Fallout

I. ~ Spring, circa 1878

Hominy Ridge bares her breast

The jowling river below

Filled with felled timber

Men walk the flotilla

II. ~ August 2017

The old fire tower is a popular stop

Hiking The North Country Trail

Cancer survivor pans his camera

Sunset, river, long way down, he shivers

III. ~ Fall, circa 1756

Sharp flint arrowheads

Pierce thick red coats

Seneca whoop, Frenchmen jeer

Cold river receives the fallen

IV. ~ June 2013

Tinman Tom tenders his wares

Dressed in sweltering Hessian-blue wool

Demonstrating a lantern, beeswax blazes

Dares anyone to find better

V. ~ June 1928

Clever girl gets boy to skinny dip

She swims in her step-in chemise

The clinging moonlight reveals her

She mimes a fan dance, they marry

VI. ~ July 4, 1955

A strong pale man paddles the canoe

The bow sits Little Princess cross-legged

A turkey feather waves in her dark hair

Pointing aft, she calls the man Daddy Brave

VII. ~ October 2003

High winds cause the fallout

Rare red-necked grebe form a flotilla

Diverse peoples flock from all over

Behold her wet plumes

~ Girard Tournesol

Fewer

I am alone on this street.

The old Victorian house with shutters dragging toward the lawn,
Its brilliant color now irrevocably muted as the wood dampens, worms and begins to rot.
The tall, stately storefront with crumbling brick, disintegrating purpose,
Was once built by a man who felt proud and strong,
Like that brick.

I look around and there are fewer,
There is less.
Piece by piece it blows away with each gentle breeze,
The imperceptible grace of destruction,
A town in entropy.

I am alone on this street.

And I am oriented by purpose, imbued with power, and in a state of pure inspiration,
As I rearrange the crumbs of this place,
I create a masterpiece of dust with my hands,
And wait for the next gentle wind to carry me away.


Jess Weible

Clogging in The Hills

Stomp stomp clap—

The porch slats bounce under

stomp stomp clap,

Under heel toe step,

Under double step stomp,

Rock step rock step

Over rock bed coal,

And rock shale gas—

Stomp stomp clap

Rock step rock step.

Rocky top dance,

Heel step toe step,

Mountain top strip,

Triple step, now turn

Back to the time

Of immigrant boots

On chestnut floors

In ramshackle shacks. 

Stomp brush up

That hillbilly talk,

Heel step toe step

One loud sound:

Dynamite blast

And mine shaft leak—

Toe step, dipped

In blood orange creeks.

— Patricia Thrushart 

At My Age

The body aches 
and the heart hurts
in ways I never thought 
I would.

-Byron Hoot

Letting Go While Holding

The heavy snow of five minutes ago
has gone,  given way to clear skies,  
a wind dancing with trees. 

I know Nature does not possess 
the gifts we are given 
but there are some of hers

I wish were mine.

-Byron Hoot

That Fear

Sometimes when I look in the rearview
mirror on a curve and hold
a little too long looking behind,
an eyelash of eternity, I don't
know if I'm quite on the road
or if I'm going ahead or reverse.
In the rearview long enough for a feeling
of giddiness that makes me squeeze
the steering wheel and say,  as if  I
just escaped a terrible threat,
"I'm here.  Right now.   Eyes
straight ahead on the road. "

Written by

Byron Hoot

The Killing Frost

We wait
In this between time,
When tender leaves are only wilted;
The ground cold
but not frozen.

When frost toys with life
to take just
This leaf, that flower;
A late bee stunned with cold,
nectar gone.

These are good days,
Days to rejoice and be glad;
Glad of the slow bee
And the brilliant petal,
For the killing frost
will come.

- Patricia Thrushart
http://www.thewatershedjournal.org/

The Blue Bottle

The bright blue bottle hit me like a hint of death on the breath of Spring.

I imagined it being tossed out a truck window,

by underage teens fancying themselves clever and mature and immortal,

      as if the earth had willed upon them that her stolen treasure, Aluminum,

be returned or she’d cause their truck keys disappear for all eternity.

I picked up the blue bottle,

tried to feel resurrection in a recycling sort of way,

felt instead only the hollow emptiness of mindless eternal reincarnation.

Winter had been long this year and lately I fantasized resurrection more than usual

at a field where I stopped to listen to meadowlark and field sparrow calling

for mates or alerting everyone to the sin of the blue bottle.

Several deer grazed the unseen first greens of Spring near skunk cabbage and coltsfoot.

At a small stream, I cupped my hand into the icy fast water and raised it to my lips,

then splashed my face, then splashed some more, more,

then knelt, both knees at the streambed and submersed my face and head,

in self-inflicted baptism for my own blue bottle sins,

opened my eyes, exhaled all my blue bubbles, for the longest of repentant moments.

Pulled out of the water gasping the holy Spring air for dear life

and thereafter walked each step in the garden of resurrection.

~ Girard Tournesolhttp://www.thewatershedjournal.org/

Joanne @ BINGO

Her platinum blonde hair was a firm 

     spunky Irish when she was a kid
And compelled me to wish for time travel
     as I have loved her since she's existed

She says she'll table dance if she wins
All for a package of crackers I'd have 
    never kicked her out of bed for eating
Says if I'm lucky she'll pick Mardi Gras beads

I told her that from her wedding picture 
     Veronica Lake had nothing on her 
She said straight into my transparent heart: 
     "I've had a good life"

. . .and I was lucky

           *** 

~ Girard Tournesol
http://www.thewatershedjournal.org/