Nightingale & Sparrow

Author: Marcelle Newbold

  • Frederick the Night Blooming Cereus

    Frederick the Night Blooming Cereus

    Valerie Hunter

    Ray is the one who bought Frederick,
    planted him, named him,
    used to invite all their friends
    to an annual midnight party
    in Frederick’s honor.
    But Ray is gone now,
    has abandoned Amy and Frederick both,
    though probably he would’ve
    taken Frederick if he could have.

    For fifty-one weeks of the year,
    Frederick is a bit of an eyesore,
    a shaggy giant lurking uselessly
    in the corner of the back yard.
    Thankfully he doesn’t need much care;
    Amy remembers to water him occasionally
    if it hasn’t rained in awhile, and sometimes
    she gives him a kind word, or says,
    “Why so cereus?” because she knows
    Frederick appreciates a good pun.

    But when May comes
    she watches him closely.
    Each year she fears his magic will fail,
    that he’ll remain an undignified lump,
    but then those first ugly buds appear,
    bulging tumors amidst the leaves.
    They develop rapidly, sprouting
    their spiny alien tentacles,
    so familiar,
    so strange,
    and after a decade
    of being intimately acquainted
    with Frederick’s anatomy,
    she knows exactly when to stay up
    with her coffee and her thoughts,
    pulling the most glorious of all-nighters.

    She tells no one, extends no invitations—
    Ray might have seen Frederick
    as a spectacle to be shown-off,
    a freak to be gawked at,
    but she considers him
    her private magic show,
    the flowers blooming for her alone,
    enormous and luminous,
    with their weird medicinal fragrance
    that heals her soul,
    makes her believe that the world
    is an inexplicably wondrous place,
    full of small miracles.

    She always goes in before dawn,
    avoiding the back yard
    for as long as she can afterwards
    to hold onto the memory
    of that magnificent, glowing Frederick.
    Each year, as she shuts the door,
    she spares a thought for Ray,
    who left her this one perfect piece of beauty,
    this midnight marvel
    that she knows he must miss.

    Valerie Hunter

  • Letter from the Editor Sakura Issue

    Letter from the Editor

     

    Dear Reader

    Welcome to the enchanting world of sakura! As we unveil our latest issue of Nightingale & Sparrow Literary Magazine, we invite you to immerse yourself in a realm of delicate beauty and ephemeral wonders. It is with great joy that we present our eighteenth issue, marking yet another milestone in our journey.

    For this issue, we asked writers to capture the essence of sakura—the pink and white world where everything feels delicate and fleeting. We sought stories “about a moment of fleeting beauty, a memory that lingers like the sweet scent of sakura.” And oh, dear readers, the responses we received were nothing short of breathtaking.

    Within these pages, you will discover tales that encapsulate fleeting beauty, moments that leave an indelible mark on our souls. Love and loss intertwine in narratives that resonate deeply, while quiet realizations about the passage of time gently unfold. Our talented contributors have masterfully harnessed the power of sakura to transport you to a realm where beauty and transience coexist.

    As you delve into the tender tapestry of words and emotions we’ve curated for you, you will encounter mesmerizing pieces such as “At the Edge of Hope” by Kersten Christianson, “Sweet Sorrow” by Jennifer Geisinger, and “Seattle Sunrise” by Lindsay Pucci. These captivating works invite you to reflect on the fragile nature of existence and the profound impact of fleeting moments.

    Before bidding you farewell, we would be remiss not to express our gratitude to those who have helped bring this issue to fruition. Each contribution, whether through submitting their work, supporting us behind the scenes, or simply being a devoted reader, is invaluable. Nightingale & Sparrow continues to thrive because of the unwavering dedication and passion of our global community of creators.

    Wishing you moments of ephemeral joy through sakura and beyond.

    Juliette Sebock

    Editor-in-Chief, Nightingale & Sparrow

  • Iris

    Iris

    Robert Rice

    Coming back from the mailbox,
    near the fence I noticed
    its small, green swords pushed up
    through the near-frozen dirt.
    It stopped me. 

                                  Sometimes
    —not often—
    a simple shift of light
    will shake and crack
    the thin screen of the world. Then each 

    defended story, end-stopped,
    will turn in the faded light of evening,
    cross the gray sky in you,

    leave no trace.

    Robert Rice

  • Mother, Sister, Daughter, Sakura

    Mother, Sister, Daughter, Sakura

    Vikki C.

    This world is wounding itself. I walk through the conflict, avoiding the churches, the in-laws and all acts of confession. My lithe body, barely a nightdress, floating south and south again, until I reach my youth. Quiet feet wading through the boulevard of pink cherry blossoms from another heaven. 

    Dad leaves the petals unswept over the lawn, to hide the unkempt yellow grass from Mum, or to mask the scars in advance. The driveway is blanketed too, and the car is still covered with the darker pink petals from the hospice visit. We let them be.

    Ordinary men say famous artists only paint almond blossoms as a distraction from the asylum. That if we fill our eyes with portraits of spring and promise, bright buds on blue, we would be cured for a little while, enough time to find the exit. That insanity would not encroach with its heavy black bough, latching the door from the inside out. 

    But now it’s 2023, and I’m at Kensington cemetery paying respects to the latest victims of tragedy. The cherry trees are weeping heavily over the wet lichened graves, mourning about me leaving too early that one winter Sunday, naively hurrying to a lover in my next life. Your pale face at the small window washed in evening light, as if watching from the other side – seeing the divorce and all the babies swept away to far-off territories. Unreachable. 

    Occasionally, they call home, pretending to keep me alive. They’re a hardy species known to weather the harsh winters in places cut off by cold wars. Bombs, crisis, severance. The signal is lost after a minute, but I know they remember the womb like a safe haven.

    Still, there are brave men who carry injured women like me to safety, comforting us with white lies: dusting the shrapnel from our hair, brushing it off as just sakura. They tell us that the flowerless vase in the hallway is shattered – but maybe the house can be salvaged. 

    That there are girls with minds like mine. Daughters who are fragile blooms, caught in the middle of battlefields. And as much as they belong with us, we can never carry them home safely, without the petals coming apart in our hands.

    Vikki C.

  • Vikki C.

    VIKKI C._photo

    Vikki C.

    Poetry Contributor

    Vikki C., author of ‘The Art of Glass Houses’ (Alien Buddha Press), is a British-born writer, poet and musician from London, whose literary works are informed by existentialism, science, the metaphysical, and human relationships. Her poetry and prose have been published or are forthcoming in Across The Margin, Black Bough Poetry, Acropolis Journal, DarkWinter Literary Magazine, Spare Parts Lit  and others.

     

    Works in Nightingale & Sparrow

    Mother, Sister, Daughter, Sakura

  • Final Measure

    Final Measure

    Ellen Malphrus

    Ellen Malphrus

  • Early Blossoms in Spring 3

    Early Blossoms in Spring 3

    Jacelyn Yap

    Early Blossoms In Spring 3

    Jacelyn Yap

  • Early Blossoms In Spring 1

    Early Blossoms in Spring 1

    Jacelyn Yap

    Early Blossoms In Spring 1

    Jacelyn Yap

  • Early Blossoms in Spring 2

    Early Blossoms in Spring 2

    Jacelyn Yap

    Early Blossoms In Spring 2

    Jacelyn Yap

  • Sweet Sorrow

    Sweet Sorrow

    Jennifer Geisinger

    Violet watched the tree all year. She was going to miss it when she left. It would be good to cash in, cash out, sell the house, have enough to retire, enough to live on. She didn’t need the headache anymore. It was hard to take a ferry every time she needed to see a doctor, go to chemo or radiation, even though the visits were fewer and farther between. She hated having to put anyone out. It took an entire day sometimes, just to go for a check-up, and the ferries were always late. She fantasized about calling an Uber, of being anonymous. She was becoming so practical in her old age.

    Violet wasn’t old.  Old enough, though, to not want to pay someone all the time to keep up the lawn, to keep up appearances, to chat at Thriftway, to watch all the new children come through town and have no idea who they were. Her own two couldn’t believe she was selling — a wave of hurt, betrayal. Hurting her kids was enough to make her turn back, to take it all back, to just stay and stay and stay, just in case they decided to return home. 

    But they couldn’t come back, and shouldn’t come back, and she couldn’t just spend her whole life waiting.

    This island was a trap, it really was. It caught her with its beauty, with the strangeness of explaining to people about island living without sounding too proud, too much, too elite. It was  hard to explain that she wasn’t one of them, not one of the mansion people, or the summer people. Just an islander. She wasn’t really an islander though, and would never say that around a local. Unless your family had been homesteaders that came before the ferry system, you couldn’t claim that title. Everyone was a newcomer until maybe the twenty-year mark, then you could say you’d been there for “a while.”

    Still, she was glad to go, isn’t that strange? She had wanted to move here for so long, and anytime she was away she longed for it, with a longing that she had accepted would always be there, whether or not she was on the island. It squeezed her heart so tight with love, it almost felt like a straightjacket — constricting, taking away her free will, taking away all her choices of love, travel, retirement, excitement. She wouldn’t be happy staying, and she would always regret going. She knew this to the marrow of her bones. She knew it even as she could feel her house falling apart. She was glad the carpenter ants she had held at bay for twenty years would soon be somebody else’s problem, along with the hairline fracture in the foundation, which would only be forgiven because it was a seller’s market. Life on an island is always a seller’s market, because love is blind.

    She was glad to leave when the tree was in full bloom. It was prettiest this way. All year it worked toward the big show. She always said they should name the cherry tree. Her children spent half of their childhood climbing it along with all the other children from the neighborhood, long before she had come, and hopefully long after she was gone. 

    For a few years, her daughter had called the tree Sweet.  She would croon to it, and sing “Sweet, Sweet, Sweet,” in the tuneless lullabies of children, which are brand new, but hauntingly familiar.  It was just one cherry tree, but it was her favorite part of the whole thing.

    She had gotten through the horrid good-bye parties, and promised to visit, knowing deep to the quick that she would not. She would not visit again. It was time for good-bye, the very last one.  Even though she knew she could fall, and what a disaster that would be, she went up the little hill in her yard, where the tree lived, and supported her whole self with the trunk.  She enveloped herself through the branches, and leaned hard into her, something she realized she had never done in all the years she had watched the flowers bloom and die over and over.  

    She told the tree to be good, just as she did her toddlers when she left them with a sitter, and breathed in the freedom of a quick getaway.  She gave the tree a last little pat, and she hoped it would live and last. Sweet. She realized that she was talking to a tree, but nobody could see her, and if they did, they would understand. She had given so much, and had meant so much.  

    It was time to go. The hurt became intolerable. It would fade if she could just get on the boat. Thirty years, in and out. Everything else was already gone, already stored, the house ready for the next chapter. She got in her car and drove away from her dream and headed to the ferry dock.

    Jennifer Geisinger