Return

You wind and unwind the day on spools of restlessness.

Sleep, that old dog you love, whimpers outside, nose fogging cold glass.

When you let him in, he shivers off flakes of moonlight and shadow,

snuggles next to you as you lie down again.

You are outside alone,

lifted from your bed by dark wings.

Around you trees conspire to reclaim what has been stolen.

They call out, a sound like feathers drawn across harp strings.

Your oak door pops from its hinges, 

roots and sprouts branches in response.

Your cherry tables and chairs do the same,

then wait for dawn to bring birds.

The trees ask you to take off your shoes,

dig your toes deep into the earth,

shred the sky into streamers of light with your leafy fingers.

© Jean Sampson

Trees reflected in water
Photo by Tony Russell

Rivanna River South of Town

Upstream the surface begins flat, mirror shine. 

Cool current flows under two kayaks 

glowing red and green. 

Noise of trains, trucks, cars gone.  Hands 

grip the paddle pole, arms stretch, drop, pull, 

blade rises falls, left, right. Trickle of drops.

Sun falls warm on the shoulders. Blue blossoms 

of figworts float by the hundreds like babies 

asleep in baskets on this June afternoon.  

Dark ovals dot the length of a log until 

claws and legs poke out, push, and 

drop into the stream.  

Ahead the river whispers, speaks, then shouts 

its rushing tones. Earth falls, river follows 

making eddies, bubbles, splash, flash -- which way to go? 

We are carried -- rising, falling, dashing, daring, 

rounding rocks, scraping rocks, tipping, untamed, 

sliding through foam, arriving to calm.  

High above, wing sweep, flashes of white, 

two Bald Eagles ride rivers of air, one wheels up, 

looks down and spots the colors we ride. 

Steering under Ironwoods, I climb out into water, 

give my body to its movement.  Head, feet, arms, 

hair gathered up in the river’s peace.

© Marti Snell, 2016

Rocks in the Rivanna
Photo by Tony Russell

For the King of Candy Land: My Son Kai, May 2016

“Candy Land, Life, Monopoly,” my son replied 

when I asked “Do you remember us playing marathon tournaments

of board games when you were a kid?”

This, on the way to the airport

where he will fly to California,

back to his home  and his work.

He is vexed by my asking such a trivial question 

while his thoughts swirl around his travel plans, the work that awaits him,

the transition from his visit with me to his life on the West Coast....

Yet, on his face, I see the boy who loved to play, 

who kept his Monopoly money in neat piles, color-coded 

and at the ready to buy another house or hotel; who outwitted

me at Checkers, making kings that jumped up and over 

and trapped me in the back row; and I, the Queen of Ping Pong,

falling in defeat to the child who outwitted me with speed and stamina.

Later that night, after he called to tell me he’d arrived safely,

I thought about all the years I read to him, lying on the bed

with Babar the Elephant and Conan the Barbarian.  

After he learned to read, I remember thinking, “I’ve lost my job,” 

but no, he brought home “The Hound of the Baskervilles,

and we took turns reading to each  other.

We know our children for so long as children

that when they grow up, we relate to what we know best 

about them. It seems unfair to them, yet inevitable to us.

We look for some overlap, something familiar to connect

the past to the present.  What in the man is still like the boy?

And I remember:  whenever he visits, we talk about books

and he reads to me.  And, though he doesn’t call to me from the next room, 

he calls.

© Evie Safran, 2016

Mother and her child reading scripture
Photo by Dr. Avishai Teiher
Pikiwiki Israel
from Wikimedia Commons

Corrupted Innocence

In the deadening stillness of cease-fire, Abdul 

looks for his toys in the rubble. Basira digs 

for simple trinkets coveted in a box under her 

bed in nameless bits and pieces called home.

Yasmin, 6, in Gaza City, has endured three wars 

in her lifetime.  She wonders, without emotion, 

where she will lay tonight. Awake or asleep, she 

lives the fear of wolfish wounds, nowhere safe.

These children are lucky to be the living dead, 

always in war, cooped chickens who can’t escape, 

ignorant of fresh air. Four cousins playing near 

the harbor, two brothers in a taxi with grandma, 

one four-year-old and his eight-year-old brother 

inside their house, a three-year-old playing with dad 

in the family garden, and a boy and father going 

to mosque – all dead before this brief pause 

in the war as if snuffed between cigarettes. Young 

global nomads bicycle bombed-out streets, kick 

rag balls outside makeshift medical tents, feed 

beat-up dolls with pretend food to play out their fate.        

© Patsy Asuncion, 2016

Destruction of Gaza
Photo by gloucester2gaza
from Wikimedia Commons