Tag: Poem

Looking Glass / Steve Williams

Published on by Editorial Staff

Formed in the cauldron of life
out of limestone, soda, and sand,
at our best, we are pieces of glass.

Far more useful than diamonds
which flash in the light, are the windows
and lenses that clarify sight.

While mirrors are attractive, and at first
glance us please, they can distort
and may often deceive.

There’s no higher calling, than, when held
in good hands, you brighten the vision
and help understand.

So if you open a wall, magnify small, bring
something far up closer, you make good use
of the time you possess,

And so does the person who finds you,
who chooses to leave this world wiser,
and thus might forever be blessed.

Steve Williams / Munith, Michigan

The Parade / Radhika Iyer

Published on by Editorial Staff

The Parade

Shattering winter’s biting chill
is the songbird’s sonorous trill.

Piercing through it’s white landfill
is the ruby tulip, ready to kill.

Ransacking its icy rill
is the graceful swan’s orange bill.

Infecting its very spill
is the sun ray’s most treasured skill.

Niggling at its dreary shill
is the eternal hope’s cheery pill.

Generating a brand new will
is nature’s way to March uphill.

Radhika Iyer / Northville, Michigan

Crane / Nina Graig

Published on by Editorial Staff

Crane (Ajijaak)

Her fine long legs, careful step by step
cross marsh and bog in slow dance
feeding on sweet morsels that rise
to greet sun and their demise.

A sound, she listens – one leg poised midair
towering above, still art – a comma,
a question mark buried in mud, messages
etched into the inner flesh of birchbark

still held by the curve of riverbanks
still layered with our relatives’
dust and their tarpaper shacks
still remembered by Ajijaak.

Nina I. Graig / Kalamazoo, Michigan

I Hear Hawks / Nancy Shattuck

Published on by Editorial Staff

I HEAR HAWKS

before I see them
scree scree at regular intervals,
doppler waves sounding the distance
flattened wings circle thermals overhead,

or the chorus of shrilly scolding bird flocks
chasing until it drops its young prey,
or squawking chickens when they see a shadow
of this predator too late to flee,

or the soft unexpected thwup on fence
when it lands, as stunned as I am,
a heart leaping arm’s length away,
eyes devouring me where I stand.

Nancy Shattuck / Farmington Hills, Michigan

Between the Yardstick and the Mile / Ken Wilding

Published on by Editorial Staff

Between the yardstick and the mile
The Rumor animates fields of Anemones.
It feeds the fish that drinks the rain.
It turns the plumes of broad winged hawks,
Huffs into sails of lonely ships.
It warms the tomb with candle flame
And further than this star.
All things breath in its trace,
Taste with its tongue,
Belie the exigence of form.
And in a book I read,
The wounded heart was freed
Upon a day when the rain fell up.

Can one dream of what can never be?
Is it outside of human possibility?
Words and words thrown at the corner
Where no one stands.

– Ken Wilding / Spring Lake, Michigan

Walking Through the Hollow / Ben Snider

Published on by Editorial Staff

 Walking Through The Hollow

No birds call, no crickets sing
No wind blows through no trees
No words echo, no flowers spring
No self has no value here
No heart beats, no pains sting
No way up to no way down
No way left for my being
No way right, no way wrong
No way out of no seeing
No feet on no ground
No me to know the meaning.

Ben Snider / Arcadia, Michigan