Elizabeth Songstaffe, whose name
is inscribed in my gold-edged bible,
how was your life composed?
Did your pockets brim
with grace notes that scattered
like freckles on a shoulder?
Were you awkward
as a lonely clap, sounding after
a symphony’s first movement?
Born one hundred years ago,
your death was not recorded–
yet, I hear a faint refrain.
Did you once hum across prairies
on humid evenings, or [...]
A compass needle, a lizard, spins half a turn
To keep me in sight, tweaking my sense of direction:
Spring is coming — that way.
According to my 2010 turtle calendar, the Vernal Equinox arrives Saturday, March 20. To celebrate spring’s arrival last year, WIZ ran a Spring Poetry Run-off that turned out to be lots of fun. [...]
Thank you very muches to all those who participated during Love of Nature Nature of Love Month on WIZ. The list includes:
D. H. Lawrence
Rainer Maria Rilke
Th. (Eric Jepson)
Adam K. K. Figueira
Laura Craner
Andrew Marvell
An esteemed company!
The poplar’s shadow on her hand
Indicates a tree in spring.
Willets, catbirds, and broncos all hear
Big-hipped nature dancing across the Rockies
Stripping and putting on the many faces of
A weather-beaten land:
Green, red, brown, and white,
The flag of summer on the horizon.
They are indivisible incompatibles,
This landscape and
The mutterings of a middle woman.
Her words lie naked in a field,
Lost [...]
Adam writes of this video Valentine that he made it for his “wife and (if the latest ultrasound is correct) five daughters … I think it fits your theme this month, and the connection to nature should be obvious.”
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Adam K. K. Figueira was born to the east of where he lives now, but then [...]
“Pray, my dear aunt, what is the difference in matrimonial affairs, between the mercenary and the prudent motive? Where does discretion end, and avarice begin? Last Christmas you were afraid of his marrying me, because it would be imprudent; and now, because he is trying to get a girl with only ten thousand pounds, you [...]
February is a big month on Wilderness Interface Zone. First, in honor of Valentine’s Day, all month long we’ll be soliciting poetry, essays, blocks of fiction, art, music (mp3s) or other media that address the subject of love while including references to nature. Also, we’re interested in works about nature that include references to love. [...]
I cannot kick a mound of maple leaves
or see a pumpkin peeking from the vine
before the frost and not remember hills
where summer laid her green. A distant line
of poplars gleams like curtains made of coins;
it shakes at passing clouds. And everywhere
the magpie hops, I see another sign
of hawthorns beckoning the winter air
to breathe upon the [...]
When the moon becomes a mellow pear
on twilight’s bough, and stars swirl up like maple leaves
before they’re swept into the dawn, I’ve often
walked this garden where the voice of whippoorwills
would carry remnant melodies across long, dusky
hours. At times I feel this eastern breeze has lifted
me, somehow, beyond the soft-lit sloping fields
and conifer lined hills. To [...]
As we join the story, Jonah has earned free passage onto a ship to Tarshish by means of winning a camel race; instead of taking his winnings and purchasing a ticket to Nineveh, he instead takes the free trip, upon which the voice of God leaves him.
The first three days on the way to Tarshish [...]