SIMPLE (MANGO)

In Lagos I felt this world for the very first time

Under a wide-eyed Ikoyi sun, my heart, mind and soul came to life

The mangoes were always in season

I was a boy, and nothing more. 

My mind was open… 

The gate was never locked

So my dreams wandered free

Some days, they walked with me

On others, they dashed off in every direction, hoping to tempt me into new games of discovery 

Nothing was real

Yet it all was

I wasn’t yet good at pretending to be myself

I was a boy; nothing more.

I drifted through life as would a paintbrush

Aimless, simple.

On the days the rains fell,

The drops crash-landing like millions of miniscule musical meteorites

I picked them up, held them in my bristles

And carried them with me

Even now, they color the movements I make

Blooms of hibiscus shone around our home

Like little red stars that had lost their way and settled amongst the greenery

My house, in those days, was a city

The walls hummed with energy

It was my palace

I ruled it with a playful hand

My fingers spoke a language they never had to learn

The surfaces of this city of mine lived to make conversation with them

They had a heavy vibration

Curiosity oozed from my very pores 

This world needed explaining and mine was the intrepid mind to do this

When I explored my city, lizards hurdled gravel like mountains

Scaled walls

Watched my antics

Told stories of them

Wanted to join in the fun.

All of this happened. 

I lived it in my very bones.

I was a boy, and nothing more.

Ignorant of my own smallness, I knew things then that I would never know again

Like how to travel to other worlds, borne by the songs of my grandmother

And how to live life to the beat of the simple things within it

These hands and feet of mine were still learning to fly

The day would come when they would be taught to do so

Until that time, they were content to look to the sky

There was poetry in every motion and joint of my body

I was a boy and nothing more

Dobra was the first girl I ever tried to impress

Her thick, inky plaits resembled shiny rope

They glistened.

We were the same size.

She had a certain bigness about her.

I didn’t yet know of the thing called art.

It fueled me all the same.

It flowed through me like a breeze through leaves.

Like a breeze through hair.

A breath of energy reminding me to move, to breathe.

It was my air.

It is my air.

My muscles didn’t mind

The mango tree in front of our house was magic

I was never to climb it

The jewels it dropped tasted of laughter

When I drank up their juice, the sunlight sang through my bones

This too happened.

More times than I could ever count.

But fewer times than I’d like to think.

My dad was the biggest man I ever knew

I could never scare him

Alexis lived outside. 

She and I, we liked the same food.

Hers was the first friendship I ever knew

Her scent was that of unclaimed mornings

Even now it still clings to me

My city is an enormous vessel

A great pyramid that is the home of my childhood

Memories were laid to rest in that tomb

They took with them things from these plains, reminders of what was.

Ties to what they had left behind

Alexis also.

Memories.

So hard, yet with soft edges.

A full moon, on a cloudy night.

Simple.

© Axel Cooper, 2017

Mango
Photo by Asit K. Ghosh
from Wikimedia Commons

Cooperstown, New York

Ferris Wheels and fire works, 

sailing ships upon the lake. 

Horse-drawn wagons and cotton candy, 

and the children run everywhere. 

Lovers stand at the ring toss booth 

while vendors hawk burgers and fries. 

Boys pitch pennies to win a game, 

to give their prize away sweetly. 

A runner is on second base 

in the Fireman's Baseball Game. 

Someone sells homemade pies 

while the high school band plays. 

A barge drifts by the shoreline. 

It proudly flies the American flag. 

The captain wouldn’t fly it just any day, 

but today is the fourth of July. 

© Dennis Wright, 2015

(Based on an oil painting called

 "Cooperstown, New York, July, 1987," 

by Janet Munro) 

A Fourth of July celebration. St. Helena Island, South Carolina, 1939
Photo by Marion Post Walcott
from Wikimedia Commons

Rabin....

At the precipice of Peace,

many boulders have fallen....

Yet, the torrent rushes on,

a bow of promise just above.

And below,

a foundation of stone

laid there long ago....

The harvest of seasons storming.

Let us embrace

the cold, and mist, and hardness

of this place

and move on towards the Light!

© Gerry Sackett, 2017

20th anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in Tel Aviv, Oct. 31, 2015
Photo by Talmoryair
from Wikimedia Commons

Winter in Upstate NewYork, 1977

She tunnels out of her house 

through a mantel of snow

six feet high,

carrying her young son

to the barn.  She breaks

up a bunch of hay bales,

nesting him in the middle,

close to the cows.

She buries her head 

in the flank of the cow 

while she milks, thankful 

for its warm body and breath.

She’s swinging the pick-ax hard

through the ice in a trough

’til she chops a hole big enough

for a bucket to fill with water.

Running back and forth 

to water the cows, pigs,

horses, chickens.  The water

is fast-freezing in the bucket.

The temperature is windchill -40 degrees

for ten days.

Back home, she stokes the wood stove.

They sit within its three feet

of warmth, in their hats and coats.

All that’s left to burn is wet pine

and she burns it. 

Every cell in her body is an ice pellet.

The snow keeps falling.

By morning, the door won’t open.

If this was Antarctica, 

she would be better prepared,

mindful and in sync with her purpose.

Here, it’s all muscle-memory:  Survival.

Keep herself, her son, and the animals

from freezing to death.

There is a treacherous beauty

in the landscape, a silence

that only deep snow on farmland

seems capable of.

This span of time, of snow, wind and cold,

will just be another conversation with friends

in a few months.  But she

will remember it for years

and years as the time she overcame 

disbelief in herself.

© Evie Safran, 2017

"Old farm at Overtown in deep snow"
by Richard Johnson
from the Geography Project collection
from Wikimedia Commons

Saturday Night in Batesville

You must arrive early at the old country store, 

parking lot’s small. Find a seat, a bite to eat, 

glass of wine, check the time then look around 

for Bobby Midnight and his band. Tables are full, 

people standing, yak-yaking crowds the space,

baby peers from pack on back, one mama runs 

to fetch her child, senior fans refill their drinks, 

and friends hail friends with rowdy hugs.  

One, then two, all six show up, beat up cases 

held in hand, hats buoyant on thin-haired heads. 

They shuffle on stage, open up bags, pull out 

possibilities: three guitars quiver, trumpet and sax 

glitter, stacked set of drums sits. These man-boys 

lean in to get the tuning right. The crowd booms 

then quiets as if testing for song.  Oh, there’s going 

to be some music on this warm spring night.

Funky tunes fly, fill the room, seep out windows 

step out doors.  Dancing couples, women clusters, 

dad with a daughter all pack the floor of that 

overhauled space. One man and a woman are fluid 

in leather bottomed shoes, possessed.  They swoon, 

sweat, press for more Billy Joel’s rock and roll. 

The local birdman holds a gallon pickle jar, 

trolls the room crying: gratuities for the band.  

Riding home, the man and woman still are dancing

in the moonlight.  And there it is -- bright bulging 

white shines their faces, lights up hay fields, 

rolls over foothills, crowns the Blue Ridge. 

© Marti Snell, 2017

Dance at a Country Inn
by Rafael Benjumea
Carmen Thyssen Museum, Malaga, Spain
from Wikimedia Commons