Cover image: “Sheep” by Clarke Condé
Gallery 3
To Be Ephemeral
Peter Mitchell
The Love Chair
The woodworker walks the stand of camphor laurel. She knows
the trees’ passion: their leaves as familiar as her hands;
their growth as tranquil as the evolution of her love.
She dreams green’s rubric: trees one-and-a-half women
high; the air showered with wheatgrass-green leaves;
a branch as thick as her forearm on the ground.
Her fingers circle the axe’s solid handle,
guides the arc through the air,
its sharp edge opening the pale wood.
Her tools speak to her: metal plane murmurs
over roughness; nails sing the hammer’s orchestration.
Later, the woodworker walks around the
chair. Love emeralds her eyes as her love’s
hair falls over the back and sides.
Peter Mitchell lives in Lismore on Wijabal/Wia-bal Country (Bundjalung Nation) writing poetry, memoir, short fiction, and literary criticism. He was shortlisted for Sydney’s 2020 AIDS Memorial Green Park Competition (collaborator: architect Matteo Salval) and the 2020 Robyn Mathison Poetry Prize. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Ekphrastic Review, Rabbit Poetry Journal, Mantissa Poetry Review, Chariot Press Literary Journal and The Blue Nib, among others. His second poetry chapbook, Conspiracy of Skin (Ginninderra Press, 2018), was Highly Commended in the 2019 Wesley Michel Wright Prize for Poetry. His first poetry chapbook is The Scarlet Moment (Picaro Press, 2009), while his first full-length poetry collection, Wild Risk, and third poetry chapbook, Deep Black Ice, await publication. Find him at www.peter-mitchell.com.au or on Instagram @petermitchell546.
Liz Baxmeyer
Liz Baxmeyer is an artist, musician, writer, and lecturer living in Sacramento, CA. Her work has been featured on the cover of Beyond Words Literary Magazine, and she’s currently creating a collection of tree-inspired art pieces for an exhibit later this year. Liz studies writing at Antioch University, Santa Barbara, and lectures in the Humanities at a health sciences university. She paints trees inside every house she lives in, and takes inspiration from nature, music, and her fading British-ness.
Karen Carter
Talking Trees
I sit on my front porch.
This 71-degree heat calls for spring
to shed light on the shifting time.
I wonder what the trees are saying
to each other about war, peace—the war
in Ukraine. The trees have seen
it all—the fallen, the decay, the dead
thrown into the ground for seeds
to sprout, to spring once again.
Twelve tall trees stand
across the road
at the edge of the woods.
Trees, taller than the utility
lines in front of them,
bend every time
SW March wind, 21 mph, travels
so that the trees touch,
talk to each other.
Do the talking trees long
to inspire, stand still with resilience,
or will they erode from climate change?
Or do these trees feel like “I must do
something” when the wind bursts
return as they will in the next
few minutes.
Yes, now the wind shifts the talking
trees from standing still to breathing
into each other’s space.
The trees in the center of the twelve,
the tallest, carry the swaying
of their brothers, sisters like video shows
the real horrors of brothers, sisters, lives
lost on the battlefield, at home, in
makeshift shelters—no matter which side
they are on.
What do these talking trees say about nuclear
war power? About us?
The sun is out now.
The clouds shift, form a chain moving
slowly behind the trees, as once again
the trees stand still.
Clouds, like puffy cotton balls, stretch
across the sky like a peace sign
to be disturbed or energized by wind gusts.
Do the talking trees know which one?
Is their talking perhaps diplomacy
for the world to follow?
Will it be empty speech
or a breath of hope?
Karen Carter teaches high school English in North Carolina. One of the first females to earn a PhD in religion at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, she is a seasoned teacher in post-secondary and secondary education. Her poems have appeared in Avalon Literary Review, Broadkill Review, Cathexis Northwest Press, Eclectica, Miller’s Pond, Poetry Quarterly, The MacGuffin, The Write Launch, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, and Wild Roof Journal. Kenyon Review awarded her as a teacher/poet a free online writer’s workshop January 22, 2022, taught by renowned US poet laureate Tracy K. Smith.
Tyler Jorgensen
Remembering the Trees
I hate that I can never remember tree names. Just hate it. So today I drove 18 miles west, out to Muleshoe Bend, a natural area along the shores of Lake Travis, determined to teach myself tree names. I parked at a familiar campground, sunk my coffee mug back in the cupholder, grabbed my copy of Gustafson’s Naturalist’s Guide to the Texas Hill Country off the passenger seat, and set out on a little trail I know.
It was late morning, a late fall day in central Texas. The light drizzle in the air felt refreshing on my face, the cool temperature easily managed with my thin fleece jacket. The grasses had browned to match the dirt, acorns fallen across the trail in spots where oaks overhung. A few trees showed off fall colors. Most clung to dull green leaves.
At my first turn in the trail a doe almost ran me over. Flat out. She sprinted directly toward me, caught sight of me at the last minute, and turned to her left to crash through the brush rather than into me. I had hardly a moment to process this close encounter when down the trail charged her suitor, a three-year-old eight-point buck with one thing on his mind. He saw me only just in time and jolted to his right, ran another twenty feet into a clearing, snorted loudly, and paused to look around.
My heart pounded hard in my chest and I made efforts to slow my heavy breathing. I didn’t dare to move. The buck and I stared at each other until I turned to see the doe, now pausing in an oak mott to my right and staring right back at me. I can’t remember who moved first in this whitetail-hiker standoff. I think it was the doe who started walking. The buck then bounded, and off she ran, and I watched as they disappeared in thick brush.
Are you kidding me? I almost got run over by two deer in the rut. I had to take a minute before resuming my tree-hunt. Though I had hunted deer all my life, I had never walked so close to wild deer doing wild deer things so wildly, with no deerblind or truck door or fence line to separate us.
And yet as incredible as it had been to experience their chase so intimately, I hated to have broken up their dance. Did I just disrupt the natural order? Did I just ruin a beautiful courtship? But so it was. They ran to me, not I to them. And maybe some good will come from this brief human interruption. Maybe I helped that doe escape a buck she didn’t much care for. Maybe it was meant to be, like the offhand comment that leads to a breakup that leads to your being available and having your eyes open when you finally meet the love of your life. Or maybe the shared shock of the human-in-the-trail would bring these two lovebirds closer together, and my little interruption would become a part of their story, and for years they would bore their fawns with the story of the man mommy and daddy almost ran over as they were falling in love.
I want to do a better job remembering that the little interruptions in our life play an important role. I so often remember the good things—a fine trail, a mountain view, a peaceful morning on the water, a project gone well, a glorious solstice sunset, the teapot in the sky, the shooting stars, my daughter’s laughter. But may I also call to mind those blessings disguised as interruptions—the breakups, the bankrupt plans, the illnesses, the missed exits, the chance encounters, the misplaced keys—and not forget them like so many tree names! These are the master strokes, the providential orchestrations of our loving Creator.
I came away that day with a working knowledge of cedar elm, Ashe juniper, agarita, elbowbush, Roosevelt weed, mesquite, live oak. A good day’s work. I also flushed up cardinals, dove, house sparrows and a roadrunner. There were other birds, but I can never remember their names.
Tyler Jorgensen writes about wild encounters in the natural world and patient encounters in the medical world. His work has appeared in Emergency Physicians International, the Annals of Emergency Medicine, Snapdragon, and has been featured in Mortals in Medicine storytelling events. When not caring for patients in ERs in Austin, Texas, he explores creeks, rivers, trails, woods, mountains—on foot, on bike, on belay, or in a canoe.
Nicola Brayan
Nicola Brayan is an aspiring artist from Sydney, Australia. She has rediscovered her passion for art during the pandemic. She uses vivid colours and contrast to capture emotions and expression. Her work is a love letter to what it means to be human. More of her work can be found on Instagram at @an.aesthetic.mirror.
Rachel Glass
in the event you fall in love with a person who already has a person (again)
know this lung blue
this infinite panic
this stubbed toe pain isn’t your riptide
but an accidental comma (at best).
though your confidence has dipped
dip your confidence in the ever-reliable moonlight.
your silly heart is pot-bound again
tip it over let gravity ease it out.
your pale hungry lungs
will taste this fizzing air again.
know your keyring smile prays to the moon.
you pray back to the moon
which breathes twinkling wind
back into you
back into your lungs
back into your laugh.
your laugh balloons from your mouth
until you breathe and breathe
and remember you breathe on your own.
Rachel Glass lives in Scarborough, England. She has had poems published by Dreich Magazine, Wild Roof Journal, and Polemical Zine. Her poem “Octopus” was highly commended for the 2020 Yaffle Poetry competition and her poems “Apology” and “Me But Happy” were longlisted for the 2021 Yaffle Poetry Competition. She can usually be found reading and drinking hot chocolate. Rachel can be found on Instagram and TikTok @rachelglass25.
Jennifer Sheridan
77. Greetings from Estrangement-ville
This is where
We were and
This is what
We did
I remarked
Something intended
To be clever and
Someone else responded
In kind
In the space of our shared half
Chuckle each and all
No doubt wishing
For that missing someone.
For me, of course, it is always she.
After earning an MFA in Fiction Writing from Columbia College in Chicago, Jennifer Sheridan worked as a fulltime bookseller in the Midwest for fifteen years. She (briefly) taught fiction writing at both Columbia College and the Gotham Writer’s Workshop in New York. She is now a sales representative for HarperCollins Publishers, children’s division. Her writing has appeared in Spectrum, Rattle and Hole in the Head Review.
Evan Benedict
depression questionnaire from your therapist’s waiting room
question 1
how tightly does it knot you—
press chest until sternum cracks?
because that’s panic attack,
which is different.
(see: addendum A)
question 2
how deep in dirt,
in soft, cool earth,
will you shift silt
in loose, black clods;
not a burial
but a stillness,
as a cicada
sleeping
until the time comes
to emerge again?
(for burials, see: addendum B)
question 3
when you binge-watch,
which, let’s be honest,
is always,
how emptily
do the images slide
off your vision,
heavy rain slapped
against a windshield
hurtling blindly
down freeway?
question 4
is living distinct
from breathing,
eating, sleeping,
waking, waiting?
question 5
what is it you feel
when you say “nothing?”
you can’t feel nothing,
so is it,
instead,
neither the press
of hand on chest
nor the release,
but the quantum space
between atoms
that can never touch?
(for more on this space, see: addendum C)
addendum A
close your eyes
breathe deep
this tunnel will end
they have always ended
and this one will, too.
addendum B,
unless it digs too far.
Deep cicada catacomb,
can’t feel the season’s heat, will never
clamber up quavering blades of grass
or pull itself from its own carapace
to leave a perfect, hollow echo,
translucent ghost of left-behind.
addendum C
they say you can write your way out,
but you don’t know how to figure out
whether to say
that a lily opens like a wound
or like a Graboid from Tremors.
Or if simile,
if mere allusion,
will rescue you
when you just want to drink
until your brain stops talking
because you’re incapable of shutting up,
or shutting out, without shutting down.
Evan Benedict is a high school English teacher at Norfolk Collegiate School in Norfolk, VA. He writes poetry in his spare time, which he has because he neglects other things. His poetry has been displayed by the City of Norfolk and featured in Flying South, Silver Rose Magazine, and Wild Roof Journal.
Shantha J. Bunyan
Shantha J. Bunyan is a Bi-POC, scuba dive master and former surgical tech who lived abroad as a nomad for over five years before returning to her native Colorado, where she currently writes while fighting chronic pain and invisible illnesses. She also enjoys using clippings from junk mail and magazines such as Rotary and National Geographic to write found poetry, which she pairs with photos she takes on her journeys. Some of her travel adventures and links to her publications can be found at www.RandomPiecesOfPeace.com.
Cleo Griffith
Heritage
I see those glistening eye-like lenses,
those new cameras you installed
across the street. They look right at me.
Have you heard the rumors, then?
Those that say my blood
includes that of a witch, that I, too,
am a witch.
That I keep owls.
If I were a witch with owls
I could use those silent wings
for mischief and malice.
So it is said.
I will not close my blinds from daylight.
I am from and of the earth and sun, and yes,
the moon, too, so my blinds may be
open to night sky, your camera
may spy me as I gaze up at the moonrise
above your house. I do not stare into you.
I do not fear what your new eyes might see.
I’ll invoke no ancient curse upon them.
I have no role to play here except subject
of your fantasies. I’m used to that,
it has been
that way
for centuries.
Cleo Griffith has been on the Editorial Board of Song of the San Joaquin for eighteen years. Widely published, her poems have recently appeared in POEM, Blue Collar Review, and Wild Roof Journal.
Andrew Lincoln Nelson
Andrew Lincoln Nelson is an artist working in Tucson, Arizona. He produces detailed semi-realistic and surrealistic drawings of futuristic or exobiological landscapes. He has a background in academic research and fine art. His work has been shown at Biosphere 2, Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati, and the University of Arizona and was the subject of National Arts Program Spotlight. His art has also been included in numerous juried publications and online venues, receiving best-in-show in several recent shows. He also does occasional commission work, recently including a book cover illustration (The Book of Stranger Vol. 2) and several music score cover illustrations (one being The Butterfly and the Ocelot by composer A. M. Guzzo).
J. Thomas Brown
Landfill Doggerel
One thing is certain and the rest is Lies;
the Flower that once has blown forever dies.
–The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
I heard the woosh of the bending sickle’s chine and decided to clean up my rubbish while there was still time. I threw my hoardings into the yard where it grew into a mound; toys, boots and books, a blender with a crack that made a clattering sound, a broken vacuum cleaner musting up the closet, a TV without knobs to shut it off or turn the volume down. In the garage were stacks of boxes and cans of lumpy paint, a mower that wouldn’t start, a bike with a broken chain, a sink with a rusted faucet, and a polyvinyl chloride clogged-up kitchen drain.
Then all at once came a nagging doubt, that it might be better not to throw it out, and get more shelves, or a bigger shed, or maybe buy a bigger house instead.
Straightening the clutter inside my mind, I heaved the mound onto my pickup, jumped behind the wheel and started it up. It bucked and jerked when I let out the clutch; the tires bulged, the frame groaned, it couldn’t hold so much. I stomped on the gas and got on the road, headed for the dump at last.
When I got there, I was not the first, and joined the growing convoy of Humvees, flatbeds, vans with trailers, SUVs. You couldn’t turn around if you changed your mind, they just kept on coming, adding to the line. We slowly crept forward, inch by inch, inhaling the landfill breeze, scented with a mix of garbage and the decay of commodities.
I backed up to the dump dock as the sun was setting low, threw my trash into the dumpster that was soon to overflow with armchairs, couches, cinderblock, and tires, rubber gloves and packing straps,1 plastic chicken wire. They hauled it with a tractor to a methane belching ziggurat and spread it on the towering top. Every day thereafter they added to the peak, twelve hours a day, seven days a week.
On the way homeward I reflected on the dump and how the people of the future would find it in the ground and wonder with amazement how their cities are built on ancient garbage mounds. They’ll brush away the dust to find my sink and faucet, unclog the kitchen drain, fix the TV, fix the mower – start it up, then draw the conclusion we could make nothing last and decide they are lucky they were not born in the past. They’ll pile it on a starship, then blast it off through space to terraform the Martian craters with our toxic waste.2
1 rubber gloves and packing straps: Items among the 100 kg litter ball found in the stomach of a sperm whale washed up on Harris Island in the Hebrides.
2 NASA has ambitions to begin industrial dumping on Mars by 2030.
J. Thomas Brown’s short stories, poems, and personal essay have appeared in Scarlet Leaf Review, Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet, Streetlight Magazine, Lingering in the Margins: A River City Poets Anthology, Rising Voices: Poems Towards a Social Justice Revolution, and other publications. Connect with the author and more of his work at www.jthomasbrown.com.
Evalyn Lee
I Read a Lot
about war. Why? Blame the journalists.
We are living a dead way of seeing.
Can I intrude on your interruption
to say conflict is an orphan factory?
Let’s exchange the gift of trespass
under a blooming arbor between
cascades of empty bird feeders.
Can I help you? Oh, it’s you.
Goodbye. Time passes into history
at the tidal mouth of a river we do not
cross as a sun rises on the horizon
of our choices. Death brings me here
to talk to you. None of us will get out
of here alive. The war will leave us where
it finds us. Birds will jump fish
fly. A leaf will roll over on its stem
to put its back to face the wind.
I don’t know what to say.
Evalyn Lee is a former CBS News producer currently living in London with her husband and two children. Over the years, she has produced television segments for 60 Minutes in New York and the BBC in London. Evalyn studied English literature both in the U.S. and in England and had the opportunity to interview writers, including Joseph Brodsky, Seamus Heaney, Dick Francis, and Margaret Atwood, about their work. Most recently Evalyn has worked with American novelist Joyce Maynard and the English novelist Louise Doughty. Her broadcast work has received an Emmy and numerous Writers Guild Awards. She won the Willow Review prize for short fiction for 2016. Evalyn is currently at work on her first collection of poetry.
Clarke Condé
Clarke Condé is a photographer based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Find more of his work on his website, www.condephotography.com.
Jim Stewart
Birthing a Day
You can hear the ocean
early in the morning from here,
this house hunkered on the hill,
the back side of Soledad Mountain.
Mexico is way out there and
the lights of downtown muted
by salt air rising from Mission Bay.
This should feel like home.
The sun changes everything
as it scales the mountains,
spills down canyons,
and sets the clouds afire.
I watch the burn.
Traffic noise rises and
defeats the ocean as it will
again this time tomorrow.
My heart is steady.
There is comfort in birthing a day, but
internal combustion is loud,
as is making light and heating homes.
We drive through our days, never
considering how deafness burgeons.
We are too many and we miss hearing home,
the blood and ocean in our ears.
Jim Stewart awakens in Gearhart, Oregon every morning and seeks community, writing poems in hopes of prying the lids from readers’ hearts to produce those tender grunts of recognition. Born in Chicago, he remembers Buffalo, Boston, Dana Point and has worked in Oregon for the past five decades. He figures he might grow up someday, but is in no hurry. Past credits include The Alembic, The Licking River Review, Orange Willow Review, Orion Magazine, The Blue Hour, The Progenitor, Rattapallax, Smokebox, and Tulane Review.
