Issue 6

January 2011

Cover Art: composite of © 2003 “Lunar-eclipse-09-11-2003” by Oliver Stein and © 2003 “Milkyway swan” by  Eclipse.sx. under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

In this issue, there are stories of loss, of love, and of reaching out to others, even in the face of death.  The magic of writing is that it transports us on adventures we have yet to travel.

With every year come new opportunities.  There is much to be done, both in our daily lives and in our struggle to give meaning to our losses and joy to our victories.  Yet it is in those moments, in our mind's snowy, silent vista of reflection, when the moon shines full and, for a moment, colors as our daily concerns eclipse, that we dare to listen at our heart's deepest level.

She draws the shades across her eyes

to keep her sunshine in,

considers dandelions, how

they close their eyes to night,

Luke Evans

he knew that tragedy

only burdens the living.

He knew the impossibility

of saying good-bye.

Alarie Tennille

even now he says

There is something we can do…..

Jordan Grumet

My sergeant would call this a successful

flanking move around an enemy defense,

a demonstration that I can be

all that I can be, less a few body parts,

Ed Bennett

Tonight, after you died, a nor'easter blew in.

You didn't know – you’d slipped out early

as a nightingale poured into night.

Janet Sunderland

Like migrating birds, patients were always passing through, leaving her scattered bits of their transitory living when they departed.

Lynn Pinkerton

I couldn’t

believe God wouldn’t give me this one

small thing. And then suddenly it began

to snow for the first time in twenty years. . .

Stacey Dye

She's become my friend and I've become

her buddy. Since the diagnosis, I don't think as

clearly.

Sherry O'Keefe

cardinals

wing from oak to pine

as the wind

on this breezy day stops

Stacey Dye

Without light I guessed

the stars fell out of the sky

Kenneth P. Gurney

They need knowledge of a kind

not previously imagined. They want

to know when. How to wait. What to say.

Risa Denenberg

Hearts beat together

Among our tears of sadness

Robert T. Gasperson

Like migrating birds, patients were always passing through, leaving her scattered bits of their transitory living when they departed.

Lynn Pinkerton

This I want and nothing

to be left of dullness.

Diana Cole

She died well loved,

But not yet famous.

Laura Blatt

the wide brim

of a stylish straw hat

hides her face.

Her hands lie still

Jodi L. Hottel