Poems. Seeds.
On this Good Friday, April 18th, 2025, the Scribes are planting poems in the spirit of spring, in the hopes that the right words will reach the right hearts—making their way to a place where they may be held and tended and nurtured, where they may find the space to boldly & beautifully bloom.
Some of our poets were inspired by symbols of the season—such as soil, seeds, and flowers—representing renewal, rebirth, and thriving in community. Others had ideas about love, health, belonging, grief, uncertainty, healing, friendship, family, faith, and memory—to sow like seeds scattering into the world, and watch them sprout and grow and rise.
As you read, pay close attention to what words resonate, which poems seem to travel deep, planting themselves in your soul, ascending and becoming right alongside your being. Notice what seems to enliven your spirit, cast light upon shadows, and give often overlooked feelings a face and a name. Allow yourself a moment of acceptance and alignment, and remember that you can return to these seed-poems anytime you need them. They have been placed here to bud and blossom—in your mind, your body, your world, your heart.
Featuring the following poets:
Nina
Blair Correll
Dane Osborne
Angelia Ross
Joshua Walker (The Last Bard)
Amethyst Drake
Brandon Thorpe
Frances Denise
Charles Thomas
Amber Sparks
Cameron Cox
Morgan Long
Angelika Shelley
Allison Baker
KB Ballentine
Gary Crites
Stuart Redpath
Chris Wood
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
POEMS. SEEDS.
a fridge poem by a young poet, age 8
you are such a beautiful flower to me
so go up and see me
did you eat food
or did you eat another TV?
–Nina
⚘
ROMANTICS
Thou shalt have no other gods
Before me is the dream of life
That which obsesses me like
The poets who could build a world
With a blot of ink because they saw
What is hiding from the waking who
Walk with eyes on the ground like the
Dirty worms who mouth at the soil
Gorge on earth and death and they
Never look up at the god-like daisies
Only aware of them by their shadows
But God is in the in between spaces
Waiting like treasure to be discovered
Only those with closed eyes can see it
–Blair Correll
⚘
TRUTH
Everything just is what is
and that's why us crazy folk
know the sunlight and can
feel the breeze.
Something known only by flying birds.....
–Dane Osborne
⚘
FLOWERS OF THE FIELD
The flowers grow freely in the sun
Of open meadows,
Where they sway gently
To and fro without a care
In the softness of a summer breeze
Flowers come in many different
Shapes, colors and sizes,
But this they accept whole-heartedly,
As they grow together in
Peace and harmony.
In ways people are like flowers,
They come in many different
Shapes, sizes and colors,
But they don't live
In peace and harmony
Because people judge and are judged
By what is on the outside
Instead of what is on the inside.
If we were to stop judging each other,
We could wipe out the fighting,
And live in peace and harmony,
Then maybe we too could be considered
Flowers of the Field.
–Angelia Ross
⚘
BURIAL
I bury it where the soil still remembers
the taste of my desperation.
No song, no prayer—
just dirt heavy with what we’ve both forgotten.
I don’t ask for growth.
I don’t expect anything,
except the silence that follows
when you stop asking to be saved.
Rain falls slow, like an old regret
coming home,
but too broken to say anything.
I press the earth back,
hands shaking,
as if I owe the ground an apology
for all the things I never planted.
If it grows,
let it grow crooked.
Let it twist into something ugly
but honest.
Let it know where it came from
and still reach toward the light.
–Joshua Walker, aka ‘The Last Bard’
⚘
SPRING
The hillsides roll with sweet spring storms
Of efflorescent beauty.
Bright amaranthine swirls
Etched lovingly onto
Living canvas. Radiant, vibrant, eternal
Beneath a pearlescent moon.
Thick purple clouds
Adorn a roiling sky
Full to bursting.
A timid thunder crackles
Way off in the distance
A soft sudden rain speckles
The hungry ground below.
Out of such tender violence
Blooms a precious garden
Demanding to be admired.
–Amethyst Drake
⚘
UNDER ENTHUSIASM
It’s the first of many warm days in spring
and nothing you feel here is quite what it seems
No coincidence will be viewed as mere chance,
but as evidence of an overall plan
Simple gestures of generosity will not be accepted
with casual grace, but wax stamped upon years of
goodwill and faith
A grand act representing broadly the concept
of charitability.
On a sunny day it punctuates the relationship.
An unintentional ritual of gratitude.
A stack of paper, at just the right time,
evidence evermore of the greater design.
Your joy may be impressed upon by the dark truths
you tell yourself depressed. Facts as true as those
felt with the sun kissing your skin
All that junk about death and time, but respectfully
you pay it a little mind, but you convert it into
fuel for the peace you feel inside.
There’s no reason to go through life blind,
so you accept it, and recognize the distance
then rejoice that you are still among
the living.
May every casual nod and smile from a stranger
add proof to your case
that, however thin the margins
people are mostly good
and the world is okay.
–Brandon Thorpe
⚘
ARDENTLY
She told me a story
That stuck with me
I see it in my mind frequently
She said she wanted to know
What it felt like to die
She asked the question
And then she closed her eyes
A moment later, she was shown
Her soft body falling fast from quite a height
Through layers and layers of cloud-like paper mattresses
Each one she passed
Played a memory
of all the times she felt loved –
Sitting by the piano with her sisters
Singing tunes their mother taught them
Her father tending to her scraped knee
The cat nestling against her pregnant belly
Little toddlers kissing her cheeks
Her hand fitting her soulmate's so perfectly
Hundreds of these scenes
Happened in a matter of split seconds
A blip, a drop in the ocean,
A twinkle of light in the dark sky
Of a life well-lived
One in which she loved, and was loved
Ardently
–Frances Denise
⚘
NATURALLY
Sam hears wind in trees,
savors sweet scent of fresh rain,
thanks a god they made.
Ron feels house shaking,
curses unknown goddesses.
Sarah buried cold.
Sun smiles, warms faces,
paints derma another shade.
Magnolia in bloom.
Frowning sun blazes,
scorching bodies sick, lonely.
Blown sand burns faces.
Nighttime envelopes,
caresses whom day forgot—
only comfort left.
Daytime hugs, kisses,
lathers perfumed lotion on
her whose house still stands.
Each harvested crop
bitter or sweet, depending.
No reason at all.
–Charles Thomas
⚘
I am an abandoned apothecary
filled with elements of almost.
Medicinal ingredients now
dust-covered corrosives labeled
things like “aspirations”
and “happiness”
and “someone else’s dreams”,
their amber bottles keeping
sunlight from reaching
reactivity.
Herbs grown in gardens
left hanging in the rafters
harvested for healing,
now bitter, brittle leaves.
A lonely book
sits in the corner
titled “Prescriptions for
A Preferred Life”,
corners of pages bent down
and saved with empty hopes
I would be well enough
to read.
–Amber Sparks
⚘
INHERITANCE
The seed is the echo of a god’s failure—
a flame that burns with no one to catch it.
It sleeps in the earth,
knowing that life is only borrowed.
It carries the weight of green things
that died too soon—
their stories folded into its skin
like curses no one remembers.
It does not wait—it is hunted by time.
It does not grow—it is torn apart,
as if it never learned how to love anything
but the breaking.
Roots spiral like venom,
eating through the bones of the past,
a thundering silence that cracks open the world,
naming itself as it shatters.
–Joshua Walker, aka ‘The Last Bard’
⚘
MEASURE OF A MAN
What makes a man?
Is it in his blood, his flesh, his DNA?
Or is it something deeper?
Are we nothing more than meat and bone and sinew?
If I were to take you, dear reader,
Remove your brain, download your memories
your emotions,
your entire sense of self
And place it into a new body
Would you still be you, or someone else entirely?
If you woke up tomorrow and your skin sloughed off,
your bones turned to jelly, and your organs started failing,
leaving you trapped in a malformed flesh prison
Nothing like the body you know
Would you accept it?
Or would you fight for who you are and always have been?
I tie little of my humanity to my flesh
It is our soul that makes us human
–Cameron Cox
⚘
REPRESS
You can’t decide to be unfeeling,
can’t choose to deny entirely
your humanity, but you can
ignore it.
Some people can ignore it for
a very long time, but
will be reminded
with devastating regret
when it’s too late
–Brandon Thorpe
⚘
THE SEEDS OF MY SOUL
The seeds of my soul were buried in broken ash,
each one a scream stilled by fear,
suffocated beneath the weight of whiskey,
cigarettes, and promises turned to dust.
They bloomed in smoke,
twisting toward a sky that never saw them,
roots choked by the ghosts of all I had lost,
branches bent under the burden of who I was—
a dead thing, reaching toward the light
it could never hold.
The soil was always dry,
poisoned by regrets that never aged,
by hearts I couldn’t mend,
by the things I drank to forget.
Still, they pushed.
Still, they fought—
for what?
For nothing. For everything.
A bloom dead before it opened,
petals black as the years I let slip by,
each leaf a scar I couldn’t hide.
They grew crooked,
twisting like my thoughts,
struggling,
struggling like me—
wasting, decaying, but still pulling the air
into lungs that only know how to suffocate.
These seeds were never meant to survive.
They were born of anger,
rooted in dread,
fed by poison that never satisfied.
And yet they grew,
as if to prove that even the broken
can scream into the void.
They bloom, but they bloom wrong.
Twisted, cracked,
rooted in a soil too old,
too full of ghosts to ever nourish anything real.
And still, they reach,
desperate to feel the sun
they know they’ll never taste.
I planted them in the ruin of my sins,
sheltered them in shadows,
where I could never look at them
without remembering the things I could never undo.
They bloom—
but in the wrong season,
too far from the light
and too deep in the dark.
And I stand,
watching them die and rise again,
wondering if they will ever know peace,
or if this is all they will ever be:
The bloom of regret,
the soil of sin,
the seed that never quite understood
that it was already too late.
–Joshua Walker, aka ‘The Last Bard’
⚘
SUMMER CONVERSATION
You will feel shame when the Dandelions fall to frost
because in your heart of hearts you think it is retribution
instead of the natural rebirth that it will be revealed as.
With honesty, I will not cancel our bright summer picnic
At the graveyard tomorrow because I miss the seasons.
I cannot allow myself to forget the whispers behind
Their creation.
–Dane Osborne
⚘
EXTRA-DIMENSIONAL THOUGHT
While stingy winds refuse to blow dry
today’s galoshes-ready red clover,
you sit there, feet on Grandmom’s
moss-décor back step,
imagining yourself
Shlomo of the West, lightly holding
time-eroded pebbles, surveying
color and size and smoothness, hoping
for clues to build on.
Extra-dimensional thought
you call it, when you turn,
searching for alternatives missed.
–Charles Thomas
⚘
TABASCO
In Boone I was free and light and full of dreams.
I think about the girl I was,
And mourn who she’s come to be.
There’s a version of me still stumbling down King Street,
Drunk and enamored as we pass Melanie’s.
And I’m still the girl with a jar of shine in the backseat,
Untethered permanently.
Today I’m growing Tabascos, and questioning where all the time goes…
I fill woozy bottles with hot sauce like it’s kitchen-witchery-love-potion,
And even from the hills of Tennessee
I’m hoping
You think of me
when your tongue burns.
–Morgan Long
⚘
YELLOW
I watch in awe as you
bite, chew, swallow,
take a long drag and repeat
until your plate is empty
Slowly growing another layer
on the sticky wooden walls
the white lacy curtains
looking yellow and sad
Not like those thick nails
yellow and strong
super-duper scrapers
built right into your thumbs
One of many wonders
seen through my young eyes
which quickly grow older
along with the rest of me
Stealing my first pack
from the carton of reds
stashed in your trunk
proudly choking them down
A billowing chimney
I follow in your footsteps
for twenty years before
finding my way back to freedom
–Angelika Shelley
⚘
GAME OVER
My mind replays
So much pain
The feelings of
Not being wanted
To why
Am I not enough
For them
To not fight
For her
To paint my nails
Or call me beautiful
Instead, I feel
I'm the problem
So I run away
To “friends"
Who never cared
Who left me
And turned blind eyes
To the bad shit
He did to me
He took my future
Destroyed my mind
All because
The word “No"
Means nothing
So, that little girl
Is buried down deep
From a cold ass world
Stuck in a game
She never wanted to play
–Allison Baker
⚘
RED
Go get me a switch you said
straight from the tree
naively choosing one long and thin
a mistake I would never make again
Better than the time
you let me have it with a hose
for speaking something childish
as a child a few years old
Then there was the time
with the belt on the porch
your misdirected anger
unleashing more than words
Most memorable of all
was the slap across the face
when I told you to shut up
for saying things you shouldn’t say
Always hurting yourself
more than me you said
proof of your undying love
which never quite made sense
–Angelika Shelley
⚘
WHEN THE LEAVES ARE STILL GREEN
With lines from Jack Gilbert’s “Horses at Midnight Without a Moon”
What astonishes is the singing
when soil’s webbed with poisons
but daffodils bloom, lakes soured
with plastics and the trout still bite.
Kites spike high in a wayward wind,
butterflies and bees fashion the sky
though the woods are razed
and supermarkets take their place,
never mind the derelict shops left
to rot, sequestered on the edges
of a town now sprouting in new directions.
Potholes dimple the asphalt
as we point roads away from city centers,
quick to bare a leafy land, abandon
concrete blocks and steel to crumble
and rust. Mist wraps the valleys,
fog rising from the river, disguising
the cuts, the carvings, the deadfall.
And still our hearts wander, lost
in the dark woods waiting
for the moon’s cool curve,
for a brightness that won’t blind.
–KB Ballentine
⚘
A PROMISE
There exist kind mango days of a deathless summer
that hide inside my own reality.
This is a reality of action: A sideshow for animals that
Pray like mad for the powerful mercy of invisible eyes
(Invisible eyes that belong to me and
what I see with them is hope given by my dirty hands
for real smiles that glow in the priceless dark)
I will give you all a new morning
And I will make it out of fire and moondust..
I promise you.
–Dane Osborne
⚘
NIGHT AND DAY
God made night and day
It says so in the Bible
But no one would deny the existence
of dusk and dawn.
Far from it.
We bask in the beauty of the in between
Who doesn’t love a good sunset?
The sky lit with brilliant colors as day fades into night
And we rise with the dawn to watch night become the day.
God made Night and Day
and everything in between
and gave us the power of free will
and creativity
to paint
to sketch
to write
to make our own sunsets
and capture the dawn
and share in the joy of creation.
–Cameron Cox
⚘
HISTORY OF WIND
Valleys of time
unribbon as we drive from York’s city centre
into the English countryside.
Even beside the motorway, sheep graze,
fields greener than I can believe,
and then we’re off the main road
that narrows into lanes, into tracks.
Golden stonework, still feathered
with coal dust from the Industrial Age, huddles
in villages and hamlets, brightens gray days.
My country, still new to the ways of the world,
still trying to decide what it wants to be.
Sometimes the way things have always been done
need changing – sometimes the old ways
are the good ways. Why not discover
which it is and what it means, following the valley
as it bends behind the mountains into a hidden horizon.
–KB Ballentine
⚘
PINK
Cotton candy sunrise
talking to the birds
dreaming in the sunlight
craving to be heard
Playing in the backyard
chasing fireflies
laughing through the pain
feeling so alive
Drinking all the kool-aid
swimming at the creek
digging in the dirt
gratefully remembering
–Angelika Shelley
⚘
MY HUMBLE BLESSINGS
My mother you have been so kind,
For helping me laugh and making me mind.
I come to you at this late hour,
Searching for comfort, wisdom and power.
I want to smile but can only cry,
For a woman so bold should never die.
It's hard to imagine how life goes on,
And my only solace is that you have gone home.
In my earthy greed I want you to stay,
To help my heart live another day.
It's only I know God's other plan,
To reunite you with a wonderful man.
So, as you lay at rest so peaceful before us,
The angels in heaven sing your joyful chorus.
Helping me heal, believe and to know,
With all my heart’s blessings,
It is time to let go.
Your Forever Grateful Son,
Gary
–Gary Crites
*A note from the author: This is and was a dedication to honor My Mother, in her passing I wrote while feeling many emotions in reflection of all she brought to My Life, as an extremely grateful and fortunate son.
⚘
A LETTER AT EASTER
Dear Paschal,
How the wind blows in Tennessee on the cusp of April! So
much for out like a lamb, more like the Lion we expected; meanwhile, we
were forced to bury ourselves below grade with candles through the night.
We emerged to the relief of sunshine after the big winds had passed over
and I remarked at the ash seeds strewn across our land and not an ash tree
within a hundred yards, their brown papery skin more fit for an open casket
later in the spring, but still holding life, and not merely a visual reminder.
The word is indehiscent, I believe, in that the seeds do not split at maturity,
but are carried on a foil to territories unimagined, just like you and me.
We must be more like samaras than apple seeds in our descent, outcasts by
design, we who cannot defy gravity will soar like eagles and light afar, and
always by a force beyond our control or prediction.
We are dropped and protected in capsules of skin and circumstance to spread
this outrageous news beyond Samaria, that those away from the garden might
then observe, give heed and bear their own fruit, ashes to ashes, all of us.
Come soon,
–Stuart Redpath
⚘
DID THE APPLE OFFER YOU ITS SCENTED LIGHT?
A cento, with references listed below
When I consider everything that grows,
the earth’s gold breath falling softly,
the dark itself parted to let us pass.
Tell me who you haunt.
Here is the deepest secret nobody knows –
your soul lives in lightning,
always there is sky after sky waiting to fall.
There should be hope in the leaves’ first turning.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
what it is to be quiet and yet still breathing,
to sit down, like a weed among weeds, and rustle in the wind.
–KB Ballentine
*References, line by line:
Pablo Neruda (trans. by Forrest Gander): “What guides autumn’s singing leaf into your golden hand”
William Shakespeare: “Sonnet 15”
Danusha Laméris: “Dust”
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: “Latent”
Marilyn Kallet: “Encore”
ee cummings: “i carry your heart with me (i carry it it in”
Helga Kidder: “When Breath Becomes Air”
January Gill O’Niel: “The Blower of Leaves”
Bill Brown: “The Melting”
David Whyte: “Everything is Waiting for You”
Ada Limón: “Notes on the Below”
Mary Oliver: “Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches”
⚘
A CERTAIN SHADE OF GRIEF
Grief will approach you like the clouds rolling in
And sometimes it hits you like a rugby tackle
Let it be, let it hurt
Let it wash over you like a sun-kissed waterfall
And hold yourself like the forest would.
Let your body carry
This density out
Through tears, movement, singing
Nights of broken sleep,
Your mind that won't seem to bend to your will
Until...
Lift your eyes to your bedroom window
Out there, somewhere
Some hour
There is relief
Breathe.
–Frances Denise
⚘
OUT OF SKIN
Beachfront rimmed with chalk, white veins embroider
the cliff sides. Far out, where blue sky kisses
blue horizon, seals appear, heads stippling
the sea. Faces curious, whiskers twitching,
braided with salt, what do they think?
They’ve transported me to the fey world,
the selkie world. Hazed with fog and water,
this dream world enfolds me — wearing away my bones.
Flow of blood through marrow like sea through sponge —
a susurration of tides. Sap through heartwood.
No limbs, no leaves or hair mangled by wind or rot.
The seals slip their heads above the surface,
study my movements, my smell.
Noses to fins they dive — heavy bodies graceful
in waves that bear anything, everything,
even my dreams, away.
–KB Ballentine
⚘
THE BUMBLEBEE
One sunny summer day,
Me, Mommy, and my sister Anita
Arrived back at Mommy's house,
From Oak Ridge, TN,
Where she was taking radiation
Treatments for her lung cancer.
Her back porch was very small,
So she was in front of me
And Anita was standing on
The steps behind me.
Anyway there was a
Bumblebee buzzing around
Minding its own business,
But of course Mommy
Just had to start swatting at it.
And while she was making that
Bee madder than a firecracker,
I said that bees didn't bother me.
Well let me tell you
Those words were barely
Out of my mouth
When that mad rascal
Landed right square on
The end of my nose
And gave it a wallop.
Then to add insult to injury,
It started crawling up
Inside of my nose.
And as the little barbs on its legs
Dug and clawed farther and farther
Up my nasal cavity,
A state of panic was on
The verge of setting in.
In fact all I could do was
Holler Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!
And flap my arms up
And down like a total dodo bird.
Then suddenly the Bumblebee stopped
Crawling upwards and threw
Itself in reverse.
Almost as if to say, “Oops wrong hive!"
“Yeah, Buddy you sure
Can say that again!"
Although it was a painful encounter,
Me, Mommy and Anita
Laughed about it for the longest time.
–Angelia Ross
⚘
MOLLYCODDLE
to treat with excessive attention
Tails wag
when I slide
through the front door.
I trip
over their paws
as they mingle underfoot.
Each step
to the living room
labored.
Licks, whines,
and barks
lift my spirits
after fighting
traffic and a tension
headache.
When I squat to pet them,
their bottoms bounce
against me.
–Chris Wood
⚘
GROAK
to stare at someone while they are eating
in the hopes that they will give you some of their food
I love the way
you gaze into my eyes.
How your mouth waters,
how you sit patiently
with that pouty look.
You drool for my juicy,
seasoned-just-right ribeye
still sizzling as my knife
and fork hover.
You let out a soft,
barely audible whine
when I cut the first chunk,
lift it to my lips.
Your paw touches my thigh,
my mouth opens,
your nails dig into my leg,
body shifts, tail wags
as my fork banks right and
down to your open snout,
tongue lapping as it pulls
the delicacy from my tines.
–Chris Wood
⚘
FIRE HYDRANT
A chemical mix of iron ore,
magnesium, and aluminum pour
from the crucible. Red hot lava,
bright in the dark recesses of the foundry,
fills every crevice, every corner of the sandy mold.
The molten cast settles, cools, and solidifies
into shape. Busted from the outer shell,
the dull gray piece tumbles in a blasting machine
propelling steel-shot through a centrifugal wheel
until all sand and soot is gone.
Painted red and installed in my neighborhood, the fixture
entices Tazi to sniff as we stroll past. I tug her leash
without breaking my stride. She trots past me
to the mailbox at the next driveway, her tail
curling in the morning breeze.
–Chris Wood
⚘
A VISION TAUGHT BY SALESMEN (REFUND PAID BY LOVE)
Reality? I've been to reality for years.
Oh yeah the Crystal ball woman can scream
That banshee moan and the alley cat will
Hiss no more blood after you feed him the
Dirt cheap medicine.
I myself?
I myself the monster killer?
I will take my chances with the neon children
And talk the jive to survive
The sick servants who sell Judas
Out of the movie screen machine.
I miss the world.
The big blue world
That the big blue beasts lost (for good)
To the talking magic Monkey God that gives away
Moonshine for free (to the people of the melted sword)
Burn proof love is granted
And laughter can be heard
Under this sweet stolen sky.
–Dane Osborne
⚘
AWAKE AND PRETENDING
Today I woke up to
What feels like a different life
The most minute of things
Seem magnified
The strawberries in my breakfast bowl
Taste more frozen
They crunch harder
Between my teeth
The dehumidifier hums a bit louder
The sunlight has a more ethereal glow
The maple tree in the front yard
I realize
Is something I've seen
More than once
On the edge of a dream
And it feels distantly familiar
The particular way the breeze
Tickles those lower leaves
Somewhere out there
In the blackness of nothing
Is a girl curled up in a ball
The first one who approaches
Is a little boy with big round eyes
He asks her what's wrong
And she tells him the truth.
On the other side of the wall
Is a mother
Traveling between worlds
She tried to snap out of it
To refocus, concentrate
As her daughter asks her to play
Back in this space with clocks, roles and lists
Mailmen coming to the door
And lunches to be made
She prepares to mend
And pretend
That all is okay
–Frances Denise
⚘
THE WHITE LADY DON’T SING
No free medicine
and the white lady will not
sell a vision.
Tonight, the TV Man talks to the moon
and I Bow no more to the invisible eye
that hides behind walls and ignore all
The monkeys bullshit moans about
The innocence of evolution.
The white lady don't sing
and she won't sell a vision.
Who is the White Lady?
Why is her love so cold?
–Dane Osborne
⚘
A SCANDAL AT THE COMMUNITY SEED BANK
I’m always surprised by the spring.
I doubt that it’ll come back at all this time.
Things just get too cold and wet in the winter.
You can’t fathom how anything could survive.
You look out through the wet haze on your windows
on day 3 of a fever barely able tolerate temperature changes
between a few degrees, staring into all that inhospitable cold
which your 4 walls and the thousands spent with KY central heating
couldn’t manage to fully beat back.
You wouldn’t survive a trip to the car,
you’d fall into a fit the second it touched your fever-ridden skin.
And you know all the little bugs and animals you’ve learned about
are OUT THERE in all THAT.
But this far into the winter,
the only things left in the game are a clutch of eggs
glued behind some bark,
chemically engaged in the invisible battle to prevent
their cells from being shredded by crystallizing ice.
But then one day the sun is back, the time has passed.
Catching yourself right in the mix of it,
overwhelmed by layers upon layers
of excessive growth.
You have only the attention for a brief feeling of relief,
that it’s all still there (this time)
it really came back.
You’d have to shout to be heard over the trilling of insects
over the collective roar of
insects, birds and frogs,
violently plugged back in to bliss of smothering humid heat
the disorienting noises, smells, textures
that make it difficult to focus on any one thing,
and when you can manage to wrestle your attention into submission
all you can seem to focus on
are the little windswept seeds gathering between your toes.
And you look up into the blue sky
the impossible void
and think about microbes catching rides on aeroplankton
while watching the floaters in your eyes drifting over a tiny cloud that
in reality, is probably the size of a blue whale.
If you could take a cup of air from up there,
would it feel different? Smell different?
Your happy mind lazily plays with lofty
Ideas, like ghosts and space,
and the sun shines with an undeniable power
that demands caution.
You dab a little sunscreen on your nose and ears
and understand why early civilizations worshipped the sun.
You think about the heat you needed to move
and how hard it was when the sun was setting at 6
but now that the gears are greased,
all the pieces are gently sliding ‘round one another,
there remains the issue of bearing.
The only assurance is that you will have a little more direction
but before you can do anything about it
the temps will be dropping
and the leaves will be falling.
You’ll have to wait for things to warm back up,
before you can do anything
then it’s back to wondering if it ever really will come back,
the little animals and the flowers –
How is it possible?
How could anything survive in all that dark and cold?
–Brandon Thorpe
⚘
FROM THE ASHES OF TIME AND PRESSURE
Let me tell you,
whenever I forget my mind ain't real
my thoughts become atrophy and that's how
I am swallowed up alive by the endless tide.
After five hundred years or so,
I always rise up again so I may
rediscover passion I use to redeem my own fire.
Chrysalis in practice due to occurrence
of time and pressure.
Does this mesmerize you? Do you want more?
After the phenomena of Life and Death is finished,
all those children who arrive back
to the paradise of the unborn will beg
for the mercy of those who did not make the trip
AND THEY SHALL GET IT!!!!
–Dane Osborne
⚘
WHEN I CAN DO NOTHING ELSE TODAY
after James Crews
Let me pause in this field
where autumn crisps
the neighboring mountain,
wind blurring fiery colors
under silting clouds.
A deer glances up from her grazing
and the finches feed
in frenzy. We all know it’s coming.
But, in this moment,
when the sun sets behind the house
and stretches its light
over the woods and river, golden glow
dazzling the air, I know what joy is,
what hope is. What peace.
–KB Ballentine
⚘
THE KEY TO ME
When I told you
You are the key to me
I meant that
You show me things
I had hidden away
I must have given them to you
For safekeeping
On those dark and sunny days
In our meeting place
Outside
of
time.
Parts of me
That only you and I
Would ever know
Sacred pieces of ebony and gold
The glorious puzzle
Ancient but not old
We are here
And yes, I know
I am whole
But also
You were missing –
I was missing
You.
In this story
There is no “one", truly
Without the other
There are things
Marvelous, magical
Blissful things
We can only discover
When we are
Together
–Frances Denise
⚘
SUPER DEAD
I just hid it. I got better and better
but I feel the same inside.
I’m the same consciousness. I just know
It’s a drag to complain about it all the time.
It’s kind of true for everyone, I guess.
you’re actually you inside,
but you’re smart enough to hide
the side of you
that’s afraid to die.
So let’s take a walk outside
and just be alive while we still have time.
while you’re asleep I lay my head on
your side of the bed
and pretend we’re both dead.
and cry sometimes
but hide my face
when you open your eyes for a second
to see where the corner
of your cover
got lost in the body heat
with exposed feet
she twists and shifts
and somehow gets
Herself completely covered.
But spring is around,
and we’ll be thawed out now, with double speed
double the friction
we’ll stay out all day
We’ll get flies in the house
and get gnats in the kitchen
and the strays will have kittens
we’ll get sweaty and sun burnt
dirt under our nails
sun stays out till 9:30
so we don’t really care.
and it will happen again
again and again
with little changes,
the kids at different ages
inviting over friends
Who cares if it ends?
Might be a hundred and twenty
before we pass away.
love is a power.
It holds us in minutes and costs us our hours,
but we’ve got plenty to spend.
We’ll have it used up just as it ends.
–Brandon Thorpe
⚘
ALIVE
a fridge poem
why am I washed and weathered?
let me play
smell the ocean
heart hit memory
love family
watch spring rain
dance to
heavenly music
begin another drastic
adventure
will you be alive
with me?
–Frances Denise
With endless love & gratitude,
