“ROSE GARDEN”
by Carol Arnold-Schutta
My rose garden holds my whole world
Thin plates of pink, yellow, burgundy
Dense before spilling forth
Colour and fragrance
Concluding at my feet
New crimson stalks ascend
Strong verdant stems tangle and weave
Leaves of light chartreuse age into forest green
Thorns, prickles bite
My fingers bleed
As I am carried from wounds to wonder
Hydration, nutrition, transpiration
Dewdrops caught in the corolla
Dampen my face as I breath
Aromas of citrus, berries, tea
Am I the creator of new life
Moving among colours, absorbed in splendour?
Do stamen and stigma entwine
A consequence of seeking sweet-scented sanity?
Nodes, buds, hips, nodes
Despair opens to hope
The cliché holds true
Stop Smell
Find your world
“BEACH”
by Christine Ross
Unmoored kelp in bronze ribbons
Beached on the sand,
Here, I paddle at the edges of a lapping sea
A ripple from far off,
A stone dropped somewhere
Constantly advancing.
While above, gulls rise together.
Screaming into the air
Somewhere else are storms.
“WHEN I AM WITH THE MOSS LADY”
by Marlene Marcon
When I am with her, especially during the
quieter days of autumn, when rains have
‘greened’ her mossy cloak and fallen leaves
have softened her resting body, an immediate
peaceful, calm traverses the tensed muscles
of my entire body as I marshmallow into a
wispy state of being. She embraces my soul
and frees my mind to be present. And in this
state of mindfulness, she reminds me to
tread gently, to be grateful for all the
physicality I have taken for granted, for all
the years that my physicality has nurtured
my emotional well-being, for all the
experiences this physicality has afforded the
growth of my spirit. That some semblance of
this revered state can be mine again with
perseverance and hard work. And as I arise to
depart another visit, she always whispers,
“Be patient, Marlene.”
“The dying time”
by Ann Purdy
Is there anything more poignant than the chum salmon
migrating up Goldstream River every fall?
How they navigate to their birthplace to
bury the eggs of the next generation.
How they start dying even as they are swimming,
their skin bleaching from blue-green to grey-white.
How gulls tear at them, rapids obstruct them,
yet they keep swimming with their treasure of orange eggs.
How they give people and animals, birds and insects their flesh,
how the remains of their bodies fertilize the forest floor.
In a similar way, how breathtaking when leaves kite down from their
tree perches, in gusts of wind or pummels of rain,
where they are squashed by feet and car tires,
raked off lawns or left to decompose in gardens.
How they break down to leaf skeletons, feed worms and microbes, fertilize soil.
I yearn to know my fishness, my leafness, feel enwombed
amongst them as we climb the rapids or snow from the trees,
feel the pull of that inner force that sets our lives to death,
our primal wildness.
“Tribute to Mary Oliver”
by Kathryn Lemmon
Fall arrives.
Changes are so visible
As flowers’ colours fade
From dark crimson of summer
To musty burnt sienna.
Moulds make all foliage
Take on a greyish hue
Signalling their demise.
Leaves are no longer even
Bright yellow
But dull brown,
Floating as they do
Gathering elsewhere.
My heart, too, changes.
As with other seasonal alterations,
Perhaps losing vibrancy.
But I am more reflective
As I clip
The last of the blooming roses
For my table.
“north mountain”
by christine ross
Along a road to nowhere,
where low encroaching firs
and briars
hide stunted apple trees
A sudden sea of red, fallen
in a quick first frost
from the lost home
We two sat among the redness
children again
for a moment
and closed our eyes
The earth smells
as if that is all there is
“Once Upon a Time”
by Michele Turner
From the Kingdom of Protista
moving past the birds,
their soft wings folded,
their hot feet cooling
came a legion of cells
mastering the world of roots.
Holding the universe together
and mapping a road to the top
they reached the crown,
and stretching out
across space, touched
all the stars one by one,
as though they were apples.
Trailing rivers of dust
and clouds of debris,
they flowed past
dense black, hot ice planets,
and spiralling beyond to
the world of ice giants
crossed the sea of flames.
Flowing on radioactive waves,
they reached
the Great Beyond, where,
sending ripples through
each of the worlds in
all of the stars within
each of the galaxies,
they trailed a chimera
of diverse parts crossing
the unified fabric of time
and space. Thus it was
that this ever-expanding
universe, from the Kingdom
of Protist,
became one world
with the Unus Mundus.
“Moss”
by Anne Snider
Rootless
inhabiting a liminal space
between earth and air
always present but not always seen
As the world prepares to fold in on itself
the ancient awakens
pulling in light and capturing fog
A shimmering shroud
a green embrace
resting on the granite surrounds of the
souls beneath