The Mountain’s Child by Krystal Gauley

Юлія-Марія Повх

The Mountain’s Child

It began when I was young, 

taken from the city

and placed upon her rocky spine.

Though many, with conviction, 

call her wild—fierce, untamed, 

a place children should fear, 

I knew her only as mother. 

When my lungs burned

from cigarette smoke,

from tar that stained the confining walls,

she unbound me, reaching deep into my chest, 

clearing the stagnation, 

drawing long, deep breaths from me,

returning air scented with pine and rain.

Clean. Alive. 

When my ears ached

from the assault of curses, shouting, and rock ‘n’ roll

rattling through the halls, 

she soothed them,

her breath a soft touch upon the leaves,

calling forth a choir of sweet melodies,

lifting me above the chaos. 

When the stench of liquor 

on his breath

lapped at my cheek with the promise of attack,

freezing my limbs in silent terror, 

she unfurled herself,

a fortress of bark and greenery,

branches bending like arms,

hiding me within the canopy of her trees, 

where no one could follow, 

where I grew wings. 

When my body shrank to hide

from anger,

from fights, the uncooked hamburger

thrown across the room,

she lifted my spine, 

tilting my gaze from the floor to the horizon,

anchoring me with the weight of her presence,

roots sinking deep beneath my feet, 

so I could rise, 

tall, steady, 

unbroken. 

When my belly ached from TV dinners,

mashed potatoes shriveled to crust in the corners, 

cranberry sauce collapsed into gelatinous goo,

she eased the pain with clover and honeysuckle,

nourishing me with blueberries, 

with trout pulled fresh from the stream. 

When the absence of a loving embrace

and the uncertainty of their return

weighed heavy on me,

she held me in the hollow of her hidden caves, 

reminded me of strength,

let me etch my name into her living heart, 

where it would remain. 

Not a hardened crown to be feared, 

but a mother of endless embrace, 

she breathed life into my lungs, 

smoothed the jagged edges of the noise, 

gave me wings to flee the predators I knew, 

showed me how to rise and stand tall, 

fed my hunger,

quieted my trembling fears. 

In the curve of her arms, 

I was wholly, unshakably loved. 

© Krystal Gauley

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Krystal Gauley

Krystal Gauley is a poet and creative nonfiction writer completing an MA in English and Creative Writing. Her work is rooted in landscape, memory, and embodied encounters with nature, exploring emergence, stillness, and personal transformation through breath, presence, and relationships with the natural world.

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A Conversation by Loralee Clark

David Olivares

A Conversation  

(—for Angela Carroll-Wallace and Listening to Mother) 

She begins with branches that curve, 

whispering an entry-way, 

focal point

and moves each one

from the loam and litter,

thin with hope

that others will see

with more than their eyes.

Spindly fibers, less supple

serve as cording, sure and thick

encasing

connections to meditations,

to being led to a knowing

400 million years in the making.

To a pulsing brain beneath her feet

rife with stories and lineages,

intuition which was alive

before settling in her body

as she builds a physical bridge;

an honoring to fungi teaching trees to root,

anaerobic teaching aerobic to breathe

cell building cell, adapting, evolving.

Her inhalation, their exhalation

life and death in beautiful dance;

a celebration in renewal

as the cording and curving are created.

There is sustenance in death,

strings of brown leaves tied,

spinning in the wind like waves

on a shore, light spilling through: 

a mystery and the knowing of a secret.

Each season is a heartbeat,

a whorl and expansion of tissue 

in a stalk of wood,

that gives itself over and over again;

to learn and luxuriate in commune, in

symbiosis, in contentment.

Remember: we make a cairn to 

convey a message

but each stone

sitting upon the other

tells its own. 

© Loralee Clark Enjoy more posts by Loralee Clark HERE.

Loralee Clark

 Loralee Clark’s latest chapbook, Solemnity Rites (Prolific Pulse Press, 2025), is an account of reimagined myths and truths of who we are as humans and how we live our histories. She has been published most recently in Periwinkle Pelican, White Stag Journal, Chewers by Masticadores, Nude Bruce Review, Lucky Leaves, Everscribe, The Rockford Review, and Soul Poetry, Prose and Art Magazine. Loralee resides in Virginia; her website is sites.google.com/view/loraleeclark. 

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Luna, Paloma by Ann E. Michael

 

rquiros

Luna, Paloma

 

I wanted a daughter, so in the first trimester of my second pregnancy

I lay in moonlight once a month invoking Artemis and Lilith

yin strength and the round egg of my womb.

 

In dreams an angel came to me saying she will be unlike you

and I agreed. In dreams the angel told me you cannot live through her

and I acquiesced again.

 

The angel said you know that she will leave you and I asked,

“Is this a test?” For I am myself a daughter, I know I cannot hold her

longer than she will stand for it.

 

Is that why you are weeping even now? the angel asked.

“No, I’m thinking of my mother,” I said to the moonlight,

to the empty room, to my daughter

 

who was cooing like a gray dove, suspended in the nest 

I’d constructed just for her.

 

First appeared in Ann’s collection Abundance/Diminishment

© Ann E. Michael 

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Ann E. Michael

Ann E. Michael lives in eastern Pennsylvania. Her latest poetry collection (2024) is Abundance/Diminishment. Her work has appeared in Ninth Letter, One Art, Ekphrasis Review, and many others, as well as in numerous anthologies. She chronicles her writing, reading, and garden on a long-running blog at www.annemichael.blog.

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The Songbird by Myrtle Thomas

August Crepe Myrtle © Myrtle Thomas 

The Songbird

the rain falls and fades

into the lemonade shades

of the sunlight

mornings catch the songs

of a summer bird

here in the calm of my nest

my eyes trace the window

while the restless stir in my breast

yields a red bird.

when trouble finds my heart

and there is hunger and thirst

for the simplest ebbs and tides

of peace, my mind wanders away

to my childhood

back to the safety of my mother's arms

to the unlocked doors and the window screens

to the fly swatter in my father's hand.

here in the dust of my youth a flower-

a book left by my bedside

a young girl's diary searches her heart

hunting the red bird and the sound of its wings

longing for her favorite valentine

the one with white scalloped edges

and a golden arrow through

a bleeding heart.

the sweet red wine sits in my mouth

and warmth finds my memories

those that are exposed and then disappear

the haunting trials I face today—

in disabilities and the roar of the world

things that I would never dreamed of in my life

things that I have no control over

in my own reasoning.

when I feed the holy - the bird seed in my hand

the rain falls on my flowers and they bloom wonderfully

in the calm blooms of my heart I find my precious mother

singing her songs of faith to the clouds and the sun

then I notice they are all right here beside me

my family, all long gone into the abyss of vapor-

sun and moonlight.

© Myrtle Thomas

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Myrtle Thomas

Myrtle Thomas lives in America and is retired from a large manufacturing company. She has been published in several poetry journals and magazines, and is a member of ALLpoetry.com, writing under the pen name Bluebird74. Myrtle self-published four poetry books and also has a new chapbook on Amazon (In My Land of Dreams). She uses poetry as a form of medicine to heal past wounds; poetry has been a companion to her for over thirty years.

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