Plant Me Beneath the Trees by Michael Braswell

Mikhail Peace

Plant Me Beneath the Trees

Plant me beneath the trees in the soil I came from

Plant me beneath my leaf-bound companions

 who soothed me with gentle breeze 

and shade in heat of summer

Let me listen again to their rustling sounds and singing 

As I rest within their storied embrace

Where smell of green grass comes alive after spring rains

And cascading leaves of fall color 

parade through an old man’s young boy’s imagination

Riding crisp edge toward season to come

Where hickory and oak remain transparent through winter’s gaze

Offering themselves for hearth’s crackling warmth

Grown quiet in winter’s sleep

 they stretch their limbs toward promise to come

When budding beckons new birth in Spring.

This poem has been previously published in Gracious Plenty

 © Michael Braswell

Michael Braswell

Michael Braswell has published books on ethics, justice issues, and the spiritual journey, as well as four short story collections. His poems and stories have appeared in several publications, including

Foreshadow, Mobius, and Literary Heist. His most recent books are When Jesus Came to the Cracker Barrel (2024) and Gracious Plenty (2025).

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The Garden Beyond by Peter A. Witt

 

Suzy Hazelwood

The Garden Beyond

The gate creaks open like an old violin bowing
a song only morning dew remembers.
Wrought iron vines curl like sleeping serpents
guarding the hush of hidden bloom.

Beyond, the path spills like silk unraveling in a breeze
across grass trimmed with scissors of silence.
Roses unfold like whispered prayers
shared between shy lovers in the shade.

A willow sways like a dreaming maiden,
her arms trailing perfume on the breeze.
The air is honeyed, thick as cathedral light
through stained glass petals.

Lilies rise like prayers from moss-damp earth,
and bees hum like monks in soft devotion.
Every step is a breath held,
every turn a painted pause.

And the gate behind me,
shuts with the breath of a story
that’s just begun.

© Peter A. Witt

Peter A. Witt

Peter A. Witt is a Texas poet and a recovering academic who lost his adjectives in the doldrums of academic writing. Poetry has helped him recover his ability to see and describe the inner and outer world he inhabits. His work has been twice nominated for the Best of the Net award. He also writes family history and is an avid birder and wildlife photographer.

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Sunrise Service by Bob McAfee

JUHASZIMRUS

Sunrise Service

This morning in Walpole,

this morning the woods

behind my house spread

their arms in benediction.

My backyard is a clearing.

My backyard welcomes

turkey parishioners

into its sanctuary – cranky hens

leading a processional of chicks.

A burly tom, checking his watch,

saunters in after the start

of the day’s service.

Just before sunrise, I hear

the coyote chorus warming

up in the distance – March

and mating season in full throttle.

Easter approaching – a gray squirrel

digs for buried eggs in the brown

grass of my poor lawn in preparation

for the advent of resurrection.

Reverend Woodchuck stands

in his pulpit on the wall of the swale,

gazes over his flock this morning, this morning in Walpole.

© Bob McAfee

Bob McAfee

Bob McAfee lives with his wife near Boston. He has written nine books of poetry, mostly on love, aging, and the natural world. One hundred and twenty-four poems have been accepted by 49 different publications. He hosts a Wednesday night Zoom poetry workshop. His website, www.bobmcafee.com, contains links to all his published poems.

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Seeing an Old Friend Off on a Summer Evening by Daniel Skach-Mills

Rockery with Waterfall Lan Su Chinese Garden - Portland, Oregon

Seeing an Old Friend Off 

On a Summer Evening

Lan Su Chinese Garden—Portland, Oregon

After Wei Feng

Waterfall is flowing.

Summer air is still.

Over tea, our talk about Li Po

and Du Fu lasts long.

How eloquently Wei Feng put it when he said:

Poetic minds complete the greater elegance.

Cicadas keening, crickets chirping,

we pass the hours, dawn till dusk,

with ease.

Infrequent visits

make parting even harder. 

Will lakes and mountains find us enjoying 

the quiet pool of one another's

company again?

The snowmelt of age— 

who can restrain it?

Though I close my gate 

securely behind you,

years still enter

and leave.

© Daniel Skach-Mills

Daniel Skach-Mills

Daniel Skach-Mills’ poetry has appeared in Braided Way, Sojourners, Sufi (Featured Poet), and Kosmos Journal. His book, The Hut Beneath the Pine: Tea Poems, was a 2012 Oregon Book Award finalist. A former Trappist monk, Daniel resides in Portland, Oregon, where he has served for fifteen years as a docent at Lan Su Chinese Garden.

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when the earth shall disappear by MK Kuol

 

Pixabay

when the earth shall disappear

After Amirah Al Wassif

when the earth, this earth, shall disappear

and the head of the last god skewered

next to its rotting corpse,

a new world will be ushered in

a new world where fishes would survive in the dry

a new world where birds won’t need wings to fly

a new world where flowers would be loved

for more than their beauty

in that new world, we shall dance with the stars

on the palms of floating sky,

ride on the back of the moon and make love

on a bed made of bloated clouds

while leaning on the sun.

when the earth, this earth, shall disappear

and the last tyranny is skinned alive

and seared in the urn of his own lies

a new world will be ushered in

a new world where war will be a myth

confined to history books

in that world, no parent will endure

the biting ache of burying their child

as its dwellers will only die of old age.

in that world, you will not have to put on

your tv and stiffen at the sight

of children starving in gaza.

in that world, grief will be a mere word

in dictionaries for something forgotten

and unlike the poets of this world

in whose poems grief is a worn cliché,

poets of that world will only write

of flowers, of coffee, of sex, of skies…

in that world, we shall not know of lack.

call it luck but we shall reap not where we sowed

but where, like birds, our beaks rip in.

in that world, no heart will know of tears

and of fears as the stings of sorrow and of death

shall be rendered impotent forevermore

in that world, the only price for anything

and everything will be a wish:

we shall all have all we wish for

when the earth, this earth, shall disappear

© MK Kuol

MK Kuol

A Pushcart Prize nominee, MK Kuol's work has appeared on AMNLY, D'lit Review, Rough Diamond Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. His true loves are deep conversations—most of the time with himself, Arizona JJ's music, coffee, moon-gazing, and reading. He tweets (rarely) @mk_kuol14. 

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SON ALONE by Duane L. Herrmann

Eugene Golovesov

SON ALONE

I wish I could feel grief

at my mother's passing

or appreciation

for her love and care,

but I don't.

Though I discovered,

in her last week,

that she did care

about me,

and that changed

my perspective

and saw her pain,

her damaged soul,

that I was born into,

I only feel relief

even after these years

that she's now gone,

that our contact

is over.

My father, on

the other hand – 

I miss him still

after more than half

a century.

He was kind.

He showed he cared.

He was glad, I know,

that I was his.

What might have been

if he had lived,

grown old,

become granpa,

become companion

to his grown son?

I'll never know.

I'll never know....

© Duane L. Herrmann

Duane L. Herrmann

With degrees in Education and History, Duane L. Herrmann has work published in print and online, in fifty-plus anthologies, over one hundred other publications (Gonzo Press, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Page and Spine, etc), plus a sci fi novel, eight collections of poetry, a local history, stories for children, a book on fasting and other works, despite an abusive childhood with dyslexia, ADHD, cyclothymia, an anxiety disorder, a form of Mutism, and now, PTSD.  

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