Susan by Ralph Dranow

Darya Grey_Owl

Susan

Shortly before my first class as a writing teacher

at the retirement community,

a slender, vibrant, older woman

greets me with a warm smile.

“I’m really glad you’re here.”

Her welcome eases my initial nervousness.

During the class she tells me,

“I wrote poetry as a child

but stopped writing after my uncle 

criticized one of my poems.

I’m excited to be writing again.”

I’m surprised to discover she’s 94.

Susan’s enthusiasm is contagious:

her eager embrace of my writing prompts;

encouragement – “That’s beautiful,” she responds

to a classmate’s writing;

joy in sharing her own writing,

pithy bits of wisdom tinged with humor.

She writes about her work as a special ed. teacher.

“I loved it,” she tells us.

“It wasn’t hard at all

once you got on the children’s wavelength.”

She’s had a lot of tragedy in her life:

her son’s suicide,

the death of a beloved younger brother,

but she always comes to class

looking lit from within, 

a fountain of kind words.

Then one day her face is eclipsed by dark clouds.

“My best friend died yesterday.

I’m really sad,” she confides.

While her classmates write,

Susan’s head is bowed,

her face a dam holding back tears.

Two weeks later, at the next class,

Ruth, her friend, tells me,

“Susan had a bad fall.

She’s in the hospital.

It looks serious.”

The following class Ruth informs us,

“Susan died this week.”

There’s a moment of silence,

each of us silently saying

our own personal goodbye to Susan.

Her soft eyes, a palace of light,

flash before me. 

© Ralph Dranow

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Ralph Dranow 

Ralph Dranow works as an editor, poetry teacher, and oral historian. His most recent books are At Work

on the Garments of Refuge, poems of his and poems and artwork of his late friend Daniel Marlin. And Jelalludin Rumi Comes to Oakland. Ralph's website is http://www.ralphdranow.net.

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A White Butterfly Flying Along the Boulevard by Yongbo Ma

Alexas Fotos

A White Butterfly Flying Along the Boulevard

A white butterfly flies steadily down the poplar boulevard,

flying on and on, shrinking in distance, yet always in sight.

It follows an invisible straight line unswervingly,

without fluttering astray or hesitation, keeping steady pace.

Seasons shift, leaves fall in swarms,

yet none alight upon its body,

as if wrapped in an intangible bubble, isolated and whole.

The road stretches straight, cutting through towns and countryside,

from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean,

rows of poplars stand like knights in escort,

their spears glinting, figures tall and unbowed.

The land lies desolate and cold, strewn with the remains of generations,

flowers shrink tight into clenched infant fists.

Still it flies, as if climbing an inclined slope of air,

its silence sealed inside a transparent glass bottle.

Snowflakes, endless snowflakes, surge up from beyond the horizon,

cheering, dancing, coming forth to greet it.

The world fades into vast, misty grey, yet the butterfly still flies on,

sweeping over the archipelagos together with snowflakes, far out to open sea, 

like a silent storm, pouring pure white into the eternal blue.

© Yongbo Ma

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Yongbo Ma

Ma Yongbo (Ma, Yongbo) is a Ph.D., representative of Chinese avant-garde poetry, and a leading scholar in Anglo-American poetry. He has published over 80 original works and translations since 1986, including 6 poetry collections. He focuses on translating and teaching Anglo-American poetry and prose, including the works of Dickinson, Whitman, Stevens, Pound, Williams, and Ashbery. He recently published a complete translation of Moby Dick, which sold over half a million copies. He teaches at Nanjing University of Science and Technology.

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The Man Who Planted Shade by David Anson Lee

Boris Hamer

The Man Who Planted Shade

He knew he would never sit beneath them.

That was the first thing.

Each spring he carried saplings
to the far edge of the field:
oak, pecan, sycamore;
whips of green
with root balls wrapped in burlap.

The neighbors shook their heads.

The summers were running hotter.
The creek arrived later each year.
Even the soil seemed
to be withdrawing its trust.

Still, he dug.

Not because he imagined
he could rescue anything.

Because a tree is a sentence
written for someone
not yet born.

So he planted.

Drought took some.
Wind took others.
A tractor clipped one clean in half.

He planted again.

Decades later,
walking with a slower step,
he found children
playing beneath a canopy
he had once carried home
in the bed of a truck.

They were building forts from fallen branches,
arguing over rules,
disappearing into laughter.

The man stood at the edge of the shade.

Above him,
leaves turned sunlight
into something livable.

A wind moved through the grove.

For a moment
it sounded like a thousand small hands

clapping for the future.

© David Anson Lee

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David Anson Lee

David Anson Lee is a poet, philosopher, and physician living in Texas. Born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, he explores themes of healing, grief, resilience, and the sacred dimensions of ordinary life. His work has appeared in Ink Sweat & Tears, Braided Way, Silver Birch Press, and numerous other journals.

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Saratoga by Mimi Whittaker

cottonbro studio

Saratoga

Late summer green hills above the Hudson

our separate cars parked on the warm black pavement

this “date” a trial at civility 

to share our toddler son.

He ran the path to the tree line,

yellow wisps of hair bobbing above tall grasses

gurgling with chubby laughter

as we took turns

with peek-a-boos, hugs, and chiding to slow down.

You’d chosen this place to make peace,

but my chest was still a gaping wound.

I felt the fallen pulling me to lie beside them

in the blood-soaked fields.  Yet I survived.

I returned last week, more than twenty years

have passed.  We came in one car, my new and 

stalwart husband and I. 

History, beauty, and the pain that set you free

delivered us late summer, almost dusk.

We walked and drove all through those hills.  

Listened to the stories told at stanchions – pointed 

at the places 

of victory and doom.  Red posts for the British, blue

for farmer rebels – lines of fighters – the final fight

won two years after independence was declared.

We looked out as tourists do, along the bluff, quiet

breeze above the place where hospitals once stood.

Thought of how the river washed the wounded 

of both sides.

Quickened as the dimming spoke in shadows 

at the last position behind British lines.

A woman’s voice instructed that she and 

other wives of officers served tea from tent to tent.

Only faintly did the voice show sorrow for the dead

and those moaning in the darkness. 

In that place of twilight shimmer, out along 

the gray grass ridge

I thought I saw you running

with our still divided son.

“Saratoga” was self-published in a collection in 2020

© Mimi Whittaker

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Mimi Whittaker

Mimi Whittaker lives in Northern California. Her work appears in California Quarterly, Fish Magazine (Ireland), Blue Mountain Review, and other publications. She has authored 5 books of poetry and short prose, as well as a nonfiction book, Happiness Is Your Purpose. Her work is informed by the people in her life. 

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AS THE OVERPLAYED TURNTABLE GROANS by Nattie O'Sheggzy

Connor Kelley

AS THE OVERPLAYED TURNTABLE GROANS

the world holds its breath as if sweet stenches 

from the trenches were some fetish to disdain or dissuade.

The skeletal threads of fire and brimstone chainsaws

to teacups.

Morning hailstorms ground the waters of Hormuz.

Brackish taste remembers what the smell strains to unlearn.

Every step is a swindle of note. Every word a luxury.

Every tap dance kneads a hollow sound in the bones

from the brain that owns a hundred ritual regrets 

to the trails of ourselves in the shadow overlooking 

the cliff we turn to for a plunge. We love grunge 

whether the sun sinks behind hills or

The world frays at its forked ends.

We are worn-out fingers on a ploughshare,

the forgotten half-life of a smoldering song.

© Nattie O’Sheggzy

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Nattie O'Sheggzy

Nattie O'Sheggzy is a poet and writer known for his imaginative work. He has published two poetry books, Random Imaginations and Sounds of the Wooden Gong, available on Amazon. He enjoys reading, trekking, and walking his dog, Xhale. His writing explores life, nature, and human experiences. Nattie's unique voice and style blend modern and contemporary traditions with amazing imagery, symbolism, and experimentation. He is working on his third poetry collection, inspired by his passion for storytelling and the written word.

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Faithless Eye by David Blumenfeld

Maksim Smirnov

Faithless Eye

1948. I was eleven, convinced I had witnessed my first miracle, a camera that develops film instantly, a slice of time preserved, held tight. There they were: Mother, Father, little brother, soon to die, age seven, polio, I must have snapped the shot, snatched off the negative, and voila! A vague sepia image begins to grow like a burgeoning wave until the slick Polaroid film crests, crescendos, capturing the moment better  (it seems) than memory, that fading, fleeting, forgetful keeper of family records, errant historian, inconstant forge of things-gone-by, time’s careless custodian,  yet the photo, like memory, soon fogs, fades, flickers, and decades later, what remains? A barely visible scene: faces a blur, Mother a mist, Father a shadow, little brother…gone.                                                            

1995. “I’m losing it,” says my daughter. “Can’t recapture Mother’s image, can’t see her face, she’s dead for a few months, and it's vanishing, her visage  from my mind’s eye, memory’s faithless eye, must I lose her image too?” But I, father, widower, her image still sharp in my inner camera (for now). What I fear losing is the pain, duller now, dull thud-of-a-club, not the knife-like, once-whirring saw-in-the chest-and-head. Don’t let me lose the pain, the pain is the memory, the photo, avatar, incandescent incarnation of how much was lost. That is worth preserving. Let me hold the pain, holy pain. Let it stay.

© David Blumenfeld

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David Blumenfeld

David Blumenfeld resumed writing poetry after a hiatus of more than forty years. One of his pieces received a “notable essay” commendation in The Best American Essays 2023, and another appeared in The Best American Haiku 2023. Since 2022, he has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize three times. Davidcblumenfeld.com.

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