It is pleasant
to drive in
spring light
so pure
it is not seen but
heard.
The shadows of
still naked
trees
are like flute
music:
frivolous,
momentary,
passing.
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To read William’s other Spring Runoff entries, go here and here.
*Competition Entry*
New palms of life
Cup the swelling breeze,
Braided together with sunlight,
Clutching at vaulted
Translucence
And time unspooling:
Teach me to hope
Against the broken branch,
The gnawing worm,
The bitter wind;
Show me the comfort
Of moments
Enfolded and
Flowering;
Help me converge
The dark root,
The crystal dew,
The burning light;
Unlimber in me
The loveliness
Of morning, the grace
Of night descending.
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To read another Spring Runoff poem by William Reger, go here.
*competition [...]
Welcome to WIZ’s 2012 Spring Poetry Runoff open invitation haiku chain. This is a non-competitive (that is, not part of the poetry contest), come-as-you-are, just-for-fun, community word-dance.
A haiku is a classical Japanese poetical form, usually 17 syllables all in a single line in Japanese, but I understand that there are longer and shorter forms. In [...]
Wilderness Interface Zone would like to thank participants who put their hearts in our Love of Nature Nature of Love Month. The list includes:
Elizabeth Pinborough
Kathryn Knight
Gail White
Ashley Suzanne Musick
Sarah Dunster
Chanel Earl
Sarah Dunster
Mark Penny
Laura Craner
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Jonathon Penny
You all helped WIZ celebrate love and nature with fair fond tokens of well-worded affection. Thank you!
Thanks also go [...]
This segment is from a longer piece, Plato’s Alcove, which won an honorable mention in Torrey House Press’s 2011 Creative Non-Fiction Contest. You can read the entire entry here. Plato’s Alcove is about my first trip to the desert back in 1982.
In the desert one day I met Coyote, the Trickster-God. We greeted each [...]
As we walk—side by side—down the long sloping trail, we pass gray trees and black igneous boulders peppering the otherwise white, sedimentary landscape. The earth is a mirror reflecting the hot yellow sun that has so recently removed winter’s snow. I point out traces of vanished streams; you find lizard footprints delicately decorating their sandy [...]
The larks trilled their cries that
Nested in my ears in birdsong.
I saw the thaw of winter had begun.
Soon spring would rush in on her
Pastel heels bringing forth blooms.
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To read Linda’s bio and enjoy more of her verse on WIZ go here, here, and here.
the hand of winter stretched out
his grey gloves and poured snow
out of his pitcher it fell upon the
world in cold numbing waves it
washed away all the colors of fall —
it beat back my favorite lilies into
the hand of white dust like people
are prone to beat one another into
the dust for a sense of self worth. [...]
I watched as the white of snow
starched the earth clean of sins —
like the Savior washed me white
by his blood. It seemed a stark
contrast of his shedding white for
red and the earth shedding scarlet
for white, but I think He favors the
irony just as much as we do. I stood
in the bone numbing cold of winter,
letting [...]
In the tar-like black sky
structures float like ghosts
through the illumination from bulbs
hovering like flying saucers over
the road. No heavenly
luminaries accompany me on this lonely journey.
Only those cones of light brighten the route ahead.
Nevertheless, I must persist.
I am a modern Hebrew
fleeing the Egypt of the office, escaping to
the Promised Land of the field. There,
as I stand [...]