Riccio Verde
Karen Roethke

Garden in the Round
Linda Satterlee-McFadin

I grew a garden once,
I designed it in the round.
I planted it with tomatoes,
cuc’s and all the zucchini I had found.
I watered it all summer
and pinched bad leave away.
The rewards I reaped from my garden
I remember to this day.
Green stalks and leaves shot to the sky,
Veggies grew galore
We ate salads from that garden
‘til the children begged “no more.”
When we finally had moved,
I was sad to let the garden go.
You see, I have no green thumb,
no more to grow plants just so.
I couldn’t repeat my success with plants,
I soon enough found
And so, must only remember that
lovely garden in the round.

Seeds
Joanne Weis

Seeds
Loraine Lawson

My grandmother planted seeds everywhere, and, each day, she softly inspected her sprouts, proud of their potential.

Her garden reached longer than her clapboard house, and burst with green beans, lettuce, tomatoes, corn, rhubarb, strawberries, zucchini: Every vegetable you could find on a Southern dinner plate grew there. She selected each one carefully before meals, serving the tomatoes fresh, the zucchinis fried, the green beans boiled with ham, as God intended.

Blooming bushes dotted the landscape all around the house under her tutelage. Azaleas exploded into lipstick pinks. Hydrangea sported their brilliant blue-white clusters beneath the shade. Need I say there were rose bushes, basking in the afternoon sun? And sinfully yellow forsythia splayed in the spring breeze, branches ever ready to be stripped into a switch for a wayward child.

Just beneath the roof of the front porch, flowers nestled in long wooden beds. These she checked while the dew was still fresh, her experienced fingers lifting them, her eye scrutinizing for any sign of infestation. Coral begonias spilled over their waxy leaves. Geraniums burned bright over their greenery. Impatiens, in all the silken colors of an exquisite summer ball, lounged, soaking up sprinkles of sunlight.

Inside her small farmhouse, African violets rooted in every room, their velvet purple blossoms defying the sullen black Bible sitting nearby. These, too, have their time in her presence. In the back, a glassed-in porch sported a mini-Jurassic period, bright light flooding in upon the cacti and aloe vera. Overhead, gigantic ferns and delicate morning glory greedily overflowed their baskets, drinking in the morning rays. She granted an audience to each, picking up pots to check dirt humidity or pinching off some beginning blight that threatens her Garden of Eden.

She loved the small things, the simple things, the seeds. Her love was consistent, humble, and kind. And in their way, didn’t they love her back by sustaining her body and her soul?

Sacred Seed
Dr. Elizabeth Best

We have been poured from the cosmic seed sack
of one Universal Mind,
and scattered upon winds of Love with care,
so our souls do not land on soils marked by lack
nor are we blindly assigned a space
where each of us cannot grow and bear.

We have been formed in the surrogate soil
of a mortal mother’s womb,
but not doomed to lie in oblivion.
From our genesis, we were each primed to toil,
chase the light hidden beyond the gloom
and mirror the act of creation.

Each of us sprouted from this human earth,
dust-blown and blasted with blight
and constantly stem towards ignorance.
We forget that from conception and after birth,
we are infused with immortal light
and have access to Divine guidance.

As sanctified shareholders of the Light,
each to a different degree.
Let us illumine this earthly bower,
stretch our tendrils, intoxicate and delight.
Let us brighten bleak hills and valleys,
root deeply in all soils, and flower.

We can pour out our love essences
over all trials and pains
that break hearts, numb minds and cripple spirits.
We can yield fruit that nourishes strong consciences,
ensure that mindfulness never wanes
and dispense balm to soothe away fears.

The so-called “least of us” can rise to great stature,
given our singular, seminal nature:
as flesh, we root within limitations of sod;
as souls, we are extensions of the Mind of God.

Ancient Calendar
Joanne Weis

The Ancient Calendar
Loraine Lawson

Days must have burned slow on the first calendars,
When time was New and
Humans still marked their moments by the sun and moon.

Perhaps this very calendar sat on a Mayan’s desk,
The azure lines a silent reminder that
There are seasons to change…
… crops to tend…
…rituals to oversee.

The ancient calendar is silent because it knows
There will be time for all these
Without setting an alarm for “just” 15 minutes or
Scheduling a “me-time” appointment.

The calendar keeps only the most important events
And yet there is still space for human life.
Back in the early days,
time … stretched … to accommodate …
All those little tasks that niggle us now,
such as lunch
or walking by the river
or letting children play.
All those things we’ll get to soon…

When technology stops meting out
Our time in microseconds,
Only to spit us out on
The other side of life’s days
Just as we realize what mortality really means.

Pig Newton
Kathleen Loomis

Pig Newton
Eva Loraine Hammerbeck

A shadow, nothing more,
Darts across my windowed door.
A leaf, a twig, scraping there.
A squeak from my front porch chair.

I struggle to avoid a look
As I settle into my dreary book.
I am lost in reading when I hear
A sound so dreadful, so low, I fear.

I flip the outside bulb on
If someone was there, he’s gone.
I turn off the glaring light,
My house slips back into the night.

Tired, I’m tired. I shake my head.
Maybe it’s best to go to bed.
I mount the creaking stairs,
Each step, my aching back flares.

Once in bed, I embrace the dark.
See strips of moonbeams, so stark.
Soon I’m dozing, dozing off to dreams…
As something scurries across the beams.

Surely it is a mouse, I think
I turn, and, into my pillow, sink.
Then, I pause, to see what moves
“It’s nothing,” I firmly choose.

I am deep in my sleep
When a thing pounces from the deep!
I awaken suddenly, my eyes wide open
My repose, completely broken.

I cannot lift my arms, I find.
A figure lurks above me, outlined
Against the paleness of the moon
What fiend has visited me? I swoon.

When I come to,
As I soon do,
I hear a whirling grinding sound.
I find I’m hog-tied on the ground!

My tormentor is near
Every muffled movement I hear.
“Who are you?” I say at last.
“The time for talking is past.”

“What do you want?” I plea with him.
He laughs softly; I spy his limb,
Long, and hairy and bent
I know now whom hell has sent.

He mocks me from the shadows then
“Little pig, little pig, let me in.”
I see him, fierce with sharp teeth a-grin,
“Not by the hairs of my chinnie-chin-chin.”

Woman in White
Sandy Gudorf

Woman in White
Korinne Dunn

Proud chin, she holds the key
to her own damn purity.
She guards it with the same eyes
she uses to look down on you.

She is not made of lace,
she is not made of porcelain;
she wears these frills against
the cold.
She buttons her shawl against
the judgement.

She closes herself
to you
to find peace
from you.

Entrapped
Deborah Levine

Entrapped
Synthia Shelby

Lying beneath
A rubble of lies
My heart bleeds.
My soul dies.

Fear, manipulation,
And hatred served.
Do I deserve
To be treated
This way?
This disdain
I can never repay.

No power. No control
No passion. No heat.
Our love grows cold.
Naked, unraveled
By your need.
Trapped, caught,
No Longer, Free.

A knotted, painful
Web of deceit.
Fidelity a memory
In bed with a thief.

Mincing and dicing
My faith, my heart.
Trampling hope
Tearing it apart.

Tangled, twisted,
Wrapped around your finger.
Frozen by loneliness
I stay, I linger.
I yearn
To run away.
Your sweet words
Beckon me to stay.

Praying to the
One above.
Held hostage
By your love.

Renewal
Wendy Dunleavy

My Aunt  
Denise Amos

          Dainty doilies on the buffet
          Hand crocheted
          Hails your hospitality
          Skilled hands.

          Stiff starched blouse buttoned high
          Under wool blazer
          Tucked into tailored skirt
          Copy editor.

          Plaid pedal pushers
          Motorless push mower whirring
          Side yard front yard backyard tiny yard
          lickety-split           trimmed.

          Dungarees every fall, raking leaves
          Leaves burning
          Marshmallows roasting
          Chili simmering.

          Sunday dress
          Ninth and O Baptist
          “He makes all things new”
          Spinster, married at 42.

          Dress handmade
          Saved for my first day of 10th grade
          Instead
          “She would have wanted you to wear yellow.
          To share your sunshine, your smile,
                with her friends.”

          The fabric of our days 
          Together
          A comedy blazing                     
          of joy, memories, and life.