Wilderness Interface Zone

Beside the bank where black swans often lie
in twos, beneath wild fruit trees near the stream
where Chinese geese move single file across
the water like a strand of flags that gleam

with little angled feathertips of light,
I heard her speak. It was a quiet voice,
like summer clouds that weep along low hills
of poplar groves then peacefully rejoice

in finding laurel blooms. A haunting voice,
sifting across another time, to leave
a secret song before the night was due
and tuck it into twilight’s bell-shaped sleeve

where it might dissipate. Beside the bank,
where black swans often lie in twos, a word
clings to an apple on the bough. Sometimes
when breezes lift the branches it is heard.

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Karen Kelsay is a native Californian who grew up near the Pacific.  As a child, she spent most of her weekends on a boat. She has three children, two cats and extended family in England, where she loves to visit. Karen is a Pushcart Prize nominee and the editor of Victorian Violet Press, a poetry journal. Her poems have been widely published over the past few years, and some of her recent work has appeared in The Boston Literary Review, The New Formalist, The Christian Science Monitor and The Lyric. Her first book, Collected Poems, was finished in 2008.  Since then, she has authored two chapbooks, one published by Pudding House Press and the other by Flutter Press. “Handmaidens of Spring” was first published in Munyori Poetry Journal

Déjame que te cuente cómo me compré esta casa
Verás
Habíamos visto ya cuarenta y nueve pisos en dos meses
Algunos vacíos
Otros recién abandonados, con frascos de colonia
Aún expuestos en el baño y un añejo olor a tabaco
En las paredes desconchadas.
Otros seguían repletos de vida, con fotos enmarcadas
Mientras tú intentabas prestar atención a la chica de la inmobiliaria.
Era el piso número cincuenta un viernes frío
Y lluvioso y los dos subíamos cansados hasta
El barrio más alto de la ciudad.
No tenía luz. Nadie vivía en él. (more) »

Victorian Violet Press editor Karen Kelsay, a frequent contributor to WIZ, sent this announcement:

Victorian Violet Press, an online poetry magazine, is seeking submissions for the December issue. Please check out the magazine to get an idea of what type of poetry is published. You can find the magazine here.

Guidelines: Our taste in poetry is eclectic, but these subjects are preferred: inspirational, poetry for children, poetry about children, nature and life. Formal and free verse are both accepted, we particularly enjoy metrical poems that have lyricism, originality, accessibility and beauty.

Poems should not be obscure or overly abstract and should have a strong element of rhythm and a strong metrical element whether they are free verse or formalist.

Send 3-5 poems pasted in the body of an email with your name in the subject line. Simultaneous submissions and previously published poems are okay. Please wait three months after your last submission, before sending more poetry.

For a larger view click on the photos.

Ancient  chipmunk hole below the pin oak

This burrow has been used for many generations of chipmunks.

Early moonrise in my backyard

Taken in Pennsylvania

View of the Kiskiminetas River through a stand of trees, springtime

Taken in Pennsylvania

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Elizabeth is thirteen years old and enjoys writing and photography. Capturing the magic and beauty of nature is a talent she hopes to be able to expand to its fullest potential someday.

April’s beauty carries with it rain
Wet tear drops falling from the sky
Its premier today, showing up shy
Sliding into slits in buds
Mixing itself with different muds
Slipping down my forehead
Touching my eyelashes ahead
I close my eyes to nature’s gift
While they were closed I did drift
To the month of May’s sweet, sweet scent
To view flowers and green is where I went
With sunny skies and buzzing bees
And singing birds and a wispy breeze
The rays of sun warm my pale face
Everything holds its very own grace
The life, the energy, the colors oh my
Making you never want to say goodbye
Soon enough my eyes open slow
I can’t wait now for the plants to grow
May’s essence still with me in the gray
As I look into bliss and await tomorrow’s day

______________________________________________________________

Jenna is a rising 9th grader with a specialized track for Medical Services.  Jenna hopes to study medicine and become a neurologist. In her spare time she enjoys volleyball, travel, photography and hanging out with her friends.

Mormon Artist Magazine has published a fun interview they did with me for their current issue.  I’ve not often been interviewed–just one phone interview where I wound up misquoted–so I appreciate Mormon Artist’s interest in my work and attention to detail during this process.

The pics accompanying are unfortunately not as fine as I’d like, but adverse conditions–high winds for the photo shoot, swarms of biting gnats, a dark work space–conspired against us in all our attempts.  We did what we could under the circumstances, which are always somewhat haphazard at Casa Karamesines.

William and Katherine Morris’ mother Linda actually conducted the interview.  It was a great pleasure to meet the source from whence sprang these two unique and talented blogging associates of mine.  I’ve known William (whom I’ve never met)  for several years now and often wondered where in the world he came from.  At last, more clues!

At WIZ’s companion blog A Motley Vision, I’ve posted, at Katherine’s suggestion, three questions and answers cut from the interview to trim length.

“Look, here’s Fezzika,” my mother said, bending down to point out the Woodhouse toad tucked under the garden stone. We had discovered the amphibian’s house a few days earlier, and I was fascinated by the placement choice. She had dug into the soil under a cornerstone edging the flowerbed beside the main path through the garden. The stone is flat, shaped a little like a boomerang, wide and bent in the middle, providing a convenient entrance and shelter. (more) »

Narrator: It was a sunny day in the town Pudding but no one could see it. There was a cloud in the way of the sun.

Boy: I can’t see anything!

The mayor: We must do something!

All: But what?

Town folks: Ask the king!

Mayor: Not the king!

Boy: That is a good idea.

Mayor: The king does not rule the skies.

Narrator: So, everybody thought…

Boy: We could ask the wind to blow the dark cloud away.

Town folks: Good idea!

Boy: Wind!

Wind: What.

Boy: Could you blow the cloud away?

Wind: If the king lets me blow down whatever I want.

Mayor: I’ll go ask the king.

Narrator: The mayor reluctantly goes to the king’s palace. He tells the king what the wind wants. The king agrees to the plan. So the wind blew the cloud away. But from that day on the wind blew things down.

End.

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Virginia is 10 yrs old and she wrote this for school. She likes reading. Her favorite thing to read is a series of books called Warriors, by Erin Hunter. She likes catching fireflies, too.

School’s out—at least for kids in my neighborhood.  In theory, this means they’re outside more, turning over rocks, taking pictures of what they find with their camera phones, using their iPhones to run a quick Internet critter identification search, engaging in texting one-upmanship (bgz r gr8), so on and so forth.

Okay, maybe they’re not doing it like that.  (But oh, what I could have and would have done with such technology in my wild child days!)  In fact, maybe they’re not going out into the Mystery much at all, if Richard Louv’s book Last Child in the Woods gives an accurate account of how children and nature have fallen out of love.  But there must be some kids still getting out there, developing lightning-fast reflexes from chasing lizards, solving the whole-body puzzle of climbing a tree, honing their future driving skills by walking on logs across creeks, etc.

It’s in the hope that nature children still exist somewhere that Wilderness Interface Zone is issuing a call for nature poems and short essays written by children.  The works may address any aspect of nature and the child’s relationship to it.  Poems should be 50 lines or under and essays 150-1000 words.  If you have a budding nature photojournalist in your family, we will consider posting his or her photos.  Children ages 6-18 are invited to submit work to pk.wizadmin@gmail.com from July 6, 2010 to July 31, 2010.  Depending on how many submissions we get, we’ll post them in batches off and on July-August.  Parents and kids: Please review submission guidelines here before submitting.

The usual warnings continue to apply.  Parts One and Two here and here.

April 22, 2010, Earth Day and M’s birthday.  Twenty-four hours have passed since the doctor put his words out there.  I’m still hot with anger and grief, still breaking into sobs at the slightest twinge of thought.  I’ve examined M repeatedly for signs that the doctor saw something I’d missed.

Our whole family has traveled a difficult road to buy her the safety and time she needs to make what she can of her outraged life.  Over the years, I’ve spent thousands of hours lying beside her, searching her body with my eyes, questioning it with my fingertips as I’ve struggled to discover causes—and relief—for her episodes of suffering.  With my voice—singing, asking, offering, praying—I’ve reached into her pain and distress and felt the arms of her trouble wrap around me.  Intense involvement and careful inquiry has been the only way to approach understanding and to help her.  It’s the only way to reach many of these children. (more) »