We had warning. A dangerous blizzard sweeps across the eastern United States. Be prepared. The young man stacks firewood on my porch and in the barn. I fill up jugs and a bucket with water in case of a power outage. Pull out candles and battery lanterns. The storm rolls in after midnight. Snow mixed with sleet and frozen rain. The temperature drops and keeps dropping. In the morning, still sleety and snowing. Yet, tree limbs and cedars are not fluffy with snow. The snow, it seems, viewed from my window, not all that pretty, … Continue reading After the Blizzard by Trudy Hale→
Bed calls at midday, when the eyes drowse and honey themselves shut. Sleep curls thick as nectar. We hexagon ourselves, invert. Always a sigh. Hours ripen sweet. We seal away. For a moment, the unbearable buzz subsides. Cathy Socarras Ferrell is a poet and educator. The granddaughter of Cuban immigrants, she finds inspiration in family story-telling and the Sandhill cranes in her yard. Her work can be found at The Orchards Poetry Journal, Santa Clara Review, and other journals. Readers can connect with Cathy at ferrellwords.com. Follow us!
What happens to the homes where we once lived? Homes we left behind, in childhood when it wasn’t a choice, as an adult when it was necessary for work or, as elders, for health reasons or to be closer to family. We can track them down via Google maps, but I suggest they no longer exist. Those places where we once lived, and especially those we once loved, exist only in memory, and, if we’re lucky, in the imagination. I hold onto places I’ve loved by writing fiction set there. Writing helps me process loss. … Continue reading Holding Onto The Past Through Fiction by Virginia Pye→
Spring. Finally. After several snowstorms, ice, and being stuck in the house for days on end, Louise couldn’t wait to get in her yard. The daffodils had bloomed, the forsythia had appeared on stage and the February camellias were still struggling with their winter memories. There was plenty of work to do: mulching, feeding, cleaning up windblown trash, picking up sticks, planting grass seed, trimming bushes, pulling her pots out; she was so glad she had her yardman Buddy to help, insofar as her husband Robert wasn’t much help. The garden, other than family and … Continue reading So Be It by Tyler Scott→
I danced with a shadow, drifting in the wind, Our forms in ev’ry city window cast. We held each other as the night slipped past, Circled and spun in a chanted keen. I stared into you, where sorrow yields, Those hollow eyes where moonlight softly dives. Your touch slipped through my fingers–five to five– Like wind brushing through a silent mill. Why can’t I see your face, your countenance? Do you take root within my dripping misery, From mem’ries flooding beneath the city, Or are you but a flash of Renaissance? Should I still hold … Continue reading Dancing with a Shadow by Zihan Zang→
Lisa Macchi took twenty-five years off from art, but now she’s painting Charlottesville red. Sitting in her McGuffey Art Center studio, radiating an energy that belies her eighty years, Lisa Macchi has some advice for young artists stressing over how to start a painting. “You have to break the silence,” she says. “The first thing I do is just get paint on the canvas. I put it there and see if it makes sense. It doesn’t even have to relate to how the painting … Continue reading Lisa Macchi: Disrupting the Paint by Russell Hart→
There were some signs, of course, that the world was ending. Sitting in the nurses’ station I sipped instant coffee, listening to a float nurse offhandedly mention that the winds would be kicking up later that day. I looked out the window. It was summer, the wind would be a welcome change. The next morning was dark. Waking up at 5 a.m., I wasn’t surprised. I bundled up my child to take her to daycare. I needed to get back to the hospital for my shift by 6 a.m. The sky remained dark. I dropped … Continue reading A Very Ordinary Day by MJE Clubb→
I’ve been using an old refurbished desktop, just a couple hundred bucks. It’s okay—except for its geriatric pace and annoying habit of turning itself back on after shut down. Then I started getting threatening messages from Microsoft reminding me it can’t be upgraded to Windows 11 and will become even less capable and more vulnerable. Its days are numbered. My new Dell arrived last week and I began prepping for the switch. Since I didn’t want my files in the cloud (I’m under the illusion that I have some privacy left), I needed to back … Continue reading Just One Thumb by Gayla Mills→
Buffalo Alice stuck her pig husband in the throat with a carpet knife. Made the evening news. Hell of a lady if you ask me, but I don’t get jury summons. It’s break-neck around here. Not enough hours in the day to earn. People pinched by landlords, business pricks, government mules. When nothing’s left to say, there’s violence– blood stains, lead paint chips, hepatitis. My last tetanus shot was fifteen years ago. It was white tail season, farmer Fred caught me lying prone in one of his hedgerows. Had my old man’s 12 gauge slug … Continue reading Concrete Staircase by Jeff Thomas→
The New Year has ambled in and made itself at home, decorations are packed away, the refrigerator leftovers are cleaned out, life is out there in the future. It is checking up on our resolve to do, to be, and to think better; to lose weight, to be kind to the homeless, to take our children to exciting places. How are we doing three weeks in? I sometimes wonder about the difference between planning ahead and prediction. The first has always seemed to me like a wise strategy, though I confess I anticipate (worry?) a … Continue reading Future Tense by Fred Wilbur→
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