AVOCET The Weekly
“Nature, the manifestation of divinity.” - Joseph Campbell
Issue No. 14 | March 20 - 2013
Weekly Avocet - Issue No. 14
Winter Garden
I am enjoying the last hour of sunlight here in the winter garden with the toy piano on my lap, seeing the little patches of snow in the remaining green grass. I am wearing a red coat, playing a jazz samba on toy piano, thinking how the sound doesn’t match my face, how the blind make music by feel. I am soaking in sunlight through my red coat, playing a song for a gray squirrel and black bird, fingers cold on the plastic keys, instrument out of tune, mind sifting through soft fogs rising from the last green grass of the winter.
Andy Roberts Arober25@columbus.rr.com
“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out I found, was really going in.” - John Muir
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Weekly Avocet - Issue No. 14
An Apple Tree in Winter While the gathering clouds fill the wayward reaches of the sun, and the cold air is like a body against you full of freshness that turns still and quiet as a knowing glance soon the soothing arms of every snow flake will spread over the bruised fruit, broken branches and burnt red leaves that his Autumn has left behind.
B.L. Shappell laneshappell@yahoo.com.au
“The daisy follows soft the sun.” - Emily Dickinson
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Weekly Avocet - Issue No. 14
Ice Henge Minneapolis Luminary Loppet (February 2013) Temperature near zero, we head into the early dark on Lake of the Isles, follow candles cradled in globes of ice, a constellation of luminaries swarming its milky way across the snow to Ice Henge. Twelve columns stand like ice men eight feet high and rooted in a circle, ancient as history, brief as snow. Their chests have small cavities chiseled into them, containers for candlelight they wear like a softer weather inside them. It flickers with kindness as we drift in, shurr, flurr, shoosh between them, our arrival itself a flower of darkness, a corolla of the cold. Massive witnesses to winter, the mute transparent columns adrift in their domain of dormancy, glisten the dance of fire within ice while we traverse the frozen lake like another universe, tracking the good news of so many lights inside the cold. Alixa Doom alixa@hickorytech.net
“What humbugs we are, who pretend to live for Beauty, and never see the Dawn!” - Logan Pearsall Smith -4-
Weekly Avocet - Issue No. 14
Winter Study on an Early Morning Walk Fog, dense at dawn cloaking daylight. I am attentive to the distant ringing of icicles, how they toll in the frozen air. Bare oaks hang suspended. Briars, honeysuckle, wild grape all subdued. Out of view, in the bottom of the stream, frogs slumber far below the ice. Bumblebees hibernate within loose bark waiting for lengthening days. Ground squirrels safely rest in their lair — close to a towering snowman. The quiet of morning is splintered by random flute-like echoes of the spotted wood-thrush, in the river below a lone kayaker presses on, ghostlike, soundlessly weaving, blindfolded down the swiftly moving creek.
Sharon Lask Munson sharonmunson2@gmail.com
“Man’s heart away from nature becomes hard.” - Standing Bear
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Weekly Avocet - Issue No. 14
At Winter Thaw On a day of winter thaw I open doors and windows and welcome new air and morning light. Trees and roofs weep snowmelt, and the rooms where we live taste sudden cool air. Our children and grandchildren in picture frames hold wedding day and grade school smiles. Even you and I above the fireplace mantle show youth and hope in newfound love. Beyond the west windows, the oak tree’s low limbs clutch caramel-brown leaves, unwilling to yield to the natural course of birth, death, disintegration. Unlike other trees, perhaps this old rebel lives by its own rules: unfold, withhold, stay. Or perhaps it mocks us— we who follow the course others have lived: trial and error, gains and losses. Now a northwest wind only tremors the oak’s leaves and foretells greater cold. Tracks of squirrels and birds will freeze in place until smothered by new powder. I close the doors, shut windows, and stoke the fire, ordinary tasks that comfort the heart and postpone the inevitable. John T. Hitchner jhitchne@keene.edu
“I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.” - George Washington Carver
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Weekly Avocet - Issue No. 14
Turkey Vulture Talking It’s probably true I think too much, sitting all night in my dead tree. But I’m a changed bird come sunrise— Mr. Transformer, Mr. Capability. So maybe I can’t fly worth a hoot, drunk all the time on old meat. I’m honest. Reliable. I’ll get to the job if I have to walk. Oh, just a wobbly old buzzard, not good for much. Cogitating, regurgitating, ferrying souls across that final river, getting sadder and uglier... Is it worth it? Look at me – I’ve still got my appetite.
Charles Goodrich Charles.Goodrich@oregonstate.edu
“Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars... and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful. Everything is simply happy. Trees are happy for no reason. They are not going to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to become rich and they will never have any bank balance. Look at the flowers - for no reason. It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are.” - Osho
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Weekly Avocet - Issue No. 14 Snow
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Run for cover, flakes falling Wind howling, snow drifting Roads impassable, stuck autos Stay at home, nowhere to go. Nature›s answer to modernity
NATURE’S POETS!
Mounds of snow for sled and play Childrens› delight, adults› distress
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To know it, that you are a poet, you must write, read other poets, subscribe, buy poetry collections, and bring poetry into the lives of those who don’t know of its beauty.
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I take my canvas outdoors To paint the pristine white
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Avocet, a Journal of Nature Poetry Charles Portolano, Editor P.O. Box 19186 Fountain Hills, AZ 85269
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“Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.” - Kahlil Gibran
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Guidelines for SUBMISSION
ONE of our ONE own From
of our own
C
hangming Yuan at poetrypacific.blogspot.ca is looking for Avocet poets to send up to five poems on any subject, previously published or not, as long as you still hold your copy/publishing rights - just what you think are your best ones, though our readers tend to like shorter pieces more. He looks forward to receiving and publishing your work!
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POETRY PACIFIC a literary e.zine for true lovers of words & wisdom
click the pic 2 Poems by Kristin Roedell
Monday, 11 March 2013
Few things are quiet as night snow: there is the uninvited past, sharp and certain as geometry when geese fly; there is age coming in slow on a stinging tide; there is sleep spinning thin as blown glass.
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The Weekly Avocet every Wednesday, an e-mail of Nature Poetry • Please send only one poem, per poet, per season. Let’s do spring-themed poetry now. • Please no more than 38 lines per poem. • Please use single spaced lines. • Please use the Times New Roman - 12pt. font. • Please send your submission to angeldec24@hotmail.com • Please remember, previously published poems are fine to send. • Please always put your name and e-mail address under your work, thank you.
If you want off of this list, please send an e-mail to cportolano@hotmail.com and All things snow remain write “unsubscribe” in the subject line. silent here; cars slip inaudibly to the shoulder, children doze, bedded in the back seat like sled dogs. Down at the lake,
W
e hope we provoked you to thought; that you leave having experienced a complete emotional response to the poetry. I want to thank our poets for sharing their work with us this week. And, “Thank you for reading, dear reader!” Again, if you haven’t, yet, sent in one nature Springthemed poem (please, only one) please do! Please remember it is one poem, per poet, per season for The Weekly Avocet’s submissions.
from the editor
Please read all the compelling quotes in this issue and write a poem of your own after reading them a few times. Please send your poems in with the subject: Poetry Quote Challenge and I will publish them in the Weekly Avocet over the next few coming weeks.
Be well, see you next Wednesday Create Blog
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Charles Portolano Editor of the Avocet, a Journal of Nature Poetry Please visit our website www.avocetreview.com-
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Blog Archive ▼ 2013 (41)
▼ March (9)
2 Poems by Kristin Roedell 2 Poems by Lisa Pellegrini
I love getting poems sent to my computer. What a great way to start any day. A wonderful website is Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac, every day one poem and lots of Art history.
3 Poems by Kim Clark
3 Poems by Robert Sheppard 3 Poems by Cher Bibler
2 Poems by Niall O'Connor
3 Photos by Joneve McCormick
Topic 3 for PP Chatroom: Is Poetry a Religion? Call for Poetry Submissions
Please check it out: http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/ I start everyday reading it, great fun!
► February (16) ► January (16) ► 2012 (13)
About Editors
Changming Yuan Founding Publisher/Editorin-Chief: Changming Yuan, 4-time Pushcart nominee and