I know nothing but the spray
of buckwheat, highway
perfume which permeates tar
oases we cross each day.
Our tired shoes trace contrails
of an F-150 that has already
blitzed through eternal savannah.
I know nothing but adobe homes
and SNAP. Bricks
laid in a pattern I can’t quite discern,
etched into mountains
like long-forgotten cuneiform,
waiting for some denim-clad
explorer to bring its Rosetta Stone.
Until then, we settle, ephemeral
& unpronounceable,
waiting upon this assembly
of fissure and dust for a voice
evicted—its stolen breath now
only a road apparition:
Tilework Americana.
A blink of neon lights the path
from Mississippi deltas
to concrete jungles, from checkered
walls of late-night diners
to the daytime glow of Sunday papers,
headlines flickering into
a lithographic coma as we turn
to our pharmaceutical dreams.…
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These are the words he used to describe his discomfort: “I’m better when I sit there.” He pointed to a set of chairs, backed up to the pub’s exterior wall.
His attentive companion tipped her head to the side, narrowing her eyes and nodding, stepped forward.
They sat, her expression suggesting uncertainty.
But I knew.
I knew the moment I noticed him approach the sidewalk seating and sensed that he had noticed me first, and everyone else in the immediate location, assessing us within the casual, situational elements of walls, windows, furniture, dress, drunkenness, gesture, and relaxation.
I knew when I noted the ink, resting on skin pulled tight over well-defined muscle, peering out from under his left short sleeve . . . the lower third of the gray-green letters composing the words Leave No Man Behind.…
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The swooping arabesque of a roof,
a giant circle around nothing—
rippling, receding, dancing
in the building across the Spree
“The grandstanding of late capitalism,
covering its failures,” cynics interject,
but I will hear no evil.
Grand illusion, maybe, but not
the grandeur of Prussian kings.
More like a child, opening
a door in the air
for imaginary friends.
From totalitarian rubble
come play, transparency,
reflection, connection,
and hope, which I cannot grasp,
yet cling to beyond reason.
– Lorna Wood
Author’s Note: In 2018, I went to Berlin for the first time. I was struck by the government buildings built since World War II. They are beautiful, with whimsical shapes and clear walls that seem to literalize the humanity, transparency, and reflection that should characterize democratic government.…
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The furnace is a mindfulness bell
and I am an unworthy but earnest monk.
That quiet click on January’s coldest night
returns me to the core, returns me
to gratitude for warm air about my body,
warm tile beneath my bare feet.
The simple knowledge of food in the cupboard,
fire in the furnace, the rent paid
through the month of July.
If few people love me, that is okay,
and if they seldom show their affection, fine.
I have the click of the thermostat
and the rush of heat through the vents
to bring me back to the circle
of breathing, thinking, remembering,
This art of always returning.
– Robert L. Penick…
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I held one once.
Weighed nothing,
my uncle says
of hummingbirds
whose hollow bones
float & splinter like dead
wood —Nana, her top-hand
skin fresh like powdered
butterfly wings, always paused
for hummingbirds.
She’d stand at the kitchen sink
underskin wrist-thin
like toilet paper or tissue wrap,
watch blurry-winged birds
wind-dancers, thrumming
for something sweet.
Unfeathered but bird-boned,
she too prized
delicacy, longed to kiss water;
like light to touch
without touching
move
with no regard
for gravity.
– L.R. Traverse…
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The old man and his old dog walk slowly,
their summer shadows stretched out long
ahead of them.
Behind them, the sun fights to remain in the sky
even though it has lost this contest
for billions of years and will soon,
in a green flash, surrender to the night,
only to rise up in the morning,
born again.
For the old man, it is a short walk
at the end of a long day and he will,
like the sun, soon be on the other side
of the world, out of sight and in darkness.
For now, though, there will be shared food,
the evening news,
and time to rest in the chair by the window
while he watches his old dog’s flank
rise and fall with each breath.…
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Their rakes lay forgotten.
Stephen runs, red knitted cap,
red cheeks, the little girls
chasing, one wearing a brace
on her leg. They dash
through cut-glass air to tumble
in the cold flakes of brilliant color
piled thick from the woods …
too many … like trying
to rake in all the stars
and clear the night sky.
But we tried, all of us,
’til our arms ached
even into sleep. In those days
we burned great smoldering heaps,
and the air was scented
with smoke until after first snow.
Stephen is ever aloft
in this photo, one leg kicked back,
one leaping ahead,
and nothing, not one thing,
I promise myself,
has changed in all these years.
– Carol Hamilton…
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