119
V o l . 13 N o . 1
Eric le Fatte
Boston Basin As dusk comes beneath Torment, Forbidden, and Boston Peak, a pair of scarce black bears forage upper slopes for berries. Shadows also fall on marmots, who whistle epilogues among rocks. We witness the last of the innocent sun bleed through a haze of smoke to the west. We realize celestial objects are blameless as fire and martyred ice. Dozens of waterfalls drop from receding glaciers, with voices that won't be silenced, while headlamps of climbers inch down those glaciers in descents that suggest their lights were cut off from the stars.
Backlit
Brenda Jaeger
Sherri Levine
Last Year’s Leaves A walk in the woods, whiff of spring damp dirt and pine. Ice still on the ground but in the sun I feel like I am walking on a giant sponge. Mushrooms sprout, clustering white caps blue ink trumpets, slit gills, fleshy spores, beautiful ugly fungus flowers.
Early Frost
Steve Dieffenbacher
I crouch underfoot and lift last year’s leaves— lying crisp and brittle, still intact I don’t have to dig deep to feel the rich dark earth in my fist
Walking through last year’s leaves, through darkness of illness, loss, and grief
home of worms, bugs, and slugs, Isn’t it a comfort to be part of something seemingly whole?
alien plant, shooting toward the sky.
I arise as a tightly wound fiddlehead now unfurled, a space