​Assume it’s in the kitchen,
under the couch, high
in the pine tree out back,
behind the paint cans
in the garage. Don’t try
proving your love
is bigger than the Grand
Canyon, the Milky Way,
the urban sprawl of L.A.
Take it for granted. Take it
out with the garbage. Bring
it in with the takeout. Take
it for a walk with the dog.
Wake it every day, say,
“Good morning.” Then
make the coffee. Warm
the cups. Don’t expect much
of the day. Be glad when
you make it back to bed.
Be glad he threw out that
box of old hats. Be glad
she leaves her shoes
in the hall. Snow will
come. Spring will show up.
Summer will be humid.
The leaves will fall
in the fall. That’s more
than you need. We can
love anybody, even
everybody. But you
can love the silence,
sighing and saying to
yourself, “That’s her.”
“That’s him.” Then to
each other, “I know!
Let’s go out for breakfast!”

​    - Jack Ridl

​The Calling

In third grade I kept raising my hand
desperate to be called on
even though I had no idea what

the answer to the question was.
I only knew that to be called on
was the best thing. And isn't that still

the best thing--to be called on?
And all the days of uncertainty
and the lonely nights, the ends

of all the ropes, the whole house
of cards collapsed, now become
an answer to any question

that life conceives--like how the purpling
of dusk lingers between branches
after the sun sets, or whether it's better

to sit on the soil or eat warm, crusted
bread. How lucky to be chosen to answer
for the chickadees who stay all winter,

the daffodils that bloom too early, or a gull
tattered on the shore, wings half-buried in sand
each of us a grain, hands held high,

called on to notice it all, and answer.


Speaking in Tongues

It's funny what you don't have
to worry about--last night, after
a few warm Spring weeks,
the mercury fell to the 40s,
but today the corn shoots
poked their rolled green tongues
out of the garden soil. And while
the dryer we bought was a lemon
and in principle a ripoff, it still
works well enough. Which is
to say that, while my small
reactive and conditioned self is still,
more often than not, in the way,
the love that is living me and you
and the corn and the dryer--
the whole mercurial mystery
of it all--is already there, just
waiting to poke through the cold,
the unjust, the broken-down
garden soil of us with its playful,
green, giving and forgiving tongue.


Sky Writing

The wind dictates a memo,
fleet and legible, brailled
on the surface of the pond,
read by lilies and water shield,
telegraphed through stem, root, mud,
into the dreams of a turtle.

The message is clear and a little forlorn--
don't forget me, dear--I miss
the way we touched, moist and close
in summer. The pond itself is never lonely,
shows its moods skin to sky, sequined
in sunlit shadows, its depths unsecret,

transparent, receptive to a fault.
Whatever stirs the mud--turtles
reborn to spring, worms that burrow--
the pond takes note, allows, embraces,
the way the eye holds the world,
the way you might love your enemy.


Death Was Gentle

I asked Death to be gentle and she was,
knowing how terrified I'd been of her.
She took me to the soil, the bright womb where
all life is born from dun decay and rust.

And then I knew the one I'd feared was Earth,
whose every fold and wrinkle I adored.,
whose creatures were all siblings of my birth
whose beauty fed me still as through a birth-cord.

And so, to have been made of Death herself,
to sojourn on my mother, as matter--
nature, with no need to be another--
rock returned to beautiful rock in death,

from one whose terror told him not to be,
now I'm at home in life, myself, and free.

​    - Chuck Madansky

​I grew up in a family that did not tell
the story. I am listening to it now:

Even the morning you see a robin
flattened on the street, you hear

another in a tree, the notes
they’ve taught each other, bird

before bird before we were born.
And elsewhere, the rusty bicycle

carries the doctor all the way
across an island. He arrives in time.

Somewhere his sister adds water
to the soup until payday. And

over the final hill in a Southwestern
desert, a gas station appears. No,

the grief has not forgotten my name,
but this morning I tied

my shoelaces. Outside I can force
a wave at every face who might

need it. We might
spin till we collapse, but we still

have a hub: Even at dusk,
the sun isn’t going anywhere.

We have lamps. The story insists
it just looks like there’s only

enough oil to last one night.

    - by Brad Aaron Modlin

​once
i saw my grandmother hold out
her hand cupping a small offering
of seed to one of the wild sparrows
that frequented the bird bath she
filled with fresh water every day

she stood still
maybe stopped breathing
while the sparrow looked
at her, then the seed
then back as if he was
judging her character

he jumped into her hand
began to eat
she smiled

a woman holding
a small god
​
    - Richard Vargas

​Winter. Time to eat fat
and watch hockey. In the pewter mornings, the cat,
a black fur sausage with yellow
Houdini eyes, jumps up on the bed and tries
to get onto my head. It’s his
way of telling whether or not I’m dead.
If I’m not, he wants to be scratched; if I am
He’ll think of something. He settles
on my chest, breathing his breath
of burped-up meat and musty sofas,
purring like a washboard. Some other tomcat,
not yet a capon, has been spraying our front door,
declaring war. It’s all about sex and territory,
which are what will finish us off
in the long run. Some cat owners around here
should snip a few testicles. If we wise
hominids were sensible, we’d do that too,
or eat our young, like sharks.
But it’s love that does us in. Over and over
again, He shoots, he scores! and famine
crouches in the bedsheets, ambushing the pulsing
eiderdown, and the windchill factor hits
thirty below, and pollution pours
out of our chimneys to keep us warm.
February, month of despair,
with a skewered heart in the centre.
I think dire thoughts, and lust for French fries
with a splash of vinegar.
Cat, enough of your greedy whining
and your small pink bumhole.
Off my face! You’re the life principle,
more or less, so get going
on a little optimism around here.
Get rid of death. Celebrate increase. Make it be spring.

​    - Margaret Atwood

​Up ahead it’s white. Snow animal,
I’m running at your back. I’ve failed to tell you
I’ve been hungry all this time, to tell you
I’ve been searching for you, like meat,
like water. All my life, I’ve distanced
myself. As if to know you was to drown.
As if to find you I’d usher myself further
from what is real. I’ve been adrift along
the threads of time leading me out
beyond an imagined frame. I’ve untied myself,
uncuffed the arms and neck. I didn’t know
I was hurt like that. I didn’t know
there was a force pulling me downward
toward a bedrock, lulling me to sleep.
You are the one escaping, you are the one
breaking free. I understand your astonishing
dash to freedom, done with the estranged wind,
done with frost and storm, orchids curling
outward beyond grief. The road widens
to glory. The road disappears.

​    - Tina Chang