First item of business: Wilderness Interface Zone is issuing a call for nature-themed prose: creative nonfiction or environmental nonfiction, eco-criticism, interviews, hybrid literary forms, and short fiction, including novel excepts, that reflect on humankind’s relationship to the natural world, wherever writers engage it. We’re especially interested in writing that demonstrates the need for and effects [...]
I. My neighbor’s light steps Through gaps between the boards at night, And my neighbor’s light steps Drift like leaves among his unguessed furniture. At sunset, the sun leaks from his room. We have never spoken through the wall, Though we have, at other times, spoken, And we have, at other times, thought Of each [...]
Black seams skitter Through mantled rock, Crisscrossing mountains. Encrusted veins of blackened heart Hide within its poisoning death Until exhumed by grave diggers, Faces black with toil-worn greed. Â Black smoke bellows In high desert air, Seeding clouds. Sooted walls of blackened lung Hide within its poisoning death Until exhaled by grave fillers, Faces white [...]
Even through the harsh blues of winter, it manages to breathe. Stretching its naked arms across the sky. A living smile. Waiting to be blessed by the sun. ___________________________________ For Huffman’s bio and links to additional poetry, go here. Photo by John Firth via Wikimedia Commons.
At first it could be any shore. Rocky and a little dark maybe, but still intriguing. Then a flash of green throws your eyes off center. Then another. Until the ground you were about to walk is walking for you. Is waiting for you. With a million teeth hidden in a permanent smile. ___________________________________ A.J. [...]
Permit me to take a bit of virtual space to talk about Wilderness Interface Zone and its doings. I think it smart to revisit aspirations as well as mark recent changes and give notice of coming ones. When William Morris helped me set up the site, I thought I’d build it, as the “About” page [...]
_____________________________ Will Reger has contributed several poems to WIZ. You can find his bio here . Photo by Shane Anderson via Wikimedia Commons, courtesy of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
These are the woods Where my mother played, Her playhouse—an outline of Stones on the ground. Beside the creek Her father gardened, But the water rose And spread his seeds Among the trees. Summer was the time For berry picking. We each took a bucket, Walked into the woods And filled it with berries. The [...]
Her race presumes Imperious cuteness Conquers all—even Monday snowfall when, From her comfortable nest At the top of the stairs, This scroll of fur and claw Uncoiled, shot outside, Her eye distilled For the hunt: tiger demon Fell to winter’s ambush— Snow knives, hawk Shadow circling, Coyotes lambent Among the weeds, iron Curve of sky—and [...]
I whisper faster than the wind, and my words race through all the earth— I shake down human mountains and give new regimes their birth— I shine with burning passion and illuminate the sky— but God is in the silence, and is still greater than I. ______________________________________________________ For a bio and additional poems by James [...]