From the branch above, half concealed in new oak leaves, silent, the barred owl watches with giant eyes, round as the pool at my feet. Its body, is all of a piece, no indentation even for a neck. If I could reach high enough, my fingers might stroke it in one long move from head to base, flat-handed, barely a touch, feeling the slightest tickle of feather, like the way, as a child, I’d kneel by the mud puddle, hover my hand over the brown water, lower my arm bit by slow bit, trying to … Continue reading The Owl by Deborrah Corr→
I can’t help thinking about what I haven’t read. Every year, I try to read at least one piece of classic literature that I had overlooked, never got around to, or was not included in the curricula of whatever classes I took. The books I should have read. The books every literate person should read. I feel like the woman in that Roy Lichtenstein lithograph sadly proclaiming: “I CAN’T BELIEVE IT. I FORGOT TO HAVE CHILDREN!” Except what I forgot was to read Jane Austen, and so much more. One year, I savored Homer’s Odyssey¸ … Continue reading I Can’t Believe It. I Forgot to Read Jane Austen! by E. H. Jacobs→
My favorite photograph shows my children trudging through a cold, whispering creek hand in hand. The afternoon light filters through the canopy, refracting across the lens in an angelic glow. The girls are still little. Our youngest wears a heavy diaper that skims the surface of the shallow water. The energy is electric. Magical. The waterway bubbles and winds along the border of our property, cutting a five-foot canyon into the red-clay earth. Along the bottom, the creek ripples over slick stones and fallen trees, which hide red salamanders and tiny fish. A small stretch … Continue reading In the After by Sarah E. Laughter→
Mounds of sugar beets under halogen, marooned in pressure waves like fossil dinosaur turds. Lurid thunder eggs. And always the two Lebanese brothers who walk and argue. . A six-year-old boy drowned in an irrigation ditch. His father a tethered dirigible in white Adidas. Church is headstones in hill rows wearing in an unrelenting … Continue reading Parma, Idaho by Craig Brandis→
I listened (why hold a hefty book aloft when you don’t have to?) to Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions For You and shared the following assessment with my multitude (that’s a joke) of Facebook friends: Holy shit is it good. An aside to newbie audiophiles: also, critically important to the listening experience is the performer. Try out a sample before committing. Keep a running list of the ones to steer clear of. (I’ve heard some voice actors who should be sued for over-the-top accents, mispronunciations and relentlessly cheery deliveries.) In this case though, Julia … Continue reading An Audio Book Report And Relevant Field Trip by Erika Raskin→
In the darkening slush of afternoon traffic, he unfolds a chair beneath a lone sycamore then urges his body into its crooked shape. Always at this hour, even as rain slickens Elysian Fields, he sits and outwaits the sun as if for someone to return, or the familiar judgment of a voice grown marble smooth. Something from the street calling to him, urging him to rise up from the green lawn and chair, He might have been carved out of air, he seems that content, as it he’s waiting for the reflections of a chrome … Continue reading The Old Man by Richard Weaver→
It’s a pleasure—and also a great privilege—to announce the winners of this year’s Streetlight Essay/Memoir Contest. This year’s submissions made an admirable crowd; it wasn’t easy to pick only three winners. We’ll be posting some honorable mentions too, but more about that later. Now is the time to consider the winners. First prize goes to Rigel Oliveri for her essay, “Find the Difference,” a brief, but harrowing and touching, account of one day in the life of a single, widowed mother facing a medical emergency. It’s a story that throws a light onto the perils … Continue reading We Celebrate Our Winners by Susan Shafarzek→
Bonnie usually loved the drive to Aunt Edda’s house. She’d peer out the backseat window as her mother drove along the section of highway overlooking the car factory where her father and Uncle Henry worked. Smokestacks jutted from the enormous building, filling the air with fluffy clouds. Bonnie always imagined her dad inside the factory feeding a giant furnace, making clouds shaped like cotton candy, just for her. She’d close her eyes and try to change the puff-ball clouds into bunnies with the power of a wish, but it never worked. Dozens of times, her … Continue reading Bonnie’s Spell by Tonja Matney Reynolds→
Colors behind your eyes A slow pastel dusting Forming speckled images Of a distant ocean roar Your pillow listens in To the lawless deep blue That can sometimes churn Waves in your stomach Taking you back to a time When you were young Where you can be innocent Once again in a place Far from the world of sin That pushes against The coastline of your body Harsh Ramchandani is a Hong Kong based writer whose work can be found in various online and print publications. Though primarily a writer of poetry, he is also … Continue reading Sweet Dreams by Harsh Ramchandani→
Unlike my previous writing efforts, I am presently engaged in compiling a history of the local garden club (of all things!) The subject is not one I would have chosen and I never thought I would get my knees dirty in this way. It chose me. By way of a short history, the local garden club donated four or five boxes of their records— which begin with the founding in 1935— to the county historical society. As a member of the society, I happened upon these records and wrote four articles on them for our … Continue reading Evolution of a History by Fred Wilbur→
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