THE APRIL 2025 30/30 PAGE

If you would like to join our alumni group of over 1,000 poets, apply here!

The volunteer poets for April are Lois Anne, Michelle Geoga, Kyla-Yen Giffin, Ava M. Hu, Laurel Kallen, Martha Lou Little, and Shelly Rodrigue.

Day 28 / Poem 28

Call & Response / Lois Anne

lois-Call-Response

Thankful for What Is and What Isn’t / Michelle Geoga

So peaceful out here, in the sun, on a quiet Sunday morn
but for the twin-engine plane overhead
the chickadee rattling in the maple
the insects swarming the Bradford pear tree blossoms
the cowbird gurgling up the sun on top of the chimney
the dog licking his wet fur after a swim in the lake
the distant highway with its zooming eighteen wheelers
the excited fly that circles your head every other minute
the titmouse staking its claim on the white pine
the fly again—or maybe a new one
the Amtrak Wolverine on its way to the next town
the leaf clawing across the driveway in the breeze
the dog sighing in the sun
the red Beetle driving by at a respectable speed, thanks very much
the hyperactive fly, oh that damn fly
the red-shouldered hawk, calling out its territory like a salesman
the quiet bugle of an invisible pair of sandhill cranes
the wordless talk of a couple walking on the road with a puffball dog
the single woof of the dog protesting their use of his road
the eastern towhee that moved in last week.

So peaceful out here, in the sun, on a quiet Sunday morn.
thanks to not hearing supernovas exploding somewhere in the universe
the trees working their blossoms out in the spring sunshine
the swallow’s eggs nestled under their parents’ warm feathers
the fish in the pond emerging from winter dormancy
the day-of-resting mail carrier thinking of the Monday route
the ants silently planning an attack on your kitchen
the neighbors who decided to take a weekend getaway
the landscapers who rested their leaf blowers and lawn mowers
the churchgoers who left and hour ago
the eight dogs in the yard across the road who thank god are sleeping
the wind, taking a break from rustling branches and spruce tree tops
the kids sleeping in instead of shooting hoops next door
the crows giving each other the silent treatment
the morels silently pushing through the warm soil in the yard
the dog now sleeping in the sun, exhausted from swimming
the kits in their fur-lined nest waiting patiently for their cotton-tail mother
the car in the garage waiting patiently for the next trip to Meijer
the geese who have picked their pond and made their nests
the tree frogs who have found their mates.

Milk / Ava M. Hu

Side Effects Are Still Effects / Laurel Kallen

The rabbi falls in love with Chagall’s 
            granddaughter, a puppeteer

I don’t know what she sees in him
            but neither do I know 

what I see in my husband beyond 
          the square jaw and lustrous hair

Insurance won’t cover the damage
            nor cover the procedure

The coverage is uncovered –
            a blanket belies the bed

 The cart the horse
            Doctors will give you prescriptions

but you can opt 
          not to fill them

THE NEW AGE MEETS THE OLD  / Martha Lou Little

It was a Spanish rodeo; that is rednecks and horses

Paella and beer, flamenco dresses and grandmas

The air was ripe with excitement

As if something was about to happen.

Just then, three elegant women walked in from the new age

There to heal the suffering of the animals, and maybe us.

One stood like a statue at a noble horse, quieting its frightened soul

Giving  hope, a remembrance of love

The rodeo star couldn’t stand it and threw his drunk body on top of the horse

Showing the world who was the champion.

The noble being pranced  with a bit in her mouth and eyes of tired knowing and within moments

The champion was thrown to the ground.

There was a frightened silence and then we all saw it

The noble stallion went to soothe him

Knowing that quiet words would never be hers.

Dark Planet¹  / Shelly Rodrigue

pistol bullet
at 50 times speed

the Voyager 
approaching 

the seventh planet,
a dark kingdom; 

unspectacular 
its deep, blue-green

atmosphere,
a mere pea

unimaginably cold
does not dazzle;

its rings, coal
black and narrow, 

strands of hair
an aura before the sun 

¹a found poem from Rick Gore’s article “Uranus: Voyager Visits a Dark Planet” published in National Geographic Vol. 170, No. 2, August 1986

Day 27 / Poem 27

Mourning and Recovery / Lois Anne

all shriveled up a bouquet of flowers
still bears the scent of long dried tears

how long are hearts haunted?

we all fulfill our quota of misfortune at some point
[my silent theory based on balance and seeking nurturing]

will you taste my cake?

we make little compromises in an effort to appease the gods
offering them everything

even our madness magnified by a pair of full false lashes

mirroring the turmoil of an unbearable heartbreak.
don heels, lipstick, fake a distraction

get used to it

own the decisions you make
study the horizon to reveal the secret heart in a cocoon

uncover your reflection in the dark and dream the truth 

Maybe I Talk to Animals Because I Have Too Much Alone Time / Michelle Geoga

Or maybe because the independent wild creatures I encounter seem as sentient as anyone else I meet. I can’t say I’ve met them because eye contact with a buck or distant coyote is not an introduction. The dog always wonders why I stop and wave when we see the deer. As if I know them. Once a year or so I wake up at night to a coyote killing something and am subjected to a death scream and am reminded there is a different world outside of ours, no less monumental. I’m considering changing my name to Robin, because they’re everywhere. Hey—you’re going to get hit by a car if you slowly creep across the street, so get over there, squirrel, stop playing chicken. The crows seem to have a language that transcends language and enters the realm of music, kind of like Italian. Italian crows must sound fantastic. Even though I can’t help talking to the animals, I’m no Doctor Dolittle. I don’t expect them to talk back.

The Spotted Honeyguide / Ava M. Hu

Ellipses / Laurel Kallen

Fatigue sleeps in a small fluffy bed
The ceiling fan stops whirling

Rain pries petals
from flowering trees

sprinkles the sidewalk 
with pastel teardrops

and so on, etcetera

A dog eats grass, throws up
Skin begins to crepe

near elbow creases
and around ankles

Ray told me he couldn’t 
extend one arm because

of shoulder arthritis 
now must modify his 

yoga postures. Accept Resist 
Exist Accept Resist

and so on, etcetera

The cat slinks into 
the kitchen to watch dust 

particles float in the 
sunstream – sigh of cars

through this open window
Endless swoosh of wind

and so on, 
etcetera

Sherman Alexie muses on Raymond Carver as I look On / Martha Lou Little

A part time Indian meets an old drunk

In literature, the place where we’re all equal

Even the tired AA adages couldn’t save them

Don’t quit the miracle.

And how much more miracle is there than this:

A voice ringing out with something dark

Something unsaid, something so true that a dead poet

Touches the depths of a small Indian boy, looking up at the blue sky,

And everything changes?

I imagine Sherman Alexie pulls on his boots

And enters the world, fighting the battle

Of some poor white man who had fallen

And picked himself up again.

It works when you work it

Terrible Brilliance¹  / Shelly Rodrigue

sagebrush mammoth
& juniper tiger 
lift their heads
in alarm 

trees burst 
wild from blazing 
land, a monstrous 
fireball

iron & nickel 
molten streams 
dazzling 
with their glow

dust & soot 
& feeble light
encircle 
wounded earth 

the bolide
strike
a thousand bombs
in Cañon Diablo 

¹a found poem from the article “Meteorites—Invaders From Space” by Kenneth F. Weaver, published in National Geographic Vol. 170, No. 3, September 1986

Day 26 / Poem 26

A Promise from Rust / Lois Anne

day-26-A-Promise-from-Rust

The Earth Comes Closer to the Sky, the Moon Pales / Michelle Geoga

as we gaze up, half-erasing memories, sharding them
far too many morsels of time to make anything out of.

We have the ever weightier present, thank god, with the
crow talk, the screaming freight train, the heaving waves

and yes, shrieking gulls, so low, sneaky low, sky gliding,
side-eyeing, though we are so far from the loud water

where we stand on the lawn, under the fading moon, under
the flat clouds moving so fast, racing away, ever departing.

Zooming clouds flood a tiny toy-sized jet plane, sonic-speed
streaking, far more nimble than the clouds, than the seagulls

far closer to the earth than the dimmed morning moon, the jet
disappearing amidst the slower clouds and in an instant

reappearing in the blue gaps between. We are the jet and this
is how we record time, under the passing blue, white, blue.

Apple / Ava M. Hu

Mishmash / Laurel Kallen

_{Yes, really. The potato masher doesn’t work? I don’t believe you.”}1

_{Really?! You must think I’m as dumb as that sack of potatoes over there.}2  

_{Really!! You broke the potato masher!  What were you using it for? Bricks?} 3

_{Not really. I doubt it can ever be replaced. It was my mother’s.}4

_{It’s been real. Maybe when I get back, we can look for one on ebay.} 5

_{For real? How amazing that you’ve found the exact same potato masher my mother had.}6

---

1_{“Yes, really.” Said to emphasize something one has already said}

2 _{“Really?” Said with sarcasm to show that something the other has said is obvious}

3 _{“Really!” Said with emphasis to show displeasure at what the other has done.}

4 _{“Not really.” Said to express doubt in response to what the other has said.}

5 _{“It’s been real.” Said when the speaker is unsure about the quality of an interpersonal experience.}

6 _{“For real?” Said to express incredulity.}

SOME WORDS FEEL BETTER / Martha Lou Little

There is a wordless secret that only exists in the unseen world.

Can only be known in the heart where the Al Sirr, secrets of secrets live.

The Tasawuf Sufis vow to purify the heart in order to have this truth revealed.

As I sit in the lavender, sage,and  thyme of the sacred mountain, the frog song

Takes me away from my musings.

“SHUT UP YOU BOSSY AMPHIBIANS”, I scream, knowing they will win.

Knowing they profess to know the purity of their hearts

Knowing that their cacophony is a call to prayer 

Among the Palms / Shelly Rodrigue

I am from Palmyra, and I will stay here even if they kill me.
-Khaled al-Assad, archaeologist 

standing in the shadow 
of towering limestone columns,

sweet scent of palm flower
and soft sand in the hot breeze,

he recalls each funerary relief,
the stone faces of his ancestors;

his most beloved artefacts, 
his three sons, escaped the city 

with hundreds of relics
packed carefully in cloth bags;

as militants flood the desert ruins,
he performs his final excavation,

uncovers the brave, beating chambers
that will not betray his home;

his heart never wavered once,
not even when they took his head

Day 25 / Poem 25

Always Flowing / Lois Anne

                    Come what come may,
                                        Time and the hour
                                                            runs through the roughest day.
                                                                                William Shakespeare
                                                                                                Macbeth, Act 1, scene 3, 163-164

I live beside the St George River
have coffee with it every morning
but it’s never the same river

this river runs through time 
logs and other debris float
along with memories

of youth and other seasons
spent as if they were each the last
and yet might flow on forever

Ode to a Fetid Skunk Cabbage / Michelle Geoga

Notes On Descent / Ava M. Hu

The Students Are Waiting / Laurel Kallen

In the dream and dreams
I cannot find the classroom
I’m running through the maze of hallways
like Mark S in Severance
sprinting through the 
maze of hallways 
the daze of hallways
or if perchance I find the room I
cannot enter it
What is wrong?
something everything 
I mind that it’s in my mind
I mind what’s in my mind
and the students are waiting
checking their makeup
flirting, talking, taking out 
notebooks and Macbooks
and gel pens looking at the clock
looking at their phones
looking at each other
eyes rolling heads shaking
I cannot find them
Where am I supposed to teach? 
How am I supposed to teach?
Who am I supposed to teach?
Who am I to teach?
and the students are waiting
not waiting, getting up to leave,
putting notebooks back 
in backpacks
and I’ll be fired
and mired in debt
(oh, shit, that’s a cliché)
mired in debt
financial and otherwise
and miss my imposter 
syndrome waking up at 5:00 a.m.
printing materials

Santo Marcos and The Shepherds / Martha Lou Little

Dark Oxygen / Shelly Rodrigue

Day 24 / Poem 24

April Impressions / Lois Anne

crack BOOM splatter whoosh
quiet follows –
ah, the rainbow

***

spring fever
run jump sprint fly soar
stop – smell daffodils

***

wind-swept grey bay
clouds hang heavy
salt encrusted shoe

***

tattered prayer flags
blown to shreds
uncertain times

***

tattered prayer flags
hang limp
dead mouse stiffens

***

deer tracks in fresh snow
yellow orchids
on windowsill

Remember The Magnolias are Beautiful This Year / Michelle Geoga

I can’t remember my father’s mother’s name
yes   my grandmother   how telling    but it will come to me

sadly. One should parlay    what is known
to forget what one wishes was unknowable—focus

on marvel   the marvelous   wonder   not at what you
don’t remember   remember you still have an abundance

of opportunity for growth   for change   for forgetting   stop
mordant observations of inferior prior selves   you are who you are now   

reject the penury of past   missed future opportunities   no hits all misses  
release it all   embrace what lies ahead     and oh yes, it was Katherine  

Unfilled Spaces / Kyla-Yen Giffin

My favorite painting used to hang here—framed in gold, basked in light, against the gallery wall. Now it’s been replaced by another painting. Like it was just another painting.

I don’t want this.

I want the spaces that don’t get filled, that can never be filled. I want the potholes you have to learn to drive around. I want the warped tree branches that grew around something that isn’t there anymore. I want the gaps in the clouds that make windows for the moon. I want the pomegranate that’s been broken up and gutted because it was that delicious. I want the water jug to be emptied out and not be filled up again, to have given every last drop to our greedy flower and never betray it for another. I want an emptiness so palpable that there’s no way to hide from it, no way to take it with you. I want nothing but nothing to take its place.

I want

Purification / Ava M. Hu

Something Always Mars / Laurel Kallen

The braided rug, the whitewashed wall with that one blue drip,
the windexed window, a smudge between the panes – something always mars

The first hug, the kiss where our tongues tried to figure each other out
The first fight, this love was supposed to be blemish-free – something always mars

Our plans to travel, to fly, to sail, to board the train, to drive
but here we are from nine to five and broke —  something always mars

This week, an eruption of blossoms, a performance of petals, a shower,
the greenness of grass, except where our dogs pee – for something always mars

Friends disappear to places and spaces, surface the next day or week or year
And I vanish too, the tree of me, the laurel, for something always mars.

When The Police Make A Visit To a Tiny Mountain Village / Martha Lou Little

Myself and the Spanish workmen were taking a break

From backbreaking stone work on a steep mountain road

The work, of course illegal, as all work is here

My first impulse was to hide

But the workmen told me to go speak with the tall gunned men, and plead

It was like chewing sand

Words could not explain what I was doing

They looked down the cliff and one of them saw their brother-in-law

The silence was broken

With a hearty laugh

How precarious life on this mountain is

Only blood and backbone will keep your chin up

And even then you may slip

Goujon Caille, Couyon / Shelly Rodrigue

I do not remember
the first fish I caught

but I know it happened
with a push-button pole,

the hard plastic grip
too rough and wide 

for hands small 
as mine were,

each cast unskilled
and flung wild,

knotting birds’ nest
on the last eye loop;

I remember my father
cursing at me in Cajun,

French words hurled further
than my understanding, 

but the tone said I did 
a grievous wrong,

the English reminding me
what a stupid child I was;

I do not remember 
the fish that died 

for my dinner that night,
but I think I ought to

Day 23 / Poem 23

Full Speed Ahead for Burning – A Burning Haibun / Lois Anne

day-23-Full-Speed-Ahead-for-Burning-–-A-Burning-Haibun

My Least Favorite Meal / Michelle Geoga

I made my husband burritos for dinner—
not having any? he asks. No. Salad, I say.

I had enough burritos. Every day for lunch
my third year of high school, in my third
high school, filled with strangers, laughing,
joking, happy with life. I picked a burrito
because the line was the shortest. I could eat it
though a hardly edible deep fried colorless pouch
of pasty refried beans that smelled of cooking
oil not cooking but I could eat it fast and
get out of the cafeteria and sit outside my
next classroom. Creative Writing class.
Sit next to a boy also cornstalk skinny also
with plastic rimmed glasses and uncool clothes
and talk. I talked to no one else that third year. We
weren’t friends. I never saw him outside of
the hallway. But I never questioned why he
also wanted to escape the cafeteria and wait
in the hall. After school I was grateful for the
nine tenths of a mile walk home no matter
the weather because a mile meant a bus ride
and the bus seemed like a whole cafeteria of hell
crammed into one vehicle of horror.

No more burritos for me.

Mirror Poem / Ava M. Hu

Freudian Sip / Laurel Kallen

I see a dead squirrel – it is only a child squirrel –
In a hole in the trunk of a tree

My little dog wants to sniff it
so I jerk him away

Then I remember my dream from last night

I had a penis all of a sudden,
which I didn’t mind.

23 words for Frustration / Martha Lou Little

A 19- year- old walks into a classroom

Minutes before escalating from tired humiliation to entitled rage

And surely before he picked up the gun and loaded 35 bullets he noticed

The flood of shame was choking him.

(In Spanish there are 23 levels of names for quiet desperation: mosqueada, disgustada, rayada, cabreada, agallada- just to  name a few, and to my knowledge there has never been a mass shooting in Spain.)

When the voices inside are muted in nuances maybe wild shame and blame and self emulation comes first.

Maybe reaching for that gun feels like a soothing pain pill.

His grammar teacher was quietly writing lists of verbs

When he creaked open that door and breathed

At last, a relief to the pounding impotence

At last a recognition of his almost Godly power.

Untitled erasure¹ / Shelly Rodrigue

Starr, Michelle. “Half the Universe’s Matter Was Missing. Astronomers Just Found It.” ScienceAlert, ScienceAlert, 17 Apr. 2025, www.sciencealert.com/half-the-universes-matter-was-missing-astronomers-just-found-it?fbclid=IwY2xjawJ0sdhleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHk2UO867NamIQsOaBAAvwC4w3z-3kI-7VLnmTiZlO2lWha7_Kye1tjNIge_9_aem_TKbNEDOChb22fRmqVCWJeQ. 

Day 22 / Poem 22

Small Administration / Lois Anne

day-22-Small-Administration

Ode to the Perfect Dumpling / Michelle Geoga

The filling is already perfect:
not-too-lean pork, springy garlic
chives minced just right, partly wilted
napa cabbage cut into thin ribbons, all
married with soy, ginger and sesame oil.

The dipping sauce is ready, too:
snappy minced ginger, soy, black vinegar,
oniony minced scallion, sesame oil, a
pinch of sugar. That’s the easy part.
Now for the folding of the dumplings.

Agonize over the perfect amount
of filling—more than a teaspoon
but not much. Wet only half of the skin
so it sticks to the other half. Fold. Pinch. Crimp.
First the left side. Then the right side.

Hope the skin doesn’t tear. Hope the skins
don’t have freezer burn. Seal the edges
—beware of gaps. Set it on the cutting board
and press it a little flat, so the bottom makes
good contact with the pan. Repeat fifty times.

What if they aren’t perfect? What if they
have gaps? Would the people you love
enjoy them less? Two bite dumplings—or one
—bring joy to the table. No one checks
for gaps or tears as plate after plate is emptied.

Pomegranate / Ava M. Hu

Romey Says They’re Mean / Laurel Kallen

Seagulls stretch their wings and mew like cats

with dove-like bodies

fast-beating hearts, they

graze and grace

dive and dance

soar and swoop

and live and live

roost in nests

of stones and feathers

moss and seaweed

fly and fly and fly and fly
along the ever beach

R. Crumb Breaks Down And Tells / Martha Lou Little

The biographer pulled up his socks and R. Crumb agreed to tell all.

Then the biographer choked on a piece of lamb and had to wait.

Crumb, giggled his maniacal laugh and drew it and smoked it and insisted,

“YOU HAVE TO FIND ME”.

How do you find a magician, an escape artist, a disappearing act, a cartoon figure?

The biographer trudged on, hating the subject, but loving the hunt.

He never tired of the illusive figure, who said about his beloved wife,

“To be in Aline’s presence you felt that life was going to be interesting”.

The biographer was drowning in papers and had an urgent sense of time stopping.

He often dreamed himself in a Crumb cartoon

Diminished and doubled over, choking choking and choking.

And all that came out were more papers.

Tanka 87 / Shelly Rodrigue

wild teasel wears two 

lavender tutus 

to pirouette on the wind 

an evening dress rehearsal 

for our own private ballet

Day 21 / Poem 21

Full Speed Ahead / Lois Anne

The Boston Marathon is today. With arthritic knees and chemo-damaged
feet I cannot run, but I can sprint down the page.

My heart is not a sweet red or pink symmetrical shape, a thing made of
sugar or chocolate that could melt. It is a muscle, it pumps blood, and it
can break.

I am not who I once was – write, paint, garden, wash dishes, teach, do
laundry, hold a day job, prepare three meals, dance until 3am, five hours
sleep, get up and do it all again – I want a nap now after just writing this.

I come from a family for whom appearances mattered – hold your head
high and act as if the neighbors did not hear the screaming or notice the
bruises.

I was seven when I first attended a wake. Our elderly neighbor in a pink
lace dress, her grey hair combed, the pain lines gone from her face, laid
out surrounded by white roses.

On our second date Jim said beige was his favorite color. I almost left
before dessert, “and purple” so I stayed for chocolate mousse, another
glass of shiraz, and the ensuing years.

“Life Storage” proclaims the sign on a windowless warehouse on the way
to the Maine Mall. I envision rows of cubicles each teeming with members
of a specific species – giant jellyfish saguaro white pine border collie
flowering quince diamondback rattlers.

Buddha sits on a small boulder in our front yard. A cardinal eats black
sunflower seeds out of his hands. My heart skips a beat.

What Winter Reveals / Michelle Geoga

I have seen things in this perpetual winter, this slothy spring
                     things usually camouflaged but always there
             sights unseen in summer and fall, the concealed revealed

by trees stripped bare. Seeing through the trees to secret forest sheds,
             to a distant shabby farmhouse, to a pale barn with its door askew and askance
             by the tracks, near a fence-toppled vegetable garden, tree-toppled pickup.

Seeing down the ravine along the road to the meandering snake of a river
                   turgescent, muddleheaded, scorned by all fowl and though
             wider and flatter where it slips silent under the road, lucid and nimble,

a different rough, pushy creature at the floor of the usually dark ravine
                   and like the view looking down at the usually obscured riverbed
         the multitudinous paths in the woods seen from the top of the hill now offer

no privacy for flora or fauna, turkeys exposed, deer revealed, a hunting stand
                  naked among the trees, passed under on countless walks unseen.
             If only I could remember where, after the leaves fill in all the secrets,

if only I remember where the abandoned paper wasp nests hung, soon to be hidden
                  if only I could remember where the deer’s bedding nests lay
         if only I could remember where the little forest pond I’d never seen before

today’s naked trees revealed all. If only I could remember where all the other secrets lay.

Sacrament / Ava M. Hu

In the Beginning / Laurel Kallen

When I say, “Where did you put the spatula?”
and you answer, “Who said I put it anywhere?”

I know the day has begun in earnest.
You bike to Home Depot 

in your threadbare sweater, 
fishing shorts pulled up over 

long underwear.
I work at home amid my parents’ 

antique night tables and bookcases, 
remnants of their romance 

recalled and recited
at Thanksgiving dinners and Passover Seders,

a love that, though frayed over 70 years,
lasted as long as they did.

We have so few paintings hung on our walls. 
I keep suggesting that you wear jeans.

You say I should not put on make-up.
I remember the first days of our lovemaking, 

how you brought me plates of fruit
arranged to look like little birds.

Lightening Bolt From a Child / Martha Lou Little

“Abuela, why do horses eat sideways”?

Sitting on the stable gate with total wonder and absolute devotion,

She tips backwards, hanging from her feet as the horse searches her pockets for a carrot.

Giggling, somehow she rotates with an acrobatic leap landing on her bright pink, sparkly lit tennis shoes.

She is only nine, but has the karate skills of Bruce Lee, the acrobatic skills of a clown,

But mostly the unconditional love of a child.

Her eyes amaze people on the street, but I can only see loss and longing.

Is every child a world of mysteries?

Are we adults left to wonder and to cringe and to scream at the quandary of being small?

It seems therapy is meant to undo all the mistakes but perhaps the forming of a human has do with this:

Wonder, loss, uncertainty , and a constant testing of this large and unknowable world.

Meanwhile, she catches a fly in midair with chopsticks.

I bow my head and smile.

Yâsamin / Shelly Rodrigue

I met many caterpillars on my morning walk
though none I envied like the buck moth 
lounging in a galaxy of star jasmine

how I wished to be small enough to crawl 
thin vines and nap as if they were hammocks 
and I was sleepy-drunk on their sweet fragrance

Day 20 / Poem 20

For Vincent – A Burning Haibun / Lois Anne

day-20-For-Vincent-A-Burning-Haibun

The Family Trip / Michelle Geoga

We all went on a ship once
we rocked and rolled
at the dining table, the deck

We excursioned, we beached
we watched the roiling ocean
the endless salt-scented water

We could have been twirled
down an invisible bathtub drain
with a sucking noise, gone forever

We weren’t. We thought of palm
trees not drowning when we made
our dreamy Caribbean plans

the eight of us, only five
remaining now, and only
four remember the cruise

We vacation together no more
we go our own way for trips
never to be contained together

again. We didn’t know that first
time was the last, we didn’t know
days are thinner than water

The Coming of the Bees / Ava M. Hu

April is the Cruelest Month (after T.S. Eliot)  / Laurel Kallen

Once, love was in the coffee
and when I entered the room, I knew 

why. Now, it’s where are my keys? 
And my eyelids close before bedtime.

It’s the tricks or the treats and
your guess is as good as mine.

Now, I am pulling on my pants.
Now, leashing the dog,

descending the staircase.
In the mind in the mind.

(Don’t) mind the mind.

Zumba zumba at 8:00 a.m. 
A window opens onto

the first 70-degree evening.
I read about someone who couldn’t

remember what had happened to her.
On the shelf, from when 

one of the kids was five,
a small plaster handprint survives.

Grist for the Mill / Martha Lou Little

There’s a 9th century mill down the cobbled mountain road

That sits in ruins.

For a thousand 

years farmers would bring the grist, i.e. the barley and oats

To the river to let the wheel do its stubborn work.

People say work horses hauled the mill stone down the rapids.

It weighs 5000 pounds.

The farmers knelt in prayer and sang songs as they harvested their mountain grains

Bringing it first to the era, also a stone circle made with Paleolithic hands.

What kind of hope keeps busy hands and feet moving to plant seeds, and then bend to cut the stalks?

What belief that the steady mill stone would produce the flour to feed hungry mouths?

Later, they would get drunk on the barley water and lay in the grass, pick up the bags of flour

And trudge back to the village.

Only to do it again tomorrow.

Today I won’t make vapid metaphors with these words, of this grist, of the bread we eat.

No, I will bend down and plant and watch the stubborn shoots arrive.

Recreant / Shelly Rodrigue

you want what
my enemies want
for my life
and yet you
call yourself my friend—verbum
nescis, mi Brute

Day 19 / Poem 19

Letter to Vincent / Lois Anne

daay-19-Letter-to-Vincent.docx

Summer Dance: A Haibun / Michelle Geoga

Almost time for spring garden work, almost time to prep the beds for Maitai and Bobcat tomato, Cash Machine zucchini, Summer Dance cucumber. Almost time to plant nasturtium, cosmos and marigold, to attract the pollinators and repel the deer and rabbits.

Almost time to line up the rows of Maxibel French beans and string up the posts to support them. Almost time to sink the trellises for pole beans, unfold the trellises for cucumber. Almost time to fill the grow bags and stuff them with seed potatoes.

Almost time to plan what gets the open space after the garlic gets pulled. Too late for lettuce, just right for chard. Almost time for the herbs, the rosemary, dill, basil, oregano. And when that time comes and the work is done, it will be time to wait, wait, wait, wait, wait…

Even when you know
the days go fast as the years
sometimes you can’t wait

Datura  / Ava Hu

I Become Fluent in French During My First Marriage  / Laurel Kallen

On the cluttered table,
I place the memorial candle atop
a bottle of probiotic gummies.

When my father reads to us
from The Old Man and the Sea,
I have no interest in old men
and little in the sea.

Two deer bound through 
the tiny playground
and cross the avenue.

In my nightmares, my phone never works.

My husband accuses me of flirting at a party,
says he’ll throw me out the window.
I assume it is hyperbole.

Serenity Howl / Martha Lou Little

Please take the ME from me and show me the courage of letting go.

Take the control I think I have and lay it out like a mountain…or a well, or an enormous cliff.

 Let me fall and see what’s there.

Let what catches me be hope and joy and an unthinkable imagination

Let the surprised cry be an ode to the forgotten…let me forget

My enormous self and catch the call of the canyon.

Let it know the shriek of a nighthawk, or maybe an owl, or maybe the past.

Let the past be a long spiral leading to this moment

This breath, this laugh of a child

This small grudge.

Let it be big as frost on the eyelash of a stranger

Let it howl.

This is a prayer that is not a prayer; it’s only a dream and a call

To that which holds us.

The Caterpillar at the End of the World / Shelly Rodrigue

Day 18 / Poem 18

Germination / Lois Anne

Mustard   Calendula   Corn
Carrot   Cabbage   Broccoli
Rutabaga   Beet   Lettuce

a seed needs to crack open
before it can sprout

it needs time to ripen
for fullness
does not come easy

Early April / Michelle Geoga

Pink summer feelings in wet spring light,
scented with swallowed cowbird song as
April marches toward May, house finch by

finch. Curtains of rain bring worms, fat,
lurching over tired, fading asphalt. Tip toe
around the worms—you never know which

are your grandparents, your dead best friends.
May warmth brings fawns, radish, earlier
rising, meets our June expectations some

days. The pinched tip of a blooming spice
bush smells like my great aunt’s kitchen.
Whispering star pricks in the sky say, soon.

Tree Worship / Ava M. Hu

2084  / Laurel Kallen

From now on, the White House will be known 
as the Delirium Tremens, or DT, house.
Katniss has been sentenced to prison on Mars, 
along with Winston, Bernard Marx, and, a week later, Offred.
Space Z will provide the transportation.

While en route, they figure out a way to speak to one another
through slight movements of the pupils of their eyes. 
Under their mattresses, they hide 
powerful weapons that cannot be seen 
with the naked eye. They succeed in
sending their captors and guards 
hurtling into eternal orbit.

Katniss and Winston fall in love despite the prohibition, 
as do Offred and Bernard. Bernard becomes a wine connoisseur.
Winston adopts a pet rat. Offred uses an IUD. 
Katniss changes her name.

NEARING THE END / Martha Lou Little

“It looks like the end of times.”

Dictators, monsters and greed taking over the earth, etc. who decides the actual end?

Meanwhile, a gentle breeze drifts over the tired canyon.

Wafting scents of lavender and malva, even shoots of calendula are pushing through.

Do they know the end of times, coming forth through these ancient stones?

Do they question these feet hungrily trampling  them?

The sun is high and a soft dew moves in.

There is gratitude and splendor in the abundance of this generous place.

A  swish of a tail and fox come to graze

Enjoying the crackle of the sweet herbs touching aching jaws

Looking up, and up, and up.

Worth Less  / Shelly Rodrigue

my father crows in his grief everything
he did to save his little dog: 
acupuncture therapy, 
kangaroo fed from a fancy can,

the medication and medication and medication,
oatmeal baths, the tests, 
the specialists, and the vet bills

climbing Everest to the tune of sixteen
thousand feet, 
his savings swirling the drain,  
how Herculean these vain efforts 

I remember falling ill in college, 
the headache
pounding like a thrown brick 
that cracks glass it does not break 

fever and chills
building to delirium for two weeks before 
sweat puddled my sheets beneath me
and I passed out in their cold embrace

then waking and the thermometer beeped 
one hundred and two degrees
I feared
going back to sleep would mean death 

so I stumbled, then crawled the rough concrete
down two streets and through 
dew-soaked grass of the park, 
until my parents’ house took shape, 
and I tapped

with all my strength 
the faintest tap on their dark door
begging my father please
take me to the hospital

 I can still see the blinding 
emergency room sign, hear
the doctor murmuring 
how easily meningitis could kill

later, my father threw his fists in the air, 
screaming
about my five-hundred-dollar headache, 
how he ought to make me pay

for disturbing him so early in the morning,
and what have I done for him to treat me 
this way you ask

 let’s do the math:
add born sapphic, then subtract his love and what remains is this—
my life is worth less
than a dog’s to him 

Day 17 / Poem 17

Don’t Speak to Me of Losing / Lois Anne

we are born to die
each breath brings us closer to our final one
*
some say it’s predetermined
like a lottery
he gets 50 million breaths
you have 482 million breaths
she only gets 6000 breaths
*
wildfires’ smoke chokes hundreds of millions downwind
*
miners descend deep into the earth
they carry pickaxes & shovels, and keep their eyes
on the canary
*
a bomb explodes in Kyiv, and a building collapses
trapping everyone inside
do any of them have breath left
*
overcrowded boats carrying hundreds of refugees
sink in the Mediterranean with barely
a mention in the evening news
*
wars in Ukraine, Gaza, American cities & towns,
and so many – suffocating – other places
lives snuffed out no matter who wins
*
 our planet heats up
erupting volcanoes spew sulfurous gases and ash
fish, hummingbirds, blue butterflies die along with people
all gasping for breath
***
Emily wrote of the thing with feathers
I pray it can still fly

A Private Viewing / Michelle Geoga

Sun barges in from the side window
picks up Rainbows, lays a
toy xylophone on the wall

wispy Clouds above
turn xylophone into
rainbow cotton candy

splayed colored shadows
soft fuzzy borders
rainbow light show

you plant yourself
between window and wall
coloring your face

you but cannot see your face
being the palette but what
if you invite someone  

to hold up a mirror? No—
not sharing the Rainbow
you own it if only you can see it.

Ark / Ava M. Hu

Rebekah Part 1 / Laurel Kallen

When I first come to the well, 
its cool stones and waters

beckon me. Then I see the man
standing alongside his camels.

Perhaps, he will offer me a drink
but he does not move.

I feel the camels’ thirst,
stare into their sideways eyes.

Their humps have shrunken.
I turn the wheel to raise the bucket.

“Here, have some water,” I say, 
then watch the camels dunk their heads. 

The man has traveled leagues. 
Perspiration soaks his tanned skin. 

Dust smothers his sandals.
I am not as kind as he supposes.

The First Day Of Spring, 2 / Martha Lou Little

Is the first day of spring when the scarlet warblers rest in the naked trees?

When the buds of the poplars, willows and oak pop out like bubble gum?

Or perhaps it’s when the apex of the sun hits precisely on the solstice window?

Here in the high Sierra Nevada the canyons yawn and shake and scream from the aching waters that pour over the parched earth.

Hope, resilience, joy,  can’t keep it down.

The earth bows down, as if for the second coming.

Surprise  / Shelly Rodrigue

Goblin, Griffy, Grim, 
happy to see their humans, 
dash out from the house-
kept safety of the summer—
now nothing is safe from them

well-practiced paws pounce
on every living creature:
chipmunks, garter snakes, 
a variety of birds, 
voles, shrews, even each other

three cats don’t yet know 
the one dog will outnumber  
them soon—she carries 
twelve puppies beneath the smooth
bare, pink skin of her belly 

Day 16 / Poem 16

APHORISMS / Lois Anne

Overthinking burns brain cells, can lead to inaction, and according to my mother causes wrinkles.
If life is a bowl of cherries, how far can you spit the pits?
Belittling others only makes you look small.
The past can be changed as easily as reversing Earth’s rotation on its axis.
The burdens we carry may not be all our own. Sometimes we are weighted down by others’ secrets.
Loss – the fear of it often runs deeper than the pain of losing.
My grandmother Mimi said that white lies are preferable to black truths.
Sappho is correct – “If you are squeamish, don’t prod the beach rubble.”
Everyone’s journey is different, even though we may share a stretch of the road for a while.
Vacuum before the dust bunnies are big enough to name.
A friend of mine is such a pessimist that when someone mentions a silver lining, she runs for the can of silverware polish. 
Artists do not have messes; they just have ideas lying around everywhere.
Lemonade – making it is therapeutic.

Spring Trees / Michelle Geoga

My grandmother had a saucer
magnolia
to die for
The tiny front yard
southside shotgun bungalow
grew only the magnolia
Sun cast shadows of its branches
on the hard packed dirt, scented and
carpeted with soft felted bud covers
then the silky petals, pink leaning brown
as the short spring season passed.
Leafed out, I saw why the grass
couldn’t grow. The tree owned that
tiny front yard.

My grandmother had a mountain
ash
to die for
The tiny backyard
between the house and garage
stretched just a few grownup size steps
of dirt, necklaced by concrete
chain link, musky, fist-sized roses  
and a patch of grass
where the ash flowered and fruited.
The bouquets of red berries stood firm
against the robin’s egg sky all winter
drawing robins and more.

Twenty five years after my grandmother
died
I drove by the house
The front yard, blank
No magnolia, just the same old dirt
My heart skipped
breath stopped
I couldn’t see into the back yard
but I grieved for the ash as well.
Maybe my memory of them, their
beauty, blossoms, cooling shade
it may be the memory is mottled, distorted
but they showed something gorgeous
can come from somewhere ugly.

Chainsmoker / Kyla-Yen Giffin

Rainforest / Ava M. Hu

Some Words are Hard to Recall / Laurel Kallen

Your thumb pushes into 
the center of my thirsting palm —
I try to think of all the flowers I know —
petunias, forsythia, azalea,
daisies, dahlias, tulips, 
Japanese cherry blossoms, magnolias –
a fraction of the flowers Proust knew.

Your thumb pushes into 
the center of my thirsting palm.
In kindergarten, I cut off the top 
of an eight-ounce milk carton,
filled it with soil, and pressed 
two zinnia seeds into the dark earth.
I try to think of all the flowers I know.

SIESTA / Martha Lou Little

Siesta is the rest of a civilized people.

Romans were falling asleep after the mid-day meal 2000 years ago.

The slowness that a state sanctioned nap gives is palpable

People come back to reality and savor what matters:

The sweet snoring of a grandmother, the purring of a cat, the silence of the phones…

Drunkenness descends at the time of siesta in which even public officials no longer sneer.

To take a break from oneself is a gift that only siesta can sanction

There is absolutely nothing to do but rest, rest and digest.

Don’t excuse yourself to take a siesta because only the crazed are not already in it.

Héraut  / Shelly Rodrigue

Cajun country listens with pecan ears
for the formal announcement of Spring

catkins stretch toward the sun and shake
themselves awake from the long slumber

leaves still furled await the signal
winter’s last coil has loosened 

the buds never wrong once sprung

Day 15 / Poem 15

Radical Threads / Lois Anne

day-15-Radical-Threads

Keep an Even Keel/Don’t Rock the Boat / Michelle Geoga

I See.

Your brain is stuck in an aphoristic rut
                A head with two faces sees everything
Burns and disappointments
                get itchy as they heal
The sun is too warm but the shade is too cool

You think this is how it starts, the complacence
                everything starts to fit too neatly, then suddenly
the meaning of life happens in tidy sentences
                It’s good enough. No need to go deeper.
Staying on the surface of things

Is how you stay afloat. That’s the definition
                of not drowning: staying afloat
Keeping your mouth shut
                so the salt water doesn’t get in
Keeping your mouth shut
                so the lashing snakes don’t get out

You get it.

Rainforest / Ava M. Hu

On Love’s Austere and Lonely Offices (after Robert Hayden) / Laurel Kallen

So that my sleeves stayed put, my mother bid me 
hold them in my hands while she pulled my sweater on, 

taught me to keep tissues inside my cuffs
in the event of a sneeze –

After washing my hair, she twisted 
each wet tress into a ringlet. 

I was home with measles during spring vacation
so she ice-creamed my throat, vaporized my air,

and bought me a tiny girdle to support my stomach
muscles, sore from coughing.

At night, she warmed my pajamas on the radiator,
rolled me inside a blanket, read to me.

I was the fifth child so she’d done all this 
for two decades

although she was tired as a pioneer 
on a wagon train, 

although her husband often 
came home late from work.

PAIN IS A SILVER BULLET: AN ODE TO BEAUTY / Martha Lou Little

I Slip on Memories and Fall Hard into the Past   / Shelly Rodrigue

I am in my great-grandmother’s country
red, cypress house, its woody
scent seeping a fragrant mix of pine, 
fir, and spice into every corner 

bits of history scattered everywhere—
black rotary phone on a table between 
two twin beds on opposite sides 
of the main bedroom (I do not find them odd),

pale pink kerosene lamp, its patterned 
glass concealing a white wick dipped
into a chamber of flammable liquid
this house has known the light of fire, 

rubber tub stopper on a silver chain,
its muted clank as draining water glugs,
the water from a well smelling of iron-
copper earth, the bathroom heater 

an antique furnace radiating intensely 
long after it’s turned off, like a blanket
warmed by a body it does not house
anymore, like a final hug lingering 

defiant in the face of death—I am
surprised by the images’ vividness
in my mind, how easily I’m transported
to the place I was born and cannot return,

the house abandoned and empty, 
inhabitants long gone into the great
beyond, vintage content sold
for pennies—gold only in my memory

Day 14 / Poem 14

Radical Transformation / Lois Anne

day-14-Radical-Transformation

Pointing out Obvious Flaws of the Beautiful Confuses People / Michelle Geoga

The Bradford Pear’s about to bloom again
            make you nauseous with its ocean of scent
                         driving across the lawn and barging in the windows
its beauty an obscenity against fluffy blue skies
            blotting out spring’s native scent
                         subtle daffodil and gentle boxwood, and the
wet grass after first cutting, starry magnolia, and dirt, yes spring dirt,
            reminds you appearances aren’t everything
                  beauty is complicated as anything

Crane / Ava M. Hu

From mid-February through early April about a million sandhill cranes stage here, feeding in cornfields and wet meadows by day and roosting in the shallow flowing waters of the Platte River at night.

Painted Ladies and Migrations / Martha Lou Little

(Painted Lady butterflies migrate from West Africa each spring, covering thousands of miles to reach the Arctic. “Even if our wings become frayed and raggedy after a long and difficult journey, it’s not too late to find new ways to persist.” (NYT, April 13, 2025))

Roosters  / Shelly Rodrigue

My daddy used to draw me
chickens my grandma said
they were the ugliest chickens
I’d ever seen, but I loved them
because he drew them for me

silence follows the end of her story
and I noticed them for the first time:
ceramic rooster cookie jar displayed
prominently on the counter, rooster
covered tablecloth, kitchen clock

a vintage rooster in mid-caw, tin rooster
silhouette decorating the pale blue wall—
I see the chickens everywhere, and I see him, 
understanding all at once: she loves her daddy 
very much, and I love these chickens

because she does

Day 13 / Poem 13

Self Portrait as Dream / Lois Anne

a purple tiger
             silky striped fur
             silently flowing
             through the pampas

 hops a flying carpet
             rides around the world
             in eighty minutes

 passing a murmuration before landing
             reaches for a goose
             and misses

Even in my dreams I fall short. How is it, I wonder, that some people manage to integrate their lives, to live fully every moment, to aim & make the basket, to buy a ticket & win the lottery? Scrooge looked at Marly’s ghost and decided there was more of gravy than grave about him. I suspect far more hearts are haunted than houses. The sharp scent of river swollen with spring melt, the cold air stinging my lungs, the crunch of pine needles underfoot, I pause to listen to the coyotes on the ridge. All my life I’ve been looking for something which I, and only I, could find.

thirteen ferns
             in a fairy ring –
             I make another wish  

ORD to LGA / Michelle Geoga

All kinds of humanity parade past on the way to their seats. Across the aisle a woman buffs her nails with some tool. Her husband puts on his sunglasses and reclines his seat. Someone passes gas and we all pretend it’s not hanging there. Someone departs the plane after a discussion about not being allowed back on because he left his laptop at security. My neighbor closes her eyes, which complements her mask, covered. The man in front of me spills something and the flight attendant rolls his eyes. The man who departed left his jacket so the gate agent went looking for it. Two people jockey for the bathroom. We haven’t even taken off yet. I’ve already lived a whole day.  

Volcano / Ava M. Hu

Nocturne / Laurel Kallen

My mother’s brain was a reel-to-reel reeling off connections –
in her sleep, my mother said “and he had a daughter
who married well, they traveled to Europe every year

but then tragedy struck — a freak accident
their baby wrapped a curtain cord around his neck
– the crib was too close to the window –

but that girl also had a sister who
lived near us and dated one of my sons – Joel – 
she became a successful lawyer and did very well,

married late but married up – they adopted
a boy and he became a doctor – their twins went to
Hebrew School at B’nai Abraham where my girls went

I had another cousin, Doris,
who had a lisp and they took her to doctor after doctor
until Norman said maybe it was anxiety

and he was right – they lived over on Frelinghuysen Avenue
no, not Frelinghuysen, Clinton Avenue
right near the temple – I saw them on Rosh Hashanah

every year – anyway, he was right – my husband was right –

Doris saw a psychiatrist and was completely cured.”

 WHISKERS / Martha Lou Little

Cat whiskers are easily forgotten
With their whispery silences and covert lives.
What are they actually up to?
The Celts saw them as antennas to the other world: Guairi
Seeking out in the unseen realms all of all the creatures lurking about.
The ancient Egyptians have known for 5,000 years that those feathery spikes شعيرات القط protected the home.
Have you not seen a cat slyly twist her whiskers around like an insane telegraph gone rogue?
The unseen world is lost in the steamy realm of racing thoughts.
Meanwhile whiskers are sending message out to the other side
Sussing out what’s good and rightAnd even better, what’s here now.

 * whiskers, Spanish: bigotes, Arabic: ,شعيرات القط ,Italian: baffi di gatto, Navajo: iiłtsohin,Irish: GuairiI

Magnolia   / Shelly Rodrigue

when my friend suggests confession as a substitute 
for therapy, I don’t waste breath arguing 

I look instead at ancestral trees
older than her god like this magnolia

its velvety tepals blooming larger
than my palm, whiter than clouds

I want to be cupped like a beetle among
the carpels, held through the night 

when sun casts the first glints
of morning, I want to sit

in the first hint of its shadow 
where there is nothing but this tree

and nothing which its shade 
cannot absolve me 

Day 12 / Poem 12

Bones Explain Things to Me / Lois Anne

1. Fragility – one can be strong enough to carry the weight of the world
   yet break over a twig.
   
2. Thinking outside the box is desirable; calcifying innovatively is not.
   
3. Cooperation in community – no matter one’s individual strength,
   we need others to help hold us up.
   
4. When everything hits the fan, it will blow some people away
   and others toward us.
   
5. Pay attention – listen to what you know in your marrow.
   
6. Trust and hope are vital along with the simultaneous knowledge
   the world may crumble in an instant.
   
7. If “blood is thicker than water,” then some families are anemic. Perhaps a
   genetic hematopoiesis malfunction?
   
8. Gravity is our friend, but sometimes the attraction can be too strong.
   
9. Pound for pound bone is stronger than steel, but, being less dense,
   will break long before the steel does.
   
10. Safe – is it something to build around you, or for you?
    Where does safety even exist?
    
11. Ivory black is made by charring bones, grinding their remains to make warm
    carbon-based pigment of moderate tinting strength; but cremains are grey and
    may not be suitable for making paint.
    
12. Bones were used for divination long before the invention of X-ray machines.
    
13. Like tumbleweeds – at some point our roots won’t hold
    and we will end up in unexpected places.
    

You’re Killin Me / Michelle Geoga

I sit in an airport restaurant with an open kitchen. The odor of peanut oil wafts. The chef snaps at a waitress and there is a brief argument. The chef snaps at the line cook who answers in anger. The waitress snaps at a customer. I see the anger branch out and spread it’s

roots.

I have a musical ear so I hear the pulse of the anger running along the floor behind said waitress. It sounds like a horror movie: a force trailing people that alters their natural demeanor and outlook, a contagion that spreads like melted butter on the popcorn in the theatre playing said movie

but,

it stops with said customer. After said waitress snaps at him, points at his bag too far into the aisle between too-close tables, he merely pulls it away and goes on with his meal, face placid as a pile of mashed potatoes, no butter, smooth, white, expressionless. And this is how he is for the rest of his meal because I sit and watch. Contagion extinguished. I have

questions.

You mean you can just let things go? Let the irritant go before it turns to rage? Was he inoculated? We need that vaccine. I watch him and his wife, his girlfriend, his coworker, whomever, I watch them leave the restaurant. I realize too late that I want to leave them a

tip.

Ẳm / Kyla-Yen Giffin

(ẳm, in Vietnamese, means “carry”)

Remember when I asked you to carry me? When I would stretch out my little arms, plastered in the scratches and bruises of childhood, and plead that one little word of you: ẳm.

Remember when I asked you to carry me? Do you think you could do that again? Because lately I haven’t felt so grown-up. It’s true that I’m as tall as you now, and I couldn’t quite fit in the crook of your arm anymore. But could you try?

Could you raise me into the air again, like the floor is made of quicksand or lava, or whatever genre of earth is trying to swallow me up, but you won’t let it? Could you raise me like a parent is supposed to rear their kid? Could you raise me the way the word ẳm rises?

Carry me like you’re a plane and I’m heading home. Carry me like you’re the breeze and I’m the white incense smoke from your prayer twirling into the air. Carry me like you never put me down.

Carry me, carry me, ẳm, ẳm.

Find a Forest Bather / Ava M. Hu

Be Here Now / Laurel Kallen

Dmitri coils next to me in his small dogness.
                              Rain tap dances on the window, 
announces the wind’s melodrama,
                              counterpoints the radiator’s rattle.

Dmitri falls into his own private sleep.
                              We’ve had our walks and runs,
our kibble and treats.
                              We’ve shopped for matzah and soup greens, 

ordered paper towels and almond milk,
                              joined the French book club Zoom,
given up on practicing singing and sending out poems,
                              on tackling the income tax return

or grading student papers.
                              Now, even a shower seems 
insurmountable
                              while the TV screams in the living room.
Someone is being murdered or car-chased.

Today started with a meditation.
I labeled my thoughts “thinking”
and, for a moment, heard only 
the sparrow’s sharp peep.

WHEN A BIG FAT BUMBLE BEE LANDS AT YOUR DOOR / Martha Lou Little

Sometimes, here in the campo strange guests appear.

Ragged old, battered wild cats, spiders as big as your fist, frogs who are bossy and looking for love

 There’s no knowing who will greet you at the door.

Today a bumble bee as big as a baseball  sat willingly there, peeking into the room.

Shy and voiceless she looked up with confusion

And I thought aloud, “I know your people are disappearing , being poisoned and starved and forced out by global warming. My people are heartless and cruel, we ask forgiveness to you all. I see you are a messenger”.

She literally blinked

.Her little eyes spoke and I saw, that I knew nothing

About the sweet vapor of nectar, or the brush of petals against your face

Or the rush from the torment of lavender bliss, or even the feeling of rain against a wing.

Her little, spidery leg was stuck in the door jam and she wanted out.

I wrestled with the little leg, trying hard not to hurt her.

She flew away without looking back

 But I swear she waved her wing just a little higher as she continued on

Looking for bliss in the blooming sage.

Two Easters  / Shelly Rodrigue

a steady drone to ladies under dryers
the TV is always on at the local hair shop

on ABC News, the reporter lists options
to curb the price of eggs this Easter

she urges viewers to buy store brands 
complimenting their value 

her last suggestion, to dye
fake eggs, met with cackles 

from her fellow correspondents
as if there is something funny 

about American families struggling
to afford basic items

                   *
Grandma was a depression baby 
and, knowing hunger, saved the last
spoonful of rice because somebody

can eat that, much to father’s annoyance
his stomach a stranger to its own growl

every year as stores’ aisles filled
with pecan eggs, robin’s eggs, 
Cadbury crème eggs, and Elmer’s
heavenly hash eggs, she told me 
the Easter story of her childhood

her family, too poor for traditional treats,
stocked her and each of her 8 siblings’ baskets
with the largest sweet potatoes their
few dusty coins could buy, and how

not wanting to be dirt poor, she cried 

now, I stare down the depression 
of my own time, sweet potatoes 
and memories piled high

Day 11 / Poem 11

Applesauce / Lois Anne

for CHNOPS *

Adam gathered wood and built a fire
then sat talking with Eve as she stewed fruit

Eve heard the questions and smiled
She didn’t need Snake to give her clues
         for what she knew in her bones

Carrots   Petunias   Salmon   Sage
Bananas   Lions   Kale   Penguins
Eucalyptus   Jaguars   Amber   Squid
Starstuff   Applesauce   It’s all the same

*       Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur –    the basis of life as we know it

How to be Im/Patient for Spring: A Haibun / Michelle Geoga

Sit outside on a warm day and listen for new birdsong—hey, that was a Carolina wren—the juncos will soon be gone but the cowbirds have arrived and the finches are on their way. Sit outside on a chilly day, if the wind rests and the sun is out, and wear dark pants and a dark coat to soak it up—you will swear the sun is getting hotter, even if it is barely forty Fahrenheit, it will feel like seventy. Sit in the sun in the house, put a chair wherever it streams in, and skim the seed catalogs filled with swollen-sweet tomatoes, glossy green zucchini, cascading nasturtium. Buy seeds for the garden and wait by the mailbox, buy the bags of dirt for the raised beds and piles of containers and stack the bags where they will be seen, ready to be put into action. Walk outside in the forest and check on the ramps, the mayapple, the trout lilies. Watch for the anemones, the cut-leaf toothwort and bloodroot. Let the scent of damp autumn leaves and worm turned earth after the days and days of rain fill you up while you watch for the curled fists of fiddleheads and damp-celled wood-colored morels. Watch the days not the calendar: this is how to receive spring.

the seasons a blink
of the stars, the years folds of
a garden cabbage

Redwood / Ava M. Hu

A Sapphic Guide to Survival / Laurel Kallen

Spring’s the slowest season so April cannot
wake the bluebells; daffodils yawning yawns through
frosted crystals doggedly hanging onto
anything they can

Bundle up, daughter, covering hands and head and 
feet with silk and wooly things, sweaters, jackets
boots and gloves and forgetting fancy frilly
taffeta dresses 

What if freezing thoroughly doesn’t bother
you and you don’t actually mind the shivers? 
Good for you, then. Honestly, I can’t weather  
 wintertime unless  

snowfalls whiten everything – daybreak, nightfall –
then of course it’s easier – even I can
cope with freezing perfectly, breathing – more so,
tasting – snowflakes

When Pachango Goes Home / Martha Lou Little

Pachango’s  blood is old,  generations of shepherds and mountain folk.
He has planted his life in the garden of his ancestors.
Moorish, Roman, and Neolithic blood flows through those broad shoulders.
He carries rocks on his back.
 Even yesterday he made a stone wall from 3000 pounds of mountain granite.
Sometimes when he smiles it’s as if the mountains open.
They know him and are grateful for his steady love.
Leading animals, children and grace through the Sierra Nevada.
 He endures
And maybe you could call that love.
Tomorrow is fiesta and he will visit his mule.
They are teaching each other how to push through
These solid stones, this stubborn life.

Microchimerism  / Shelly Rodrigue

         You carry your entire family inside of you—Francisco Úbeda de Torres, evolutionary biologist

fetal cells settle 
foreigners in the lands
of their mother

wandering 
from the womb
to every tissue 

imaginable
the portal 
bidirectional 

for each traveler 
she and her mothers
conceived

we linger in 
the place we left
and everywhere 

we are going
until we become
living myths

part goat
part dragon
part lion

we are none
of us our-
selves 

Day 10 / Poem 10

Freedom Flowers / Lois Anne

day-10-Freedom-Flowers

Misfiring / Michelle Geoga

I looked at a sassafras but
the word rutabaga came to mind

that’s how it starts, it’s beginning
It’s not happening tomorrow, but

I don’t know how it started
for you but you said the wrong

word often and oftener
until it ended. everything

I looked at a tiny daisy but the word
fleabane would not come. Walked along

saying not daisy, not daisy, not
daisy. Fleabane came at midnight

when I got up to use the bathroom.
I don’t know how that started either

Ceremony / Ava M. Hu

Assume Benevolent Intent / Laurel Kallen

When I was five, the dandelion was a flower to me
Then, my father shocked me with his vast knowledge
“It’s not a flower; it’s a weed,” he said,
roller coasting me

Once, my second-grade teacher 
pinched my chin with her thumb and forefinger 
until it became a scream – 
“What an adorable child,” she said during the pinch

Not a poem / Martha Lou Little

Today no poem comes
Hauling rocks has a way of stealing creative mind
Back aching tiredness overwhelms the heart
And all I can hear is the noise
Of what is left to do

One Evening  / Shelly Rodrigue

follow our mud tracks 
one predator walks beside 
me, another in 
underbrush—the she-wolf calls
me friend, the bobcat might not

I hiss back at the bushes 
who hissed at me first 
I am big and scary, too 
so big and scary 
fear my big and scariness 

I take a pistol 
to piss in the dark forest 
my friends laugh at me 
city girl, what you scared of? 
I shake my head I don’t know!

we sit porch dimly 
lit as night falls around us 
some big thing crashes 
near probably just a deer
or not, haha, anyway

Day 9 / Poem 9

Just Who Is Flying this Plane? / Lois Anne

an ars poetica

I’ve done 9-5, primroses, the manicured lawn,
but my natural gravitational pull is toward the intersection
of the unexplored cave & the rim of the caldera

***

full moon tonight
in deep shadows
I howl

further up the road
a poet plays her violin under the elm
a grey parrot dances

***

there’s a woman thinks blood is love –
I give her a knife

the stream widens …

John Fetterman / Michelle Geoga

John Fetterman: This Drug Helped Me Feel Like Myself Again
(Headline for a story in the New York Times, April 8, 2025)

How do you know yourself? Maybe
that drug made you someone you wished
to be and not someone you used to be.

I used to be younger, stronger, thinner…
if a drug made me that way again is that
really me? I’m not thirty anymore, I’m

double. I know a lot more than I did at
thirty. I don’t want to be that person who
couldn’t identify a cowbirds song, who

didn’t know what Haibun is, who (now
I’m getting vulnerable) actually bought
some plastic plants. A six foot palm for

the living room we never sat in. I don’t
have a living room anymore and I think
I feel like myself more than ever.

Field Notes / Ava M. Hu

Photograph Taken at Rosa Cucina Italiana / Laurel Kallen

In a tiny restaurant I’d wanted to try
(it got four point eight stars on Google)
our bodies lean toward and away from one another. 
Uncleared plates clutter the foreground. 
I guess we had finally eaten – it took an hour for the food to come –- 
but what else could you expect on Valentine’s Day?
You ask how long it’s been since we made love. I’m not really sure.

Also on the table – two half-full, half-empty glasses of water, 
a candle, two yellow flowers in a small glass bottle.

ANOTHER KIND OF SPRING / Martha Lou Little

The clouds thick with rain
Lay heavy over the sturdy shoulders of 2 peeking mink eared cliffs
The Sierra Nevada was weeping.

 Spring has never been so slow
Coming over the canyons
With her mouth open, and howling to tip the cypresses.
Luckily roots go deep here
In this vertical heaven
With voices murmuring through the ancient stones
Whispering secrets of survival

The New Dire Wolves  / Shelly Rodrigue

Romulus and Remus howl
songs extinct for 10,000 years
the moon quivers, remembering 

Day 8 / Poem 8

In My Heart of Hearts I Know / Lois Anne

1. Loving someone means I always will whether or not I want them
        actively in my life
2. I strive to do the best I can even when it seems beyond stupid in
        hindsight 
        or perhaps even at the time
3. Out of sight, out of mind – I know I forget many things –
        laundry, dental appointments, work deadlines, where I put my
        copy of the collected poems of Edna St incent Millay, paying
        the electric bill – until there’s a visual reminder
4. I have disappointed others
        like the lover whose [presumably] last letter to me I discovered
        in the back of a closet last week
        unopened
        and postmarked thirty-five years ago
5. Forrest Gump was right: “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never
        know what you’re going to get.”

Certain Kind of Halo / Michelle Geoga

The coyote around here are hated
and feared
               should be respected, but
                             sometimes kill chickens
maim dogs, follow hikers

have you ever seen a coyote
               cross your lawn, like
                             it’s on its way somewhere
                                         where
none of your business.

Seen one stand in the street
               stare down your car? Heard
                             a family howl and yip
                                         at the train whistle
joining its song but making it their own.

You want Coyote Attitude.
               You would never confuse a
                             coyote for a dog.
                                         It wears a Fuck You like a halo.
Does what it wants, when

it wants, where it wants,
               needs nothing, owes nothing,
                             begs for nothing.
                                         You want that Coyote Fuck You.
You want to see what it could do.

Ode to songs heard by a river / Kyla-Yen Giffin

while the bullfrog groans a hymn
while the train blares out an elegy
while the raccoon baby’s rotting remains
sing nothing at all.

Monarch/Danaus plexippus / Ava M. Hu

It Was Hard for Me to Ask / Laurel Kallen

Dear uploaders of words with wings,
of Rilke’s poems and Zen prayers
which you offer as splints
for yogis with broken wrists or toes

or tender as tender – 
a breath of air that buoys
the one who stands stunned
by the cymbal clang of a diagnosis

the one whose child has looked away,
the mother who reaches into
her pocket of love-pain again and again and 
draws out only the strains that rain through her porous hands

I see the jeweled vestments that you wear
and let fall from my limbs the rags that smother me
I shake off – at least, in this moment – the elastic impulse to
plead my introversion

Your presence is a present presence.
Your presence is a present.
I will save the satin ribbon that surrounds it.

Mosaic / Martha Lou Little

Gather the stones of your life together.
Millions of years of evolution, and these small beauties fit in your hand.
This one holding a trauma, that one remembering a small joy
What are we if not polished sediment constantly being thrown in a mill?
Little by little a form took place and the mosaic shone with calculated beauty-
Shining of light, water, fire and time
Hold it close to your heart, and let it go.

Me First Policy  / Shelly Rodrigue

Day 7 / Poem 7

Grow Flowers in the Face of Duplicity / Lois Anne

day-7-Grow-Flowers-in-the-Face-of-Duplicity

Babylon Today / Michelle Geoga

opposite day, oppression day
light inseparable from shadow

promises rolled into weeks then months
hope turns cave living, windowless, cornered

where corners are nonexistent, and yet
the question: how long will this last

outside, chorus frogs are the Greek chorus
rehashing the events, repeating the woes

until your ears wring

Ode to a nail tech / Kyla-Yen Giffin

It’s been three years since I’ve been to a nail salon. You, auntie, remember me from when I came in earlier this afternoon to book an appointment, and call me to your chair. I show you the pictures of the nails I want, and you tell me you can do it. I know you can. You tell me you like a challenge. We sit down and you tell me that you just came back from a training program where you learned new nail art techniques that you’re excited about—green and white marbled nails, nails with glitter in them, fire-colored ombre nails, and I think one of those I made up. You show me examples of nails you’ve made and I tell you, Those are impressive. You reply, with relief, You think so? Then you talk to the man working at the front counter, and the two of you speak in Vietnamese, which I can’t understand, but do know the melody of, and if I could I would soak in that melody. I would loiter in this nail salon every day after class just to be wet by it. Then I think I hear one word I recognize: chúc. It means wish, and I wonder what you’re wishing for, the same way I wonder what my real aunties wish for. It’s been two years since I’ve last seen my aunties. But no need to think about that now. And anyway, you, someone’s auntie, might as well be my auntie, are here. And for the next two hours while you craft my new nails, you hold my fingers between yours so tenderly, massage my hands so familiarly, that I almost do call you auntie. At the end, you tell me my hands are so nice I could be a hand model, and ask me if I like what you’ve done with my nails. I tell you, I’m really happy with them.

Glacier / Ava M. Hu

Nixon Won and I Got Pregnant / Laurel Kallen

In 1972
I voted and had sex 
for the first time

landing where you could see 
so much sky – unlike in 
New York — “the City” – whose 

skyscrapers scrape it away
and pull their shadows down
like shades. Here, in San Francisco — “the City” —
sunlight seeps in and out

submitting to the fog 
with its achy joints 
and allergies

3 Little Children Enter the Cold Sea / Martha Lou Little

These 3 little children crossed the Mediterranean in a rubber raft
In the dark of night, escaping war and nothingness at home
Parents exhausted and crazed by loss
Looking for the other side for comfort,
Pretending that the boat would arrive to safet,y and that those at home would follow.
Children with all their innocence, seeing the waves
And their boat sagging with too many refugees
Trying to be brave and not cry and looking up at the clear sky

 Well, that is all over and they made it, at least part of them did.
They still cry at night with nausea and terror and wonder why grandmother couldn’t come.
Their father with one leg blown off by a drone, still walking and walking looking for refuge.
Today we shared a Spanish plate of fish and ran into the sea.
They want hot chocolate and I say sugar is poison, understanding the relativity of danger.
Tooth decay is low priority when your faith is all you have to hold onto
In the grey and treacherous sea.

Contrast   / Shelly Rodrigue

The April sky looms gray
darkening still as thunder 
and lightning threaten 
their rage, and yet 
Spring’s fresh green
stands unwavering
against the coming maelstrom.
Oh, yes, there will be rain,
and then, growth. 

Day 6 / Poem 6

Newly Opened / Lois Anne

winged magenta heart
weighing less than Maat’s feather
fits in the palm of my hand

dorsal sepal    lateral sepal   
cap    labellum    petal
flutter of hummingbird wing

Phalaenopsis amabilis
tilts toward the sun

*Ma’at was the Egyptian goddess who personified order, truth, and what is right. It was believed that for a person to enter what is now called heaven, their heart had to weigh less than one of her feathers.

After the Winter Departs There is Chaos / Michelle Geoga

The wind puffed open the newspapers
the plastic bags, ribbons of caution
grafted them to fences and shrubs
then dismissed itself, stranding them
in the rains and under a sun
growing in power, growing the dormant,
lengthening its domain daily.

Dented tin cans stripped naked
by days of snow and salt, reflect
ruddy midnight street light amid
grubby curb waste, descended
of melted layered snow events—
parties that were fun the first
few times but aged badly.

In the median of yellowed patchy
grass specked with blue
bottle caps, shiny wrappers, Frito and
Dorito bags, stands old Lilac, mostly
dead but for a few glorious purple blue
flower heads standing at the ready to
perfume the waste laid and calm the land.

Someone will blow away the
detritus, the wind, the workers, then
green will wave over the medians
the roadside parks and lawns
once again. Ever hardy Lilac
blooms, leafs, endures, waits
for the next winter’s chaos.

Queen of the Night / Ava M. Hu

Show Me What Democracy Looks Like (New York City, 5 April 2025) / Laurel Kallen

Signs pierce the air
its falling temperature
and drizzle

we move footloose
down Fifth Avenue
from intersection to intersection
where cars honk like excited geese 
in sync with our chants
and we scream back

Hands off Greenland, 
Hands off Canada, 
Hands off Panama
Hands off science, trans kids,

Hands off women’s bodies, the courts,
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid 
Hands off 

Yet, we the people – hands on – all hands on deck –
helping hands holding hands
We are the union, the mighty mighty union
Hey hey ho ho
This is what democracy looks like
No Nazis, No KKK, No Fascist U.S.A.

El pueblo unido jamás sera vencido.
Listen up, listen up

The only good king is a drag king.

HOPE. RESILIENCE. JOY. / Martha Lou Little

Is the first day of spring when the scarlet warblers return to rest in the trees?
Or when the buds of the poplars, willows and oaks pop out like bubble gum?
Or perhaps, it’s when the apex of the sun hits precisely on the solstice window?
The first day of spring could be when a child’s face reaches up and sun-kissed eyelashes blink in awe.

Here on this mountai, spring shakes the canyon indiscriminately, pouring aching waters down the parched earth.
Hope, resilience, and joy can’t keep it down.
There is no denying spring…she keeps her promises

Closing the Valves   / Shelly Rodrigue

            after Emily Dickinson

Emperor upon my mat,
your kneeling comes too late, 
my affection turned already

into stone. Feel its slick, cold
marble chill you to the bone
and know that lack of warmth, 
too, is a poem. 

Day 5 / Poem 5

Searching for Edna St Vincent Millay Today / Lois Anne

I find Diane Seuss   Sappho   Patti Smith
Margaret Atwood   bell hooks   Maggie Nelson
Judy Collins   Maggie Smith   Mary Ruefle
all jumbled together under the bed

belly down on the scratchy grey carpet
my nose fills with winter’s dust as I reach
further to haul them all out –  

it’s no wonder I’ve had insomnia

perhaps I will sleep better tonight

Grandma Claims Time Gets More Valuable as it Passes / Michelle Geoga

Michelle-day-5

Ode to yarn / Kyla-Yen Giffin

Yarn with its patterns and paces, braids and beats, tones and threads—each skein a stanza, each slip knot an em dash, each loop a syllable.

A poem can’t take me home, can’t keep someone warm, can’t look pretty around my neck.

In my elementary after-school program, I learned to knit by finger-knitting skinny chain scarves, the yarn running through my fingers and braiding itself on my knuckles while the teacher’s fingers ran through and braided my hair. 

In January, I just thought writing wasn’t cutting it anymore, so I resurrected the more-than-a-decade-old hobby, and improved upon it. I bought hundreds of dollars worth of thick blanket yarn, and I finger-knit two, three, four scarves a week, then I made a blanket in a weekend, and I repeated this week after week. I couldn’t write that many poems that quickly—okay maybe I can, but that’s not the point. 

I give scarves to my lover, to my mother, to my cat, to my coworker, to my tattoo artist, to my old professor. I donate scarves to my community. I couldn’t donate my poems.

I don’t want to have to write about everything all the time—so can’t I just knit it into a scarf?

Metempsychosis/ Ava M. Hu

Something billows            in the wind
— a flag, leaves, Marilyn Monroe’s dress, 
underwear                                  pinned 
to the clothesline

A boat might float like                       wood adrift,
a buoy, a dead body, a treading body
the astronauts’                                   lift-
off, specks in your field of vision, or LUCA, from which all life evolved

Swimmers include fish, turtles, breathers of          sea
dolphins, ducks, doggie paddlers,
those who are shipwrecked and seeking the                   lee
shore

Or crawl like we did at first, like spiders         and crabs, 
and shadows on a ceiling
a stalker                                       who nabs

For flight, the lilt of laughter, seeds borne aloft, roofs  
coughed up by tornadoes                 into the air
fireflies, songbirds, all sound,
                                                               every pair

5 strong Trees Walking / Martha Lou Little

In my little mountain village
At the end of the road
At the end of time
In some timeless Mediterranean high mountain plain
5 strong trees walk the highway nightly.
Right at sunset when the sun is dipping behind the alpine lake
A mirror which sparkles the looming cliffs, trees, or rather men with berets
Keep walking as if their souls depend on it.

And in fact their souls do depend on it: this mountain, this meadow, and this sunset
Of which every day of their long lives they have thrashed barley, planted potatoes, pruned the olives and so on
Tipping their caps to the other trees marching down the road
Marveling at the passing of the day, savoring the simple warmth of this gracious land

Penguin Tariffs of 2025  / Shelly Rodrigue

The year is 2025. 
The United States 
announced 
10% tariffs 
on islands 
inhabited 
by penguins. 

Though they have 
no exports, 
who knows 
when 
that might change?

They could
start hawking
fish as soon
as tomorrow. 

Besides, penguins 
are known
for carrying 
~exquisite~ 
pebbles. 

It’s high time 
we run 
their feather-lined 
pockets. 

The penguins 
have not
announced 
any counter-
tariffs at this time, 

perhaps
n fear 
of our great nation,
or perhaps 
because they
cannot read 

and have 
no idea 
what 
tariffs are. 

Day 4 / Poem 4

Long Hope of Flowers Through the Snow / Lois Anne

day-4-LONG-HOPE-OF-FLOWERS-THROUGH-THE-SNOW

Cloud Histories / Michelle Geoga

First the clouds from below:
we stretch across a turf covered hill
dotted with white clover puffs, on our backs
the grass in our ears, and we called them
whales, mickey mice, poodles, ponies.

Later the clouds from the heights:
we climb into the oak, high in its limbs
but don’t seem any closer to the skies
than from the lawn, and we send up our
laughter, our bad words, our teasing, our lies.

Then the clouds from far above:
peering down from a plane window, we talk
about who gets sun, who gets stormed, we
point out the layers of the cloud landscape
but still, we don’t feel closer to knowing.

Last the clouds from memory:
we have seen many clouds, we don’t
have to see them to see them, we are clouds,
we construct them inside, with our eyes
closed, and we feel much closer to everything.

Ode to altars / Kyla-Yen Giffin

The headboard of my childhood bed—When I had trouble sleeping, I’d sit up in bed and face the headboard, place my palms together as I’d watched my mom do my whole life, and try to have a heart-to-heart with the angels of my ancestors. I never knew what to say.

The hills of my hometown—Between the sunset-stained grasses and spattering wildflowers, I’d hike to find my deities in the jackrabbits and cows and deer that lived there.

My apartment window—I’d lean on the windowsill, asking the morning for a sign or a ladybug to visit me as my head grew heavy, or breathing sweet, earthy smoke into the night as my head grew light.

Decomposing things—The mushrooms growing from deep within the heart beneath the forest onto the cartilage of rotting logs; the relics of dead creatures I eulogy on the sidewalks and streets.

The food I’ve foraged in the middle of a city.

The plants I’ve tried, but failed, to keep alive.

The sun rays my cat catches; the snowflakes that dust him; the crisp leaves he chews on.

“The Altar” by Deana Lawson—the photograph exhibit where my beloved and I first loved each other, searching the image and one another for every sacred and unholy thing we could find. Each object we named became a prayer; the distance between us burned away and fell to our feet like ash; our gossip and laughter flowed from our chests and crested above us like smoke.

Every time I cross the Longfellow Bridge on the Red Line, and everyone on the train turns to gaze out the windows at the Charles River.

Every dead and dying I’ve kept company.

Every love letter I’ve written.

Evaporations / Ava M. Hu

Wronged / Laurel Kallen

Rung by rung, I step
like a sparrow on a narrow twig,
the clasp of my hands a closed tulip 
protecting my pollen and organs.
Then, falling onto the end-of-winter ground, 
the endless steel of it,
I grasp at dry grass straws.
You see, I am a ladder today 
and I have already toppled over.

A conversation from the other side / Martha Lou Little

MOTHER AFRICA IS WATCHING

The sun is setting over my tired belly
My mother is this ravaged parched earth
My belly is empty and the sun looks like a balloon
Daddy’s arms flapping small while my mother sings
The waves are taking our men away
The waves are taking our souls away

___________________________

I go to the edge of the churning water
It brings shells and pearls and bodies
Sometimes there is something I need
Like a piece of string or once I found a wedding ring
But now it’s taking our songs away
My belly is tired and the waves are taking them away

_________________________________

“What’s on the other side?”
“Hush baby that’s our hope where the sun goes down”
“Why is it taking my papa?”
“Hush child your papa rides the waves of our hope”
Her song is quiet now and I heard her cry
Then a low wail and I shivered into her body
I want to run to the waves to say goodbye
But my belly is tired and my mother is this red earth

Monoceros  / Shelly Rodrigue

The unicorn’s horn curved like a nova,

its luminosity ricocheting across the galaxy 
more radiant than 600,000 suns,

echoes of its light reaching the earth.
Perhaps this is what the seadevil sought
as she surfaced—myth brighter than her own. 

Day 3 / Poem 3

FAMILY SECRETS / Lois Anne

SECRETS-Certificate-of-Analysis-

When I See His Empty Chair, I am Sad / Michelle Geoga

she said. You came such a long way. You didn’t have to,
she said, quiet smile, tired eyes, shrinking frame.
She said, and in this terrible weather, on top of it.

I said, traffic was okay, and the rain wasn’t too
bad. Lies. Finally, I sneak a glance at the body.
Ninety-nine but well preserved, I guess. Floating in

a nice suit. How are you all doing, I ask, hugging
the grievers, gently, as they seem breakable.
They are dressed in quiet knits, solid colors, braided

sweaters. It was very kind of you to come, the
daughter said, eyes moist and full, but tears reserved.
She said, it is a sad day, but we are doing okay.

Outside, it’s biblical, as the roads flood, the
highways stop, water flows up from the sewers
not in. Raging wind. Perfect weather for a sad day,

I said, perfect funeral weather. Not for mom, the daughter
said, not good for her hair. I look at the daughter,
at her beautiful glossy hair, remember she

said she cuts it herself because taking care of her folks
left her no time for things like haircuts. I picture mother
and daughter at a beauty salon together for the first time

in years, chair by chair, People magazines, waited on.
The ninety-nine year old husband and father
could not be left alone, until he left them alone.

Ode to birds that have taught me how to be a person / Kyla-Yen Giffin

The cardinal picked up some seed from my windowsill and turned to his lover, who kissed his beak with hers and accepted his offering. The cardinal turned to me and said, “Take care of what you love,” then flew away—but his lover stayed behindto say, “And let yourself be taken care of.”

The seagull waited by my beach towel for me to take a walk by the water, then opened up my fruit cup and stole a chunk of
watermelon. As I turned back and caught it in the act, the seagull hopped away and chattered over its shoulder at me, “Always share what you have, especially when you’re most unwilling to.”

The duck twisted and quacked and flapped in protest against the chicken wire tangled around its neck, for hours. When we finally managed to free it, it panted, “Never give up. Never hold back. Never accept suffering.”

The flock of geese marched across the path, in a single file line, onto the baseball field to play a game, chanting, “Let’s go, team!” One stopped and nodded to me, “Everything’s better when we come together.”

The dove settled into the bird bath on my window and cooed, “Make a home where you are.”

The condor flew over us and tried to shit on our heads. When it missed, it jeered, “You can’t like everyone, and you sure as hell can’t make them all happy.”

The mother goose napped on her bed of dead leaves—until she stood up to reveal three eggs she had been hiding, warming, loving beneath her. She circled around, nudged her eggs, added more leaves to the nest every so often. I sat on a rock at the pond’s edge and kept her company—as I nurtured my words, as she nurtured her babies, as the summer air nurtured us. She broke the silence with a whisper: “Protect the things you hold dear. Put your body between what you believe in, and what wants to crush it. We all have life that relies on us.”

Murmuration / Ava M. Hu

Camping (Part 1) / Laurel Kallen

He had a moustache the whole time I knew him, 
though in pictures from the 1930s, 

when he joined the Brigades, he’s clean-shaven 
with hair parted in the middle and wire-rimmed 

glasses – a balanced face, even teeth – 
I can see what my mother fell for.

***

Every morning, Dad shouted “Up an’ at ‘em!” and
“C’mon now, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed!” 

We broke camp early after Frosted Flakes or Fruit Loops
in little perforated boxes lined with waxed paper 

so you could pour the milk right in.
Mom cleared the beds in the pop-up camper, commanded us 

kids to roll up our sleeping bags, then took over when we dawdled.
There was the hitching of the trailer and the piling of the 

Coleman stove and lanterns into the back of the station wagon 
and more piling of us onto the rear seat. 

Hours and days of driving, my mother massaging Dad’s 
shoulders to keep him from sleeping as we passed through cornfields.

We earned quarters for spotting animals and 
reprimands for asking when we’d get “there.”

We stopped at monuments that he cared about –
though what we wanted was to play tag or frisbee, 

to roll our hips inside hula hoops.
Dad lined us up for photographs whenever we stopped

and then, for a long time, focused his Rolleiflex, 
adjusting the aperture, the shutter speed, the ISO.

All this mattered to him.
He’d been a medic in Grañen.

The Spanish Civil War didn’t end the way he’d wanted.
But America was different. America seemed different.

“Say cheese,” he’d tell us. 

7 tall Cypresses / Martha Lou Little

They have been looming above us for 50 years
Connecting sky with land.
Generous in their offerings of shade and comfort for a hot climate
Home to birds, and more, a place for children to hide.
Who asks anything from a tree?
Who is grateful for their grace?
They are gone now
Sacrificed as we all one day will be
I will use their noble trunks and make a fine mandolin
The music will speak of memory and loss.

Tanka 59  / Shelly Rodrigue

barley sprouts in walls
creating grassland mazes
trapezed by field mice
who do not notice I watch
their quiet acrobatics 

Day 2 / Poem 2

April’s Fools / Lois Anne

pledge their love carried on the slender edge of the breeze
         like smokey honey above the mud and last remnants of ice
they delight in the song of thrush and robin
        floating above the whisper of oak and pine
applaud the honking wedges of returning geese
bend to kiss emerging snowdrops and crocuses
        as pussywillows bloom and coltsfoot brighten the ditch

they celebrate this evening with deep-fried artichokes, steamed mussels
        baked arctic char, almond cake with raspberries
afterwards, walking toward home beside the snowmelt swollen river
they wave goodbye to Orion as he slips off to the south
        then linger beneath the new moon’s pale promise
their hearts tingle at the caterwauling – call and response –
        of a pair of barred owls also out for an evening meal

When You Die Who Will be Sad / Michelle Geoga

The mail carrier. We always have a nice chat.
The dog. For a couple days. Until he finds
a new piece of Velcro. He’s the loopy side.

The chickadee I whistle with in the morning.
The doorman in my building because I make
good soup. All my plants because they will

also die. Every book store I ever walked into.
The farmer from the farmers’ market because
I am the only one that buys chicken feet.

For soup. I don’t actually eat them. Also,
all my friends will remember me and be
sad on their birthdays because I’ll stop

texting happy birthday with a funny gif
or is it GIF. Last but not at all least, the baby
rabbits that contort through my garden fence

to eat the Swiss chard because I will not be here to
plant it. After you die, thoughts of you float like
puffs in the wind, lilac scented if you are lucky.

Ode to my childhood clubhouse / Kyla-Yen Giffin

If I drew the design, we’d build it, my father told me.

With all the seriousness of a salaried professional, I was drawing up architectural plans for my clubhouse on a roll of drafting paper my father gave me, lines carefully cut against a ruler and meticulously scaled.

Then buying the cement, the wood, the paint—handing my father the tools—digging the holes and placing the stilts—holding the posts straight—piling on beams and boards—climbing the ladder—resting on the floor—closing myself inside new walls—staring at the ceiling—looking out the windows—crossing the threshold.

Standing on the balcony, basking in the feeling of building something, and standing on something I’d built—of my own hands making a home.

The last time I drove past my last childhood house, I could no longer see the face of my clubhouse peering over the fence—my home brought to its knees.

I admit it wasn’t a grand clubhouse.

The design was simplistic—the walls were unpanelled—the floor was unfinished—the paint only covered half the house and was already fading—the inside lodged only dust and spidery cobwebs and splinters—and yet still, it was mine.

The low ceilings still left enough space to hold my life.

It was a thing I made—and how easily things are unmade.

But this is my lineage—losing homes.

Where people once were—they become no longer.

There is no longer a home for a builder to seek refuge in from a house that wasn’t theirs, a people that wasn’t theirs, a world that would never be theirs—no longer a shadow sleeping in the moony air with the night creatures and dark sounds—no longer a steward watching over the stars, the land, the family.

No longer a child, standing in the sky, floating above the backyard, peering over the fence and the neighborhood and the streets and the town and the hills and the horizon—at the person driving by, looking for them.

Poem Two: Roots, 4.1.25 / Ava M. Hu

Monday Monday / Laurel Kallen

It is wearying to find my way 
by remembering concrete and bricks –

the old Tudor apartments with a fancy name – Something Court –
the 70s hall named for a dead dean,

a bank, a Trader Joe’s, the library, a train station.
I must descend the stairs to leave my building,

but, descending, what cardinal direction do I face?
And what do I not face?

I drink my coffee black in the morning, 
add cream only in the afternoon

and when grinds spill onto the counter,
I wipe them up at once.

Will the grating of the carrots ever end?

I’d like to move on to sprinkling nuts over the salad.

Everywhere you roam. / Martha Lou Little

Spain

Everywhere you roam
On this dry mountain ridge
Beneath the sage, rosemary and thyme
Under the Andalucian sun
That has broken hearts of stone
Under the breeze of a gulp of swallows
Every canyon sighs with an echo of something lost

Everywhere you roam if you open your eyes
To the sweet peas hiding in stone walls
Smelling in the breeze the lavender soul 
Gasping at the pink undergirth of a finches wing
Every hidden canyon holds
A mass grave
People and bones below
 many with surprised smiles 
at the wild beauty of this lonely sky

For Hala, My World  / Shelly Rodrigue

In the name of righteousness, you annihilate casually,
blissfully ignorant of incidental damage you inflict. 

You say your heart’s desire is to see me happy
in the same breath that would strip my world from me. 

Woman from nowhere, how could you know what it is
to love a home or how egregious to suggest I leave it?

Love is revolutionary, and when you ask if I’d face hell 
for Hala, my world—for Her—the answer is always yes. 

Day 1 / Poem 1

The Heart Weighs In / Lois Anne

Lois-day1

 
Troglodytes Aedon / Michelle Geoga

You want to be the House Wren,
that is, if you have to be a bird.
Its song is all acrobatics and
all showmanship, not like the
charming Chickadee who has
the lilting pheee beee, the chicka dee
dee dee (not to be confused with
the Pheobe screeching the PAY
ATTENTION phe-bee! phe-bee!)
(Not like the Tufted Titmouse
who calls PETER PETER all day long,
making me wonder which Peter.)

Sure, you know lots of birds who
warble and bee bop and cajole and
scold but who does it all in one song
and practically all in one breath?
You could be like that, like a cook
who makes spaghetti sauce, baked beans,
cheese crepes and play clay all at once.
And when the House Wren sings, you
are captured, birdstruck or smacked and
all birds have hushed because they know:
If you have to be a bird,
you want to be the House Wren.

Ode to the caterpillar on a strawberry I almost ate / Kyla-Yen Giffin

We are in my first living room I remember together—a slick, fleshy strawberry staining my stubby, just-graduated-from-being-a-toddler fingers red; my mouth, still full of baby teeth, sinking in or about to; and you, meeting my fingers, approaching my lips. 

Soft leafy squiggle; cursive space between neon letters; tiny green serpentine unwinged scrunching thing, taking a joy ride on the berry.

I’m shocked; I scream; I drop you and the berry on my pink, plastic, princess toy throne; I cry.

My mother, who is scared of worms, comes running. 

She sees you, grabs a matchbox, strikes a match, and holds it to your body. 

There is no other instinct for her—fight, flight, set something on fire. 

You’re probably terrified, but no one would ever know, as you wriggle around the match and through hoops of fire and over the ashen patches on my seat cushion where my mother failed to kill you and burned everything around you instead. 

There is no other instinct for you but to live.

I remember the berry, the burns, you living—a mother’s fear, a mother’s love, maybe sometimes or more often than not the same thing. 

You survived the harvest, the child’s hand and mouth, the mother’s fire. 

But when fire didn’t work, you got squashed. 

I think of you, and feel sorry I screamed. 

Your fate would have been better if I had eaten you on that strawberry; you could have lived safe and warm in my stomach; built your chrysalis in there; spread your wings for the first time in the dark, fleshy abyss; and I would have fed you strawberries whenever you wanted. 

Isn’t that safety? 

Didn’t my mother think the fires set around you were our safety?

My mother and I still laugh about my burnt chair. 

She is still afraid of you. 

I still think of you every time I eat a strawberry.

Glacier / Ava M. Hu

Funeral / Laurel Kallen

Jaywalking, I thought at six,
should be called diagonal walking.
I never understood the “J”

or why my mother fed me eggshells
after someone on TV said they
contained calcium

and my father bought me a baton
too long to twirl,
then told me to ignore

the girls who laughed,
the boy who called me
“town crier”

when my tears waterfell
and the teacher called my mother.
I waited for salvation

for burial in the thick cushion 
of my mother’s body,
in the circle of her arm-womb,

but, instead, she showed up rattling,
a pot on a too-high flame,
and pulled me home like a shopping cart,

so it was only the March wind 
that kissed my face with numbing,
ice-cube lips.

 THIS IS WHAT SPRING SAYS / Martha Lou Little

The early migrations start:

White Rumped Swift, Little Bustard, black-eared wheat ear, Woodchat Shrike, Warbler, Mistle
Thrush.

I swear one of them can sing a Coltrane riff and look the other way.

And then you have the Iberian Parsley frogs, who peak their flat heads out of warming water to
croak and lounge in the sun.

Don’t get me started on the Thread Waisted Wasps-the gentle giants of the wasp world, and
the Potter’s Wasp.

If one wonders at the complexity of the human soul one cannot look away

From the thread that weaves it all together a sweet whispering, a secret within a secret.
Really it is unspeakable what spring says.

I vow to listen,

An Ominous Curiosity  / Shelly Rogrigue

The Curiosity Rover sends back a photo:

the sun setting on Mars, a ball of fire in slow descent 
beyond red mountains and their black shadows. 

How exciting the news boasts to be the first generation 
to see the sunset on another world, but as I look at what
we do to our planet, we may be the last to see sunset on earth.