It's Raining by Ben Sloan   At age five, after my country doctor grandfather dies, fascinated by the black-and-white photos in his discarded depression-era medical books […]

Coming Down the Mountain by E. H. Jacobs The way down is always harder than the way up. On the way up a mountain, your muscles strain to push you vertically. Going down, you’re already t […]

The Moon by Kenneth Boyd ………………………………………………………….Tarsila do Amaral (Brazil, 1928) Since you last crossed the still, moonlit […]

Good Friday by Kathleen McKitty Harris   My Irish Catholic grandmother—no slouch herself to rosary beads and the Stations of the Cross—had a friend, Wilma, who was far more pious than […]

Distances by Barbara Baer I’d already missed two periods before I went to Planned Parenthood in Berkeley. I knew the result before a woman asked if I wanted counseling. She h […]

Rush Hour Angels by Rosanne Trost A few years ago, I was driving home from work, encountering typical rush hour traffic. At a red light, the car radio went dead. The light turned […]

Same River, Different Day by Patrick Meeds Let me tell you uncomfortable I am with silence. I am handcuffed to a joke I can’t tell. Two crows are where my lungs should be. My exhales are t […]

The Artful Constructs of Scott F. Smith by Russell Hart When photographer Scott Smith isn’t observing the world, he’s building one from scratch. Standing in his well-ordered studio at […]

Talking to Toads by Tutt Stapp-McKiernan My memories of the time when my parents and I lived in a renovated gristmill are of course dim—I had only been two when we moved there and four when w […]

Reckless Abandon by Dudley Stone …………………………………………………….A poem is never finished, only […]

Deconstructing Unicorns and Mermaids by Deborah M. Prum My four-year-old granddaughter, “Zoe”, lives out-of-state. We often meet via Zoom. She and I share a screen and explore her burning questions by […]

Lake George in My Heart by David Stern My wife and I sought sanctuary by the lake, our two sons in tow. The four-hour car trip was nonstop requests for candy, cookies, sodas laced with […]

Visitatio Divina by Sharon Perkins Ackerman It is just after 5:00 a.m. as I browse among the books that prop up my life. I say prop because books are so often a means of leaving my surroundings, […]

Shopping by Paul Joseph Enea My grocery store is under siege by sleepwalkers who show up in pajamas moping from shelf to shelf for a precious memory. There is no one to guide […]

Adrienne by Lisa Ben-Shoshan   She is a large woman. In another place or circumstance, she would have been the woman in the flowery housedress with fluffy mules on her feet. […]

Harvester by Ned Kraft   Once mown a tedder spreads the murdered crop to dry, draws a swath, a windrow waiting. Three days of drought and the hay is fit to […]

Sefunmi Adeola's Focus on African Subjects Nigerian artist Sefunmi Adeola puts his sharp eyes to work as a photographer, illustrator and textile designer focusing on his African […]

Living by Water by Martha Graham Wiseman Once I lived in a house by a river, in a deep narrow valley. The house was dark and damp, the river enticing. A broad lawn, anchored by an ancient […]

A Necessary Addiction by Fred Wilbur Recently, my wife and I attended a dinner gathering of ten academics of which half were retired. We had met all before, though only a few do we […]

Schopenhauer Rues the Rise of Women by Bill Glose “Instead of calling them beautiful there would be more warrant for describing women as the unesthetic sex. Neither for music, nor for poetry, nor f […]