Downfall
by Liza Prunuske
This tiny bit
how it slips
off the bay leaf glib
through air catches
the orb-weaver web
rainbow maker
earth mover
drought slayer cool
on the tongue
these cracks
have been waiting
for you lazy
and eager for
penetration ready
for descension
into the turbid roiling
stream where all things
are one soil water
steelhead sing us
a bubble song, a sweet
gurgle scooped then
into merganser wing
and lifted silver
into the siren sky
anywhere
is home.
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Swamp Girl
by Gwynn OGara
A wrentit perches in a coyote bush.
Dock crowds thistle and reed,
bare willow and oak.
Every step is earned
from tussock to tussock,
dirt and dry grass
carved by water.
Roots grab below the surface.
Three-pointed blackberry
pokes through the ground.
Each leaf rimmed in plum
opening into orange
shot from green,
summer vines fading.
Winter rains flood the meadow,
hide the bridge. No way through
but sop and soak, stay and seep.
Listen, wait, mud up to your knees,
Drowning, spider webs, frost.
Raised on breached boundaries
revels in a murky bed
at home with mess and overflow,
smell of the first rain
and the second.
Unafraid of dark
dogs or work.
Joys in drear
feels hidden things soak.
Refugee of deluge
can muffle fire.
Shape shifting to survive,
bird, frog, duck, turtle,
straddling elements,
seasons, feelings. |
Blue Void
by Jane Kennedy Stuppin
The blue murex would have lived a long life
if the local fishermen hadn’t discovered
its excrement could be used as an insoluble ink.
Now they are farmed for their blue,
their shells cast aside like empty milk cartons.
If blue eyes could be voided,
someone would find a way to suck the color out
and sell it for drapery dye.
The blue of the sky, too, could be netted
By some Icarus willing to risk
the chase for an astrodome ceiling.
Birds
By Liza Prunuske
Fox sparrow brown
burrow
your cold face
into the breast down
into the soft pulse
of the tiny steady heart.
Phoebe sings
like sun
in a yellow leaf.
Air beaten
into flight huff
and pull
of long muscle
shadow bird
abrupt, then gone.
I will find you
she says
flying |
Watersheds, watersheds
by Frank Baumgardner
Long time ago, before woman and man,
Three small atoms met and fell in love.
Eons ago, before nations, before war,
Before bombs, and before the dove.
It may have been one lone methane
That lost two of its four H’s,
A secret embrace with ozone, who knows?
One H along with another H,
Add one oxygen: Voilá H 2 O!
When water was born, another and another,
Sunlight excited this chemical scheme,
Which began with one “O,”
And two lonely “H’s”…serene.
Again and again, by day and by night
Proceeding it went, till clouds were in sight.
Then down came showers and rain
To the Maker’s delight.
“Watersheds, watersheds,” what do they mean?
Just water in drops, so bright, so clean,
Falling and pooling, more falling again,
“April showers” and “May flowers,”
Support for life, June enchantment.
Women and men, whatever color we be,
Fast or slow, all come – all go,
Creation, evolution and dilution.
But, “Watersheds, watersheds,” |
Calavero Beach
by Liza Prunukse Air that is nothing,
air that is everything
lift the ravens’ wings,
be blanket of nothing
between its small tough bones
and the curling water.
Carry the pulse
of breakers, the cormorants’
soft crackle.
Disperse
the downy seed
of Cirsium
occidentale,
wild, red thistle.
I came here to breathe
on this day
seven years ago.
My daughter turned
inside me and then
lay still
asleep on her bed
of water. Three days later
she was born into air
to confound her brother
and rise
sudden as an alder seedling.
She can see over oceans,
owns every red flower.
Her breath
can steady wings.
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Water is Life, Life is Water
by Rosemary Manchester
The thirsty moon sailed across the sky
Pulling the water of Planet Earth this way, that way.
The waves sloshed on the beaches,
Crashed over the rocks,
Floated the boats of the fisher-folk.
I deserve that water, said the moon.
I’m the one who does all the work.
One night the stealthy moon stole all the water
From the blue and green planet,
Slurped up the water like a cat in cream
The clouds noticed, and went along for the ride
They wrtapped themselves around the moon.
The Sea of Tranquility brimmed.
Content, the moon continued in her orbit,
Her face hidden from the astonished earth.
Wicked, wicked moon.
The stars maintained their neutrality.
No point in getting involved
They continued to shine
In their impersonal manner.
The Earth, formerly known as the Water Planet,
Now desolate as had once been the moon
Gave up its life and turned brown
It might have been described as golden,
Had there been anyone left to describe it,
The gold as useless as that of King Midas.
No birds sang.
Desert sands covered the Valley of the Dry Bones,
Sifted indiscriminately over articulated skeletons
And desiccated mummies
Adorned with scraps of sun-bleached gingham.
Without water, we are toast.
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Life in Balance
by Isis Howard
(Isis is 8 years old, attending Salmon Creek Harmony School)
I am a salmon who is endangered.
The waters that I spawn in are
muddy and low.
I have to move fast before the
river dries up.
I am a salmon who is endangered,
And wants to go back to my
clean birthplace.
I am endangered. |
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