Beyond the Tree Line – Hugh Cartwright

 

It’s our first Christmas adrift in the stars.

And Molly’s first egg.

“Can I break it now?”

“Be gentle.”

Molly’s just four, the youngest of our tiny community. She taps the egg with fierce concentration, as if it’s the most important job in the Universe.

Suddenly the egg shatters and a glittering shape unfolds from among the fragments – a silver Christmas tree. It would weigh a handful of feathers on earth; here in deep space it floats effortlessly.

The tree glides quietly through the cabin until I tie it down with red ribbon. Our little group of 19 gathers round in a circle, linking arms and singing carols.

On 12th night, Molly helps me shepherd her tree into the airlock and we set it free. It glides behind the ship, not wanting to leave. But, as the hours go by, it gradually falls away, dissolving into the star-strewn sky.

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Our 27th Christmas; it will be the last before we reach our new home.

Molly is unwell, but she is our talisman; she must crack the final egg. A shimmering, golden tree emerges, capped with a crown of sparkling stars.

Our group now numbers 22. We gather around the tree for the final time, holding hands and singing carols.

On 12th night, Molly, whose memories were of nothing beyond our ship, is dead; she is the first to die.

27 trees drift behind in a soundless, invisible line, watching over us as we rush towards a world that Molly will never see.

 

---

Hugh’s not really a writer. His career has been spent in Universities, working at the interface of artificial intelligence and physical science. Now retired, he has begun to write occasional stories, some colored with elements of science fiction, others being just a little odd. It helps to take his mind off his impossible project: growing citrus trees in the Canadian climate.

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March 17, 2021March 18, 2021 by foxglovejournal Categories: flash fiction, Prose, UncategorizedTags: Canada, Christmas, community, creative, creativity, death, eggs, fiction, flash, fragments, home, Hugh Cartwright, memories, Prose, short, sky, space, stars, story, time, trees, world, writing Leave a comment

Late September Morning – Glen Sorestad

 

You always hear them 

before you see them.

 

When I heard them, 

I stopped, looked up:

 

the cries of Snow Geese, 

thousands of them, 

 

ragged flying necklaces 

strewn across 

 

a robin’s egg sky, 

slant of rising sun 

 

glinting off 

brilliant white feathers.

 

That familiar ache 

seized my throat, 

 

their plaintive cries 

waning as they flowed by, 

 

carrying summer 

southwest to the river.

 

---

Glen Sorestad is a Canadian poet whose work has appeared in publication in various parts of the world, has appeared in over 60 anthologies and textbooks, and has been translated into eight languages. He was nominated for Best of the Web 2020. He lives with his wife Sonia in Saskatoon on the northern plains.

October 25, 2020 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: birds, Canada, colours, creative, creativity, feathers, flight, geese, Glen Sorestad, morning, nature, poem, Poetry, seasons, senses, September, sky, sound, summer, sun, world, writing Leave a comment

Copse – Yuan Changming

 

Standing tall against the frozen sky

Your skeletons are the exquisite calligraphy

Of an entire season

Your name is curly writ

 

Not in water

But with wind

 

 

Yuan Changming published monographs on translation before leaving his native country. Currently, Yuan lives in Vancouver, where he edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Qing Yuan. Credits include ten Pushcart nominations, Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17) and BestNewPoemsOnline, among others.

December 1, 2019 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: calligraphy, Canada, copse, creative, creativity, elements, frozen, name, nature, place, poem, Poetry, season, sky, tall, time, Vancouver, water, weather, wind, world, writing, Yuan Changming Leave a comment

Too late? – Kieran Egan

 

Mrs. Reardon walks down the pavement

which is more broken now than when 

she pushed four different children in their prams,

two of whom will be at the funeral today,

of the man she married

because the man she loved married her friend.

Her friend died last year and the man she loved

will also be at the funeral of the man she married.

The man she loved realized too late, too late

that he cared less for the woman he married

than for Patsie Reardon, née Walsh, of days long gone.

 

Mrs. Reardon and the man she still loved 

passed on this street with their children in prams, 

then he with a son and football and she with ballet shoes and a daughter

then walking with further sons and daughters, some taller than either of them.

 

Would he, after the funeral and after due time . . . ?

Her heart and stomach were afraid and light and excited.

Or will the formal reserve they had cultivated like a shell

be now so hard they can no longer break through it?

Were they still the two who had once loved each other?

His once hair . . . her once taut skin . . .

 

 

Kieran Egan lives in Vancouver, Canada. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Quills (Canada), Literary Review of Canada, Dalhousie Review (Canada), High Window (UK), Orbis (UK), Raintown Review (USA), Envoi (UK), Shot Glass Journal (USA), Qwerty (Canada), Snapdragon (USA), The Antigonish Review (Canada), Acumen (UK), Canadian Quarterly and The Interpreter’s House (U.K); also shortlisted for the John W. Bilsland Literary Award, 2017 and for the TLS Mick Imlah prize 2017.

March 20, 2018March 20, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: UncategorizedTags: body, Canada, change, children, creative, creativity, death, family, funeral, hair, heart, Kieran Egan, loss, love, marriage, pavement, poem, Poetry, shell, skin, street, time, writing 1 Comment

A wounded goose – Kieran Egan

 

A ragged V of calling geese approaches, 

one powering to take its turn at point 

as others find their places in the slipstream. 

Then as they rise towards the line of trees 

one flailing body tumbles to the ground; 

a cry and splatter twenty feet away.

It flaps a damaged wing and starts to run 

south in the direction of its fellows,

neck straining toward them, stopping at the wall.

The wounded goose and I both stand helpless 

at this sudden fathomless tragedy. 

Well to the south, the rest climb onward, 

powerful chests heaving tireless wings;

their distant honking to each other fades 

as the line dissolves in the evening sky.

 

 

 

Kieran Egan lives in Vancouver, Canada. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Quills (Canada), Literary Review of Canada, Dalhousie Review (Canada), High Window (UK), Orbis (UK), Raintown Review (USA), Envoi (UK), Shot Glass Journal (USA), Qwerty (Canada), Snapdragon (USA), The Antigonish Review (Canada), Acumen (UK), Canadian Quarterly and The Interpreter’s House (U.K); also shortlisted for the John W. Bilsland Literary Award, 2017 and for the TLS Mick Imlah prize 2017.

March 8, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: animals, birds, Canada, creative, creativity, cry, evening, fall, fauna, flight, geese, ground, honking, Kieran Egan, nature, poem, Poetry, sky, slipstream, trees, tumble, wings, writing Leave a comment

Distracting photograph – Kieran Egan

 

Pensive, looking sideways, unfocused eyes,

perhaps wondering about her future.

 

Now flight-phobic, terrified of takeoffs.

To ease her anxieties I had suggested 

we bring and talk about photographs of ourselves, 

at ages five, and ten, fifteen, and twenty.

 

We examined the pensive ten-year-old girl looking sideways.

The woman she had become started to reminisce 

about her family, her school,

and what the girl in the photograph most cared about.

 

It was just a few minutes’ distraction, to ease her fears,

neither of us anticipated the flood of sobbing tears.

 

 

Kieran Egan lives in Vancouver, Canada. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Quills (Canada), Literary Review of Canada, Dalhousie Review (Canada), High Window (UK), Orbis (UK), Raintown Review (USA), Envoi (UK), Shot Glass Journal (USA), Qwerty (Canada), Snapdragon (USA), The Antigonish Review (Canada), Acumen (UK), Canadian Quarterly and The Interpreter’s House (UK); also shortlisted for the John W. Bilsland Literary Award, 2017 and for the TLS Mick Imlah prize 2017.

February 19, 2018February 19, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: anxiety, Canada, childhood, creative, creativity, distraction, emotion, eyes, family, fear, flight, future, humanity, Kieran Egan, memory, past, photographs, poem, Poetry, school, tears, writing, youth Leave a comment

The Oblong Mirror – Adrian Slonaker

 

On one side

of the oblong mirror

framed in silver and peridot,

I am your woman.

You are my man.

We ride for hours in my cozy Packard

under Cassiopeia and the Little Bear, 

listening to staticky fados

and spot-off weather reports

while talking with touches.

It’s the way it should be,

it must be.

Or maybe you are my woman,

and I am your man,

as I piece together the shards,

the glimmers,

the nuances of the mirror’s other face.

 

 

Adrian Slonaker works as a copywriter and copy editor in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. Adrian’s poetry has appeared in Dodging the Rain, Red Fez, Amaryllis, The Remembered Arts Journal, Squawk Back and others.

January 25, 2018January 25, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: Adrian Slonaker, Canada, creative, creativity, face, frame, glimmers, hours, humanity, mirror, nuances, oblong, peridot, poem, Poetry, relationship, senses, shards, side, silver, stars, talk, writing Leave a comment

Ascending from Vilenica Cavern – Glen Sorestad

 

One hundred thirty-four stone steps

drag us into the somber underground.

It is so novel an act, we have no thought

of what lies ahead when the time

comes to return to the comfort of earth.

 

Here in Slovenia’s Karst region

this huge limestone cave awes the breath

from us as, step by step, we descend

from sunlit warmth to eight degrees —

a constant, day or night, year in or out.

 

In this well-used cavern at a location

that is not its lowest depth at all,

but a spacious room where music

is played and prayers are uttered,

we listen to a brass ensemble blow

bats right-side-up, with notes flying

into every rock niche, sliding up

and down stalactites and stalagmites,

reaching out and up, shivering

a thousand candles with delight.

 

Over flicker and sputter of tapers

poets declaim poems and bring

evening to a close. Now we must

ascend to dark Slovenian night.

One hundred thirty-four steps: the test.

 

Up from the underground we climb,

single file, a stream of souls spiralling

to an imagined heaven. Our first steps

identical to those of the descent,

but now steps enlarge and each leg

must somehow be lifted higher.

A cruel joke? Has someone altered

the step size while we were below?

At one hundred steps we huff

and wheeze, wanting to stop

and rest, but there is no stop,

no looking back on this ascent

from the underworld, just keep

our eyes on the climber ahead

and hope that person doesn’t stop

or falter because these steps

will not suffice for two. If one

person stops, then we all must.

 

The only sounds are footfall

on stone, the puff and gasp,

and the rustle of clothing.

Just when we think our hearts

will burst and our leaden legs

will not budge another step,

we are returned to earth.

Night is cool, a lighted path

leads us to food and wine.

 

Glen Sorestad is a Canadian poet whose work has appeared in publication in various parts of the world, has appeared in over 60 anthologies and textbooks, and has been translated into eight languages. Sorestad lives with his wife Sonia in Saskatoon on the northern plains.

May 25, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: breath, Canada, candles, climb, creativity, darkness, delight, earth, elements, Glen Sorestad, heaven, music, nature, night, poem, Poetry, rock, senses, time, travel, underground, world, writing Leave a comment

Walking – Allison Grayhurst

 

A grain I throw

in the water, floating, ready to

sink. I see you – thin as anyone

must be living on such an edge – tense

and tired of holding your breath. So many years –

a raging prophet, flailing your limbs

to keep the barnacles off, to keep the ones you love

close and to keep your mission in perfect purity.

 

These days the summer is dried spit on the pavement.

It opens my eyes to the struggle everywhere – pigeons

waiting for water, children running up the dry incline,

facing a bridge, the great restructuring.

 

You, riding the gilded wing – love is like the Earth’s dirt,

necessary, elemental, and its smell, saturated with memories.

I love you: Sometimes it is easy.

Sometimes I am a woman in God’s funnel cloud,

bending back to look, but seeing only storm.

 

Allison Grayhurst is a member of the League of Canadian Poets. Three times nominated for Sundress Publications “Best of the Net” 2015, she has over 950 poems published in over 400 international journals. She has twelve published books of poetry, seven collections, nine chapbooks, and a chapbook pending publication. She lives in Toronto with her family. She is a vegan. She also sculpts, working with clay. Learn more at www.allisongrayhurst.com.

March 26, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: Allison Grayhurst, bridge, Canada, creative, creativity, dirt, earth, elements, eyes, humanity, life, love, memory, nature, pigeons, poem, Poetry, storm, struggle, summer, tiredness, water, writing Leave a comment

Child Unconceived – Allison Grayhurst

 

Tomorrow may bring you nearer

            to me, but then it may cause

                        grief that no instinct nor love could

                                    rectify.

If I cannot form the dustgrain of your life

            in my womb, cannot carry

                        your limbs within my belly proud

                                    and drench my veins

with our combined blood –

(you and I merged for a time, guiltless,

            expressing the earthy essence of God

                        with each our individual heartbeats),

                                    then be damned my entrails

and this longing

                        that drives my impatient summer.

 

            When I see your face for the first time,

                        and your father and I behold your

                                    living smile, be sure

there will be a depth of welcome

            that no hardship could turn cold

                        nor ever diminish.

 

Allison Grayhurst is a member of the League of Canadian Poets. Three times nominated for Sundress Publications “Best of the Net” 2015, she has over 950 poems published in over 400 international journals. She has twelve published books of poetry, seven collections, nine chapbooks, and a chapbook pending publication. She lives in Toronto with her family. She is a vegan. She also sculpts, working with clay. Learn more at www.allisongrayhurst.com.

 

March 16, 2017March 16, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: Allison Grayhurst, blood, Canada, child, creative, creativity, family, future, grief, hardship, heartbeats, hope, instinct, life, love, poem, Poetry, sadness, time, veins, welcome, writing Leave a comment

The Time that Land Forgot – Ryan Quinn Flanagan

 

walking down by the plaza

the time that land forgot

walking in shoes and socks

and in a hurry

because everything closes:

the door, the laundromat,

the mind…

and everyone forgets

so I could hardly blame the land

for thinking itself an Olympic sized swimming pool

and no longer land

which made it very hard

to walk.

 

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his other half and mounds of snow. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Word Riot, In Between Hangovers, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.

February 4, 2017February 25, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: Canada, change, closing, confusion, creative, creativity, humanity, hurry, land, life, loss, memory, poem, Poetry, pool, rush, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, shoes, swimming, time, transformation, walking, writing Leave a comment

Sartre Building an Ant Farm Out of Company Sand – Ryan Quinn Flanagan

 

His library was impressive

but I could tell by the way that he

buttered his morning toast

that he was not well read.

 

Who gets up in the morning anyways

if they do not have to?

 

That was a flag right there.

 

And I could see

he had something against the Russians

because he would never look east,

not even for the sunrise,

it is little things like that.

 

People confuse language with communication.

 

What is NOT said by what is said

is often more important.

 

The minutia, the nuance…

like Sartre building an ant farm

out of company sand.

 

And he asked me to stay another night

and I told him I could not

because poison ivy is contagious.

 

And now

I am in bed

listening to the

rain.

 

Nodding off every so often

like the elderly do

on the subway.

 

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his other half and mounds of snow. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Word Riot, In Between Hangovers, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.

 

January 27, 2017February 25, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: Canada, change, communication, creative, humanity, ivy, language, life, literature, morning, nature, poem, Poetry, poison, rain, reflection, relationship, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Sartre, sleep, sunrise, writing Leave a comment

Cabin Fever Poem #437 – Ryan Quinn Flanagan

 

It was snowing on the snow

and the snow on the ground began

to resent the snow that was falling on it

to the point that when the new snow settled

with all the snow that came before

they formed an alliance against the new snow

that was still falling

or any other snow that still wanted

to fall that

season.

 

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his other half and mounds of snow. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Word Riot, In Between Hangovers, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.

 

January 19, 2017February 25, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: alliance, Canada, change, cold, creativity, falling, ground, landscape, nature, poem, Poetry, reflection, resentment, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, scenery, seasons, snow, thoughts, weather, writing Leave a comment