Poem

Evensong

At opposite ends of the feeder,

dangling from the buckeye

by a sliver of jute,

a cardinal and indigo bunting

feed, seemingly oblivious

to the blue and scarlet other,

their self-absorption

an ongoing evolutionary tick

completed this very instant.

Birdseed falls into the tall grass

under the tree.

The cardinal flies off,

upsetting the feeder’s ballast.

It sways, wildly

at first, then less

and then less until less,

like a hypnotist’s gold watch,

while the bunting,

fading by degrees

into the falling blue spell

of evening remains

perfectly still.

— Joseph Bathanti

Joseph Bathanti served as North Carolina’s poet laureate 2012-2014. His most recent book is Light at the Seam.

Poem

Diving for the Anchor

When you were my living father, I thought of you as you,

alone. Now that you’re long dead, I think of you and me

as us, together, not that we were closer than most

fathers and sons who can’t say what should be said,

the unspoken words between them a great gauzy silence

ever after, as on the moonless night we fished the

Miles River, a tributary of the Chesapeake, skidding our

johnboat into an early autumn’s slacking, our fishing

rods angled on the gunnels. Nettles billowed the pilings,

cottonwood and locust sapped the brackish air as

the lulling water swirled us into an outgoing tide,

tugging us midstream where you tossed the anchor

overboard and heard it splash, no chain securing

it to the boat, the lead shank long gone in deep water.

 

“We’ve lost the damn anchor!” you swore to high

heaven, and as the outwash eddied us bayward you

stripped off your shirt, shoes, and shorts and dove in,

roiling the dark water to gulp you under into perfect oblivion,

leaving the child I was alone with night sounds — a screaky

covert of moorhens, cicada crescendos, the coo and stutter

of a cormorant — and I knew, at that moment, you were

the bravest man who ever lived. I could feel your fingers

probing the busted soda bottles, tangled tackle, and rusting

beer cans, groping amid the grass eels, hogfish, and bristle

worms. I held the longest breath I’d ever held and prayed,

prayed, for your deliverance, and mine. And sure enough

the surface riffled, the waters parted, and you burst

foaming into still air, anchor in hand, and clacked it

onto the sloshing deck, pulling yourself free of the current,

your body slick with river slime, and grasping the oarlock,

rolled into the rocking boat.

 

I sighed my only true sigh, longing for the wisdom

you’d dredged from the foulest netherworld, testimony

that life is more than the taking in and letting out

of breath by a father and son adrift beneath a thin haze

of stars. Having plumbed dead bottom, you’d been

resurrected to impart a consoling truth, a glistening

coin I could tuck in the pocket of memory. You obliged:

“Wish I had a nickel,” you said, “for every kid who’s

pissed in this river.”

— Stephen E. Smith

Stephen E. Smith’s most recent book is A Short Report on the Fire at Woolworths.

Forgetting Age

Has the age of forgetting just begun?

I’m glad to forget some things but others

I want to hold on to as if they’ve begun,

as if they’re new, yet familiar, like dawn.

Here comes the age of where-has-it-all-gone,

when I wonder what may have been before:

the color of someone’s eyes, someone who

lived nearby, someone whose name I once knew,

the certain way a dark cloud haunts the sky.

But like the cloud, they’re wisps and mist and last

only long enough to become heavy,

to fall into unknowing. Sweet and small.

I grasp at them. I know they will be missed,

as memory, like soft rain, starts to fall.

— Paul Jones

Paul Jones is the author of Something Wonderful.

Pigeons

As the day star rises over a frozen field,

kissing the roofs of houses, the barren

limbs of pin oak trees and the long arm

of the church spire reaching toward the

wintry sky, I can’t help but think of the

rock pigeons we saw huddled wing-to-

wing early last evening, on two ropes of

electrical wire. We passed by them so

quickly, I only glimpsed these dozens of

dozing birds, though long enough to note

their cozy coexistence, their companion-

able willingness to keep each other warm.

Heads tucked into their necks, their chests

puffed like rising pastries, most slept but

a few, perhaps keeping watch, remained

vigilant. Like twin strings of black pearls,

they enhanced the beauty of the bright

firmament that would soon fold them into

its purpling light — their little bird hearts

beating as one through the cold, dark night.

— Terri Kirby Erickson

Terri Kirby Erickson’s most recent book of poetry is
A Sun Inside My Chest.

Poem

What the Moon Knows

She knows shadow, how to

slip behind clouds. She’s perfected

the art of disappearing. She knows

how to empty herself into the sky,

whisper light into darkness.

She knows the power of silence,

how to keep secrets, even as men

leave footprints in the dust, try to claim her.

Waxing and waning, she summons

the tides. Whole and holy symbol,

she remains perfect truth, tranquility.

Friend and muse, she knows the hearts

of lovers and lunatics. She knows 

she is not the only one that fills the sky,

but the sky is her only home.

— Pat Riviere-Seel

Pat Riviere-Seel is the author of When There Were Horses

Poem

Long Homestead in Winter

— Las Cruces, circa 1932

Not in any literal sense

a homestead: it was purchased

you learned from an old deed

sent you by a cousin. And in this

winter photo, strange with magic

of the never seen, a study in

whites and grays, foreground

trees and background barn shading

towards true black, porch windows

canvas covered against the cold,

original adobe brooding behind, just

one slender strand of air, smokey

warm you guess, rising from a single

flue suggests habitation, warmth

inside. No one living knows

its history now, when the barn

was built; porch facing pristine snow

now fades into surrounding silence. What

was the day like when someone, your

father perhaps, had hiked out the

back door around towards the railroad

track to capture the snow before it turned

to mud underfoot; foot sodden you suspect

later that morning when indoor

voices might have called to breakfast,

but leave your boots outside. All

gone wherever memories are stored —

you never saw the place in winter

but you slept many a summer night there

on that porch already mythical, heard the Santa Fe

hoot by, carry the present away.

—  Julian Long

Julian Long is the author of Reading Evening Prayer in an Empty Church.

Poem

I Swear

This won’t hurt.

I’ll always love you.

You’re perfect.

I do. I will.

I didn’t. It wasn’t —

You’ve got it all wrong.

I only want what’s best for you.

This will be good for both of us.

Nothing can be done.

You’ll never change.

It wasn’t my fault.

I’m only trying to help.

No one’s to blame.

It will be better soon.

— Debra Kaufman

Poem August 2020

Ritual Revived 

She grows impatient waiting 

for gallons of water to boil

in the massive vessel.

Finally, back burner’s roiling ocean  

receives a steel rack of jars packed 

with marmalade — zesty orange,

piquant cranberry.

Ten minutes in water boiling 

inches above metal lids. A rest, 

and she lifts each glass carefully — 

straight up from scalding bath. 

A day to cool; labels affixed,

and the ’lades are now gifts:

holiday, birthday, any day . . .

Sweet memories led to this labor:

her parents on hot August nights, peeling, 

slicing crops green, yellow, red, filling 

Mason jars, hovering over the steaming kettle,

putting up peaches, beans, tomatoes,  

from their small Victory garden,

enough to feed their children,

for yet another wartime winter.

— Barbara Baillet Moran

February Poem

The Arrow

I tried to explain Cupid to a 4-year-old today. 

He was making a Valentine for his grandmother, 

festooning a pink paper heart with stamps and stickers, 

writing ‘I love you’ across it in big, shaky letters. 

Then he asked about one of the stickers: 

Why does that heart have an arrow through it? How sad.

Even after I told him that it was more like being ‘struck by love,’ 

he held his hand over his chest. 

I don’t want Cupid to shoot me, he said. 

That would hurt.

I couldn’t disagree.

— Ashley Wahl

Poem July 2019

Pulling Up the Wild Blackberry Bushes

seems ungrateful but they’re too plentiful

crowding the precious patch of sun

meant for the Heritage Red Raspberry

that cost $16.

So it’s a matter of hubris that we jerk up

those lesser cousins before they bloom

drag them over nubile grass and

toss their torn briars into fire.

Yet when I get to the last bush, I stop

remember how in August I needed

more fruit to nestle around the scant

peaches in my cobbler.

The berries were small but their juice

tasted of mulled wine, piquant but

not too tart, the grace note of a last-minute

potluck, others cooed for the recipe.

So I lay aside the shovel, knowing that

this last bush, cane too tender for thorns,

might one day be our savior

if the raspberry turns to dust.

— Ashley Memory