfish
Rastaman dances to Soca beat
And flings back his dreads to laugh
at the Universe

Truth is the manifestness of the essent

It is a fact and it is de truth
Drink up de wine – go savour de fruit.

- Max Gottesman, MD. PhD.

I Stopped to Think......

Thoughts whirled in my mind
Needed to sort things through
I sat down in my comfy chair
Trying to made sense

But then I noticed that
Plants needing watering
Laundry basket full
Fridge empty

Oh! Look at the time
Late for Prayer Meeting
Maybe I’ll shop on way home

Sis called to ask about
Sunday dinner in her home
Friends thought a movie
On Saturday would be fun

Then I remembered
I stopped thinking, but never
Started again

Maybe life is better lived
One moment at a time
Then worry about thoughts
Running through my mind

- CarolAnn Zito, 3/14/19

Late Winter Storm

Bud on the bush, bird in the tree
Creek waters heaving beneath icy filigree
Sun moving north, Venus at dawn
Rime at daybreak, by noon it has gone

When sudden and severe the steed of winter rides once more
Again bud, bird and heavens stiffen in the hoar
The man in his pasture, the woman at her fire
Break their hoping tread toward dream and desire

And I with heavy heart bend to the coming cold
What are we made of that we dare dream so bold?

We’ve seen the blister winter come and then go
Why do we not learn then what we already know?

Just as the warming branch beckons us near
What we thought was forever behind us is always here

- Susan L. Rosenstreich

What is a Friend

A friend is someone who cares about you,
Who will listen to what you say.
Someone who doesn’t judge you,
And is there for you at the end of the day.

A friend is someone who supports
The cause in which they believe.
Someone who gives their time
Toward a goal they hope to achieve.

A friend is someone who is a patriot,
Who knows the term “friend or foe”
Someone who stands for our flag,
And when duty calls, will always go.

A friend is the someone I want to be,
Who will serve and comfort others.
Someone who knows that life is a gift,
And sees everyone as a brother.

- Fran Reichert

CEDAR BEACH CREEK

Stillness of a winter day
a different dimension
grounded by the cold
bite of the bay wind
a distorted motion
two great blue herons
winter natives
stick figures from an abstract
awkward, stilted
in their strut
up, down
plowing waters

In a moment
Lift
six feet of wings
opening, gaining air
adrift
ascension

- Sally Kahn, March 2019

Resurrection - For Richard

Spring is back.
Crocuses creep. Daffodils
dance.
Bare Forsythia branches
shade yellow-green
toward bursts of neon.
Hyacinths raise heavy heads
before their inevitable
collapse.

Robins rebound from the trip north.
Snowbirds rebound from the trip north

Emerald lines line the village main street
to guide St Patrick’s inebriated
guests.

I remember how much I like
cabbage in any form.

Pale lime fuzz will soon coat
ungaraged cars
and mucous membranes.

Snow-white blossoms will explode, then
drift prettily along avenues.

Christ arose during this season,
a miracle
we’re told.

It seems entirely possible
that you
might
too.

- Maggie Bloomfield
www.maggiebloomfield.com

Art in Abstract…

Abstract art …
You don't always know
What you will come up with.

Art represents...
Your own story
Who you are.

Pencils are…
A tool that makes your lines
The structure comes to life.

Lines….
Build the shapes
They create the mood.

Colors are….
Brilliant on the page
Imagine the marvelous colors.

Art makes me feel strong.
I express myself in lines and colors.
The power of art is freedom.

- Helen Daskin, Oct. 2018

out of damage

(after Sarah Prescott’s ‘Rust in Bloom 7’)

the language
of blossoms

like,    interruptions
dressing up
for the dance

in concert
with the business
of blushing

- Stella Keating

THALATTA! THALATTA! 

Yours is the face I cannot remember.
Yours the complexion I cannot describe.
Yours are the eyes which echo with wonder
the sounds they have seen - so graceful and proud.
Yours is the skin no palette can render;
Yours are the cheeks which prohibit the pen.
Yours the expression of humming-bird wings -
gentle, silent and constantly moving.
Yours is the grace so seldom believed in:
Yours is the face I cannot remember.

Mine is the heart too eager in sufferance,
Mine the portmanteau of shattered ideals.
Mine the eloquent glance of endurance:
Yours is the face I'll remember for years.

Yours is the face I'm loath to uncover.
Yours are the eyes vilely swollen and black.
Yours is the skin now stapled together
with gauze trussing up your chin and your neck.
Yours the expression of horror and pain
at thoughts of marathon surgical costs.
Yours are the lips now forbidden to grin
lest smiles bring to ruin enhancing results.
Yours the mind still reeling with painkiller:
words become drivel and duller and duller.

Mine is the chore to bring you a flower.
Mine the unhappy dilemma of taste.
Mine the task of a diplomat's honor:
I'll be long gone when you unwrap your face.

- Nadia Chigerovitch

A TRIPPY TRIO

3 boulders on the beach
enduring the millennia,
glacial erratics
now clad in white ice
feet awash in a King high Tide.

3 women, I fancy,
ermine capes
draped o’er their shoulders
on this frigid winter night,
luminous under a super Blood Moon.

3 ladies endearing,
dressed up so nice
solely for me, I see,
as I’m alone on the beach.

3 erratics I love
and know well in summer too,
their stoat coats traded for
delicate guano veils.

3 thews I lean against,
my feet dangling in
July’s cool salt water,
my White Rock girls then.

3 welcome companions
when all’s still and quiet
whisper their thanks
for giving them life.

- Joe Mc Kay, January 2019

Monday in February

I walk where the water is frozen--
under ice, waves don’t break, but slush
dark in open spaces between slashes of snow,
ice crust piled up like waves frozen while breaking.

I want to walk on the ice out to the depths where open water glitters

but too much weight would break the ice
and I would drown looking back
on this beach so desolate only the compassion of God can melt it,

“fight, flight or freeze” being the only choices in extreme circumstances
such as Monday in February, hearing of another death,

I keep walking even though all I see is frozen,
that shock of molten blue at the horizon, dark ice slushing at my feet.

Up the beach I find a box of matches,
wooden sticks with green tops in neat rows,
but no flint so I can’t light one.
I take home an unseen light.

- Susan Grathwohl Dingle

Meeting Guanyin at Ten in the Morning

At ten in the morning I
thread my way through galleries of ancients,
up steep stairs,
in one door, then another,
past the marbles, antique pots, brave bodhisattvas,
to the space where
elegant saint Guanyin
waits for me.

I enter,
make my bows,
take my seat
straight and still
as he serenely
poses on his plinth,
protected all around by
plexiglass.

Alone together
in this sacred space
his sly smile meets my
bashful gaze,
beckons.  I rise,
creep forward,
shy blue eyes
meet little black beads.

I follow his gaze
to moving water
under our feet,
where the moon
finds
reflection
in a nearby
dewdrop.

Boldly
I steal a glance at this
paulownia
man-woman
constructed
by clever craftsmen
a thousand years ago,
here for me today.

Left arm formed
from tree branch
offers balance.
Stout legs
sprout bare feet,
broken toes
that feel
no pain.

Fine draperies
wrap his shoulders,
flow down his arms,
cross his legs.
For beauty only,
no need for warmth,
cool green-blue
fades to nothing.

Long youthful hair
artfully arranged
slides down his arms.
His face, calm and clear,
no sign of illness,
aging, death,
no pain or suffering,
no need for path.

Ornamented ears
capture silent
sounds of
suffering that
echo
throughout
the universe
and me.

Raised right knee supports
a delicate hand with
graceful feminine fingers,
reaches out
and touches
me
with
kindness.

We spend the morning together,
Guanyin on his splendid seat,
I on a nearby bench
interrupted now and then
by visitors who,
chatting quietly,
stop briefly for pictures
and then move on.

Reluctantly I
make my bows as the master watches,
reach my hand once more to his and
take my leave
out past the marbles, antique pots, brave bodhisattvas,
back through galleries of ancients,
down steep stairs,
in one door and out another.

- Parnel Wickham, March 11, 2019
At the Boston Museum of Fine Arts
(https://www.mfa.org/collections/object/guanyin-bodhisattva-of-compassion-28589)

Remember Me

Perched in my arms, you gently examine my necklace.
As your fingers slide the charm carefully along the silver chain,
you smile up at me to share what you have found.

“Be back soon,” I say to convince myself I no longer need
your body imprint on my own.
Breathing in your mix of sleepy dust, milk, and soap,
I hold you tightly against my chest,
storing up your baby smell.

Back in the carriage, you wait
while adults dance their kiss, hug, promise rituals of parting.
Then, you too wave a puzzled hi-goodbye.
For one last time, I slide your small hand between both my aging ones.

There they are: Nana saying goodbye to my sons,
my own Grandma saying good bye to me,
Generations of grandmothers come to life in the gesture I did not
know I knew.
“Be back soon, “They say, “Remember me.”

- Joan Kuchner
Published in Oberon Poetry Fifteenth Annual Issue, 2017

¿Donde esta mi Mami?

"¿Donde esta mi mami?"
Boreas, blow her cry south
through blood red grapefruit harvest
across torpid Rio Grande
into Méjico and Guatemala
to her fretting abuela.

"¿Donde esta mi mami?"
Auster, blow her cry north
across once open range
where seldom was heard
a discouraging word
into Lincoln's Illinois
settled by immigrant dreamers.

"¿Donde esta mi mami?"
Este, blow her cry west
over arroyo and canon,
chaparral and yermo
to the migrant workers
in lettuce fields
and angels on Olvera Street.

"¿Donde esta mi mami?"
Zephyr, be not gentle,
with speed blow her cry east
across De Soto's Mississippi
and Sam Houston's Tennessee
to Pennsylvania Avenue
to el Presidente
to el Congreso
if they have ears to hear.

"¿Donde esta mi mami?"

- Bill Batcher