Kayak on the Cobbosse (I Paddle and I Wonder)

By Lou Foust

It happens
As it does, every once in a while
That between episodes of whatever Netflix show I realize I’m
not good enough.
I haven’t helped enough
I haven’t worked enough
I’m not me enough.
And I feel stuck
Because it’s four o’clock,
And what can I do about it now?

So I walk my kayak down to the launch
And with that first strong push out on the water I wonder
How all the fish alive
Escape the sewage and waste we put in the water. I paddle, and I
wonder

As the point of my kayak cuts through the calm, glassy water I wonder
How different has man made this land?
And when did it all happen?
I paddle, and I wonder

As the lilies and the grasses lick the underside of my kayak I wonder
What they would have looked like, all of them, However
many hundreds of years ago
When they might have lived undisturbed.
I paddle, and I wonder

And as the loons pass me by and dive beneath the water
I wonder
How they mourn when their children
Are lost to the rising water.
Do they think there was simply more rain this year?
Or do they rightfully blame man, and call out a hundred curses from the water? I paddle, and I
wonder.

And as I see the launch again, I see birds,
Though I don’t know which ones,
Sitting on the wire
And I think, surely the birds like the wire,
They had nowhere to perch before,
And I stop myself and laugh
Because there were millions more trees, and a billion more branches before man cut
them down to put in the electrical lines
And just because I didn’t get to see it
doesn’t mean that wasn’t what the world was like before me.

As I pull my kayak back up on shore,
I wonder
How the birds feel.
Do they ever feel free?

I wonder.

Grounded Transformation

By Emily Zielinski

The birds sing loudly today with the familiar, honey-suckled
melody that tells the world that autumn is afoot.

To walk down the street in late September is
to smell the greenery of the elm transform into a vibrancy
of deep hues that overpower the ordinary grayness of the pavement.

The sidewalks are flowing with the last petals of summer
and now reside under the heaps of leaves that hide
the pinks and yellows of a season past.

Doe-eyed September skies transform into
beautifully sullen faces of October, flourished with freckles
painted in the model of stars and life has begun again.

A rebirth of autumn befalls the latter months of the
year giving breath to deeply wooded forests and
brightly lit homes warm with ephemeral fire

A calm darkness swaddles the world like a
blanket over a newborn, and a quiet tranquility arises
among the fauna that call this place home-

The birds sing a hushed hymn with the scriptural
carol that announces the abrupt arrival of winter.

Before Late Never Stops and Always It Is Too Late

By Grace Mary Flynn

I’m by myself until I’m not, and I thought solitude was favorable
in this home of adoration, and Janice is not with me. I do em-
bark alone, but to have Janice mistaken for presence at my side
is something to be seen while the man asks to interview me and
argues about something like performance art. More and more and
more, always; am I really doing this? He said I could do anything;
he has seen me devoted to the form, and yet I can no longer stay
quiet. Years come and years go, and I have never made a sound.
It does not matter for life is stolen early on from little girls like
me. He asks me about my name; what is my name? what does
my name mean? Why am I named the name I am named? I write
down on a brick size sheet of paper, Грейс. I forget about my
mother’s interactions, I have tried. To him, this means nothing,
and to me, it shouldn’t mean much, but it does, and I will follow it.
My name bothers me; I don’t recall a time when it hasn’t. But it is
said so severely and used so casually in the Bible, so that made
me think I don’t need to pray so much or not as much as other
arm bitters at my age. Some of us become priests, and some of
us wish we could. He made sure I could not forget; he used to
only call me by my full name, and when he stopped, we never
did stich ourselves up. And when they ask for my name at the
doctor at the hospital, at the safe house at the ward, at the exhi-
bition, at the funeral, my name no longer is mine. It only belongs
to those who shaped it. So many times, more than the questions
about me I am asked Why Janice? My coat is hung up, and Janice
glares to me from the prostitute seat. Why Janice? Because we
have no meaning in life besides a thimble of an idea of a per-
ception. And Janice can be naughty, and she used to remind
you of your great great aunt but how does it feel now as she
unbuttons your trousers? Tell me, what does she remind you
of now, at this moment? I won’t be forgiven for my marks of a
graceful territory, but they won’t ask about Janice anymore.

Compost Poetry

By Marley Reedy

A beetle crawled between the lines of this
poem This poem contained by
two- by-fours and chicken wire devoted
itself to new life

the pillbugs squirming in the type font and
bacteria reuse the decay and fermentation to
create the FATED CREATION
the vibrant ménage of orange peels, rotten
limes, rose petals, avocado pits, egg cartons,
wood chips and shredded cardboard

breathing nitrous oxide and heat Turned
5 times over until it’s a cool earthy mixture
i can rake my fingers through
My hands

smell like fresh dirt. This plant food will read:
rot to rebirth. This compost is
reincarnation poetry.