joyful!

January

Autumn Echoes        

by

Marilyn Terwilleger

 When Autumn leaves decide to waft and fall,
 my heart recalls the times of linen sighs
 when Summer held its breath before the stall
 and lilac days began their woeful cries.
 
 The lamp-less eve will cast its darkened cape
 across the honeyed path of suns delight
 and when the moon returns and light escapes,
 I’ll keep my dreams inside the restless night.
 
 The embers gloss and glow when Autumn sweeps
 a swath of rosy hues on ivied walls.
 The warmth of echoes left when sun held sleep,
 before it heard the lark and sparrow calls.
 
 Beneath the pulse of Winter’s vow to chill,
 I’ll wait the fragile days of light to spill.

Long Walk to Camp

by

Timothy W. Williams

The walk on the road to camp
was so long for a little boy
who spied Indians hiding behind
wrinkled grey tree trunks.
Cowboys in chaps, spurs,
cap guns cocked
tipped their hats to him
from across the stream. 
Fauns waited with smiles
behind mounds, fallen trees.  All
in the weald down the bank.

Creek water pure and clear
rippled musical notes
over cleansing rocks. 
Pebbles round,
colored clay-red,
yellow-white
distorted by swirling currents
winked up
at his curious eyes. 

Sun rays cooked green leaves,
fern fronds bathed in hot moist air
suspended beneath dark-green canopies.
Acrid earthy odors of loam
interlaced with aromas
of decayed brown leaves
lured, tugged at him
to turn, to enter.

A green truck slowly drew near. 
Moans, groans, creaking, aching springs,
became shrieks, screams as it rumbled by. 
He waved to the rider in the cab
high above dust and fumes,
who only stared ahead. 
The boy turned 
to find the forest
somber, quiet.

Hope Unsprung

by

Adam Hughes

Hope does not
spring; it must be
dug out of the frozen
ground – it lies dormant,
unannounced, beneath the
permafrost.

Hope does not
float; it is heavy and
sinks like the treasure
ship at Sutton Hoo,
left to be
discovered and valued
long after the mud
has dried.

Hope is not found
wild in nature;
it is cultivated, like
maize – some have
it and some don't.
Perhaps theirs is
the wrong kind of soil.

I hope for you.
I hope you don't break
my heart. I know
you will.
Still, I dig.

Earth and Sea

by

Matthew Sholler

You and I are all earth and sea,
one lush, one deep,
one blue, one green,
elemental opposites with perfect properties
conceived together before Memory.
Forever under a wide sky
we remember the covenant,
our rendezvous along the shifting shore.

At dusk the moon draws close to us, lonely,
turning inland my cobalt tide
and bathing you in lilac light
as the contours of your coast descend to my restless edge.
Somewhere beyond my horizon, North African ports
hang salt and baharat spice on the wind,
breath that wafts through your russet grasses,
conjuring embers in autumn.

I behold the ripe wholeness of you, olive and overflowing,
dark soil, moist and infused with life-giving alchemy.
You guard the wisdom of generations on a buried tablet
and a healer’s basin rests on your rounded hip.
Your bedrock slopes up gently beneath me, always.

“Return to me,” you whisper
and the mercuries of our boundary are undone.
I inhale your verdant name,
and the surf draws on the First Knowing
of plant and animal that swims deep within me.
Coaxed by the smooth rub of your sand bar,
the root-flow channels thick from my center
and I surge to the surface, warm and phosphorescent.

Your shoreline stretches white and wide
before my rolling shoulders,
and you lie back as I hiss over your periphery,
licking the pebbles and nuzzling the great dunes,
heartsick for your refuge and my oblivion.
I spread out over your open terrain,
the finer grains swelling, the denser clay giving way
as I filter down into your particles.
I run up and into your cliff caves,
cascading down and dizzy into you,
your steamy nitrates filling my nostrils.

Your clear rivers now reversed and loamy,
you well up beneath my flood
and I gaze into your eyes,
jade teardrops blurry and shimmering.
You are my true North
and all things consign me to a death and rebirth,
blowing me back out to sea
from your bare peaks
in silver bursts of vapor.

At dawn what remains of me begins to recede,
leaving your mossy stones damp and exhaling deep,
your landscape glowing copper in early sunlight.
“Return to me,” I whisper,
clinging to you with failing fingers.
Your muddy sediments scurry after me into the foam
and I cradle them to me,
dropping through darkness to the ocean’s bed
where currents and dreams sway to your memory
in three-quarter time.

Heartwood

by

Karen Kelsay

Lord, you are a sycamore upon a country path,
that stretches past the willow tree and braids long roots
together near the pond. I hear your song on lonely

summer days, while I garner little blue bells by the fence.
Your limbs drop curling leaves that cup with beads
of moisture on the bank, and call wild sparrows to your arms.

Your branches filter out the midday sun, while I lean
against your mossy trunk. My fingers trace your ancient
bark--defender of each inner ring of heartwood.

Cares

by

Michael Neal Morris

The dog sleeps at the foot of the bed on
a pile of dirty laundry. My wife snores
lightly under the ceiling fan. I read
until the words blur into the soon gone
day. I try to forget tomorrow’s chores,
and let sleep take me from the world of needs.

How do I forget you so easily,
Lord, when all that is worth remembering
was fueled by grace? Why is it a thousand
ways to die and vain wishes fortify
themselves in my mind which is slumbering
toward an unendurable Never Land?

God of the mind and energy and rest
make a way for peace to defend this nest.