Author: juliette

Finding Bats in the Spring Wood at Twilight

Barbara A Meier

Inspired by “Finding the Cat in a Spring Night at Midnight” by Pattiann Rogers

It takes a certain hearing, to discern the bat from the bird
in a late afternoon, when the light diminishes Woodrat Mountain.
I hear the swoop of wings beating the soft air
of twilight, humming in the down-sweep
of a dusky afternoon breeze

An aerial battlefield of nectar and mosquito,
with the feeding buzz of the fringed myotis,
and the whir of the dive-bombing male rufous hummingbird.

Bright Venus comes out to play
with the silver fishing hook moon,
Pacific tree frogs bellow their desire in her cold light,
cicadas hammering away at their legs:
a symphony of sound crescendoing
then pianissimo
when they discern my steps into the night.

I lose sight of the magical creatures living in the night.
Pausing the recording of my life in their silence
of fear,
waiting for the confidence to come back;
first, one whir,
a solitary croak,
then joining in an adagio of night wings born at the
edge
of the forest
up to the meadow
sliding gray to brown to black.

Barbara A. Meier

A Mental Maze

Rahul Gaur

Through the shadow-less spiky trees,
I watch you walk, the
graveyard of loss weighing you down
Seagulls screech a mirage of
the end of this murky forest
that you managed to nd
the courage to walk through
The leaves sway in regretful melancholy
as the clouds patiently tease you
with the possibility of wreaking havoc in your world any minute
You find yourself ripping your head apart
in order to conjure up the graveyard in front of you,
as that seems like the only option to end this torture in your mind;
but the seagulls sing now and then to give you hope
that the thunderous clouds scream as false

You have to choose now
No longer can you pretend to hide in this forest
and call it taking on a challenge
because the puzzle is complicating itself,
and the sky is burning away
into darkness that will engulf the forest
And I will be lost trying to
separate you from the forest and the darkness in which you’ll be gone forever

Rahul Gaur