Gardening in Community by Kristi Jones

 

RDNE Stock project

Gardening in Community

A patchwork of garden plots, divided by chicken wire fences

Tomato cages and bean trellises sprout up from the soil

In spring, the gardens boast neat rows of pale green lettuce

In summer huge, prolific zucchini plants abound

In fall, unruly squash vines take over garden plots

Every gardener plants uniquely different crops

Some people grow Big Boy tomatoes and bush beans

Others nurture long Asian squash from their homeland

Microbes flourish in a communal compost pile nearby

Happy pollinators buzz and flit everywhere

Community gardens make space for those without yard space

Sunny, chemical-free space for growing food and flowers

Sacred, holy, joyful space 

Space that welcomes novice gardeners and skilled green thumbs alike Space filled with hope for thriving plants and abundant harvest 

© Kristi Jones

Kristi Jones

Kristi Jones is an emerging poet who lives, works, plays, and writes in Madison, WI. Her poems have been published in KFF Health News.  She loves spending time in her community garden plot, even when it involves non-stop weeding.  She holds a BA from St Olaf College. 

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Thoughts on Hearing My Mom Coughing by Jason Ray Carney

 

Image / Gustavo Fring

Thoughts on Hearing My Mom Coughing

I hate to hear my mother cough

while sleeping in my childhood room at 41.

It reminds me of great-grandma Mary,

who introduced me to Nintendo

and slowly wasted away from lung cancer.

My mother does not smoke,

but her persistent cough still frightens me.

It’s the sound of sickness returning,

of youth spent,

the disintegration that unweaves us.

My mother was beautiful at great-grandma’s funeral,

where she cried and threw herself on the casket,

the first time I saw her cry.

Later, Grandma Simmons took me aside

to the back room of the church.

She made me a coffee,

a 9-year-old with a cup of coffee.

I drank it and said it was gross.

She told me my tastes would change,

that I’d be a grown man drinking coffee every day.

I didn’t believe her.

I couldn’t imagine a gray-haired man,

tired at 9:00 PM,

lying on his childhood bed in Ohio,

listening to his mom’s cough,

echoing great-grandma’s,

at whose funeral I learned I would grow old.

© Jason Ray Carney

Jason Ray Carney

Jason Ray Carney is a Senior Lecturer in Literature at Christopher Newport University. He is the author of Weird Tales of Modernity (McFarland, 2019) and a contributor to the Los Angeles Review of Books.

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Green Healing by Rose Anna Higashi

 

Image / Rudolf Jakkel

GREEN HEALING

High in the tall pines, the wind is a flute,

Sending a green tune

Out to envelop all who can hear.

The sound becomes a mantle,

Wrapping around our shoulders,

Clothing us.

Wearing this new garment,

We wander back to childhood,

Hearing every melody,

Green and sweet.

Crossing song’s river

On a chariot’s low notes,

We are washed

In sound waters—

Healed by music, Greener than time.

© Rose Anna Higashi

Rose Anna Higashi

Rose Anna Higashi is a retired professor of English Literature, Japanese Literature, and Poetry who lives in Honolulu with her husband, Wayne. She writes a haiku every day and publishes a monthly blog, “Tea and Travels” on her website, myteaplanner.com. Her poems appear in a variety of online and print media, including Poets Online, whose editors nominated her for the Pushcart Prize. Kelsay Books is scheduled to publish her third volume of poetry, Searching in Circles, in 2025.

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GHAZAL FOR AIR by Mary Ann Honaker

Mitch Kesler

GHAZAL FOR AIR

One part of our souls will join Zeus in the air.

He does not sit on clouds. He is dispersed in air.

One part of our souls goes to dim Hades

to dwell always in that choking, murky air.

In many languages, spirit and breath

are the same word.  Inside us, holy air.

One hot summer day, the forest in flames

stung our noses and thickened the air.

Wear your mask covering both nose and mouth.

Viruses, some lethal, ride on the air.

Soul enters the infant at its first cry.

The soul slips in on an intake of air.

You cannot see the wind, yet it knocks down

the elderly tree.  Thread of life severed by air. © Mary Ann Honaker

Mary Ann Honaker

Mary Ann Honaker is the author of Becoming Persephone (Third Lung Press, 2019), Whichever Way the Moon (Main Street Rag, 2023), and the forthcoming Night is Another Realm Altogether (Sheila-Na-Gig, 2026). Her poems have appeared in Bear Review, DIAGRAM, JMWW, Juked, Little Patuxent Review, Rattle.com, Solstice, Sweet Tree Review, Tuskegee Review, and elsewhere. She currently lives in Beckley, West Virginia.

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The Nameless One by Yongbo Ma

 

Image / Aleksejs Bergmanis

The Nameless One

He is both here and not here

when he looks at you, he is looking at someone or something else

he is the purest creature in this world

he comes to help us live, yet has no life of his own

When he walks outside, he is anyone in the crowd

and also an anonymous skeleton formed by all farmers

everything is connected because of him

he is a still point amid fragmentation

He is also a boundary, a statue at the bridgehead

the questions separated by garden hedges

even if he turns the cold corner of his pocket to you

you will not believe he has nothing

This poverty is his entire territory

the ancient mask falling from our faces

he is the room where we first exchanged tokens

The void in the center of the wreath, gradually exposing us

© Yongbo Ma

Yongbo Ma

Yongbo Ma was born in 1964. He has a PhD and is a translator, editor, and leading scholar of postmodern poetry. He has authored or translated more than 80 published books. Ma is a professor in the Faculty of Arts and Literature at Nanjing University of Science and Technology. His translations from English include works by Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, W. C. Williams, John Ashbery, Herman Melville, and others. You can follow him on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100093276516900.

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Birthday Party: A Cherita by Barbara Anna Gaiardoni

 

Silvia Trigo

Birthday Party: A Cherita

~dedicated to BL on her birthday

birthday party

when the sky is tinged 

with pastel colours 

kite flying brings 

a sense of freedom  and joy 

© Barbara Anne Gaiardoni

Barbara Anna Gaiardoni

Barbara Anna Gaiardoni’s Japanese–style poetry has been published in 220 international journals and translated into 12 languages. She received two nominations for The Touchstone Award and was recognized on the Haiku Euro Top 100 list and The Mainichi’s Haiku in English Best list for 2023. 

http://barbaragaiardoni.altervista.org/blog/haikuco-2/

https://andreavanacore.it/

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Flowers In a Wooden Basin With Holes by Selma Martin

Woman in the Garden of Monsieur ForestHenri de Toulouse-Lautrec French

1889–9. Public Domain: 

Flowers In a Wooden Basin With Holes

In an old wooden basin with holes, 
I planted gardenias for your repose 
down by the ditch where no one goes 
I left the basin where lilacs grow

and return to the life you vacated. 
I visit ‘tween showers every April,
and regard the blooms beguiled.  
I stand still to let a drunken bee pass

and a moth to finalize her consultation.
At my turn, I reach for your petals,
silky smooth—reminds of your cold lips.
I cut one and wrap it in my apron

and promise to visit next year, God willing.
In the meantime, you'll abide with me in old
tunes, in poetry, and the indivisible fire of
my heart, while I bide my time and wait to 
cross over to that side of the river with you. 

©️ Selma Martin

Selma Martin

Selma Martin is a retired English teacher with 20 years of experience teaching ESL to children. She believes in people’s goodness and in finding balance in simple living. She lives in Japan with her husband of 35 years. In 2018, Selma participated in a networking course that culminated in a final lesson to publish a story on Amazon. She completed the course and self-published her short story, "Wanted: Husband/Handyman," in 2019. Later, collaborating with peers from that course, she published "Wanted: Husband/Handyman" in "Once Upon A Story: A Short Fiction Anthology." Selma has published stories on Medium for many years, in MasticadoresUSA, The Poetorium at Starlight, Short Fiction Break, Lit eZine, and Spillwords. In July 2023, she published her debut poetry collection, In the Shadow of Rainbows (Experiments in Fiction). You can find Selma as selmawrites on Instagram and Twitter, and on her website, selmamartin.com.

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For Where You Are Going by Catherine Zickgraf

Image / Bella White

For Where You Are Going

This shell came from the waves 

in curves and sapphire shades

with maps in the iridescence 

to help you navigate.

Here’s a pillowcase to catch the clouds

and glide wind-blown with the current.

Search always the soft line of horizon

by the star that glows at noon. 

Though you leave me to sail the sparkling azure

and disappear in sky and wide-open ocean,

I will wait for you at the edge of day.

May you make your own joy and swim away.   © Catherine Zickgraf

Catherine Zickgraf

Two lifetimes ago, Catherine performed her poetry in Madrid. Now her main jobs are writing and hanging out with her family. You can find her work in Pank, Deep Water Literary Journal, and 7th-Circle Pyrite. Her chapbook, Soul Full of Eye, is published through Kelsay Books. Find her socially in the Bluesky and watch/read more at www.caththegreat.blogspot.com

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