by Jane Lovell
Early morning air
slice-cold below total blue,
and he’s sitting, bold as a stray, on the lawn
tasting the breeze, absorbing every ripple
with those planetary ears.
Time passes only in the shiver of leaves,
a solitary beetle ticking in the sage.
In a heartbeat, he’s away to the skyline
unzipping the grass and wind-chased verge
giving us the whole month of May
stretched languorously through centuries,
myrtle, mint and purple betony,
twirling her skirts
shaking her hair in the wind,
gathering speed as if in huntdown,
as if pinning the lawn with his longbone feet,
bursting through streamers of birdsong,
scattering like confetti the trimmings
of finch and sparrow,
carrying his ears so beautifully,
so beautifully,
all the way to the furthest corner
where he pauses,
resting on his haunches
in the lee of a budding lilac
and breathes,
breathes the whole sky:
invisible worlds,
distant constellations,
pared-down moon.
Unburied
by Julianne Lutz Warren
I am amazed
by what is unburied
as the snow melts
after all those months,
though I knew it was there
all along.
A white house,
a silver trash can,
footprints from December.
Remember when
you plunged
into the woods
to feel the
hard curve
of a warm body
who had slept
there that night,
a mold of ice
shaped like
a young moose?
Miss Rossetti’s Highgate Lodger
by Beth McDonough
Meta bourneti
In goblin gloom, she scuttles, spins
lines to weave through
this bleak midwinter,
somewhere between heart’s
chill and death.
Under the Egyptian Avenue,
she crafts roundels, laced
with pheromone. Daily, she’s
driven to fabricate, fix – catch
the unwary. At night
she swallows it all.
Yet, deep in her dark
she throws another line.
Spiderlings, desperate for light
open undreamed of eyes.
Nest
by Char March
to snuggle to coorie doon to nestle.
a half-world of care.
a gowpen of shoogling eggs
roofed by warm breast.
a weaving of twigs.
eaves studded with river-mud huts.
a precariousness in wind.
a responsibility of worms, sand eels, gnats.
a rock ledge of ten thousand screams.
the heart of a hedge.
full stops in winter branches
each a basket of hope.
In Gaza Zoo
by Dave Hubble
In Gaza Zoo,
there are no zebras;
the occupiers’ edicts
forbid the import of exotic species
and slowly, the exhibits
dwindle to taxidermy.
But even in Palestine,
kids know what should be on display;
to comply, keepers paint stripes on white donkeys
and children ride upon their backs,
a wire-fenced pleasure-beach,
parading until,
as the gates clang shut,
feral cats emerge
to yawn and stretch
next to the worn-out animals.
elephant song
by Gerry Boland
there she is again
hanging about our grand piano
it’s the ivory that draws her
the sadness of it
compelling her to tinkle trinkle
on those bleak teeth
she’s playing a lament
for her brothers and sisters
her great grey ancestors
what’s surprising is
the delicacy of touch
the trunk softly landing
on our grand colonial piano
Poet Biographies
Jane Lovell is the Poetry Society Stanza Rep for Warwickshire. She has had work published in a variety of journals including Mslexia, Poetry Wales, Envoi, the North, Dark Mountain and New Welsh Review and is a regular contributor to Ink, Sweat and Tears and Agenda. Her work is steeped in natural history, science, folklore, the ‘black’ and the bizarre but is, essentially, poetry that reflects man’s relationship with nature. Jane has recently won the Flambard Prize.
Julianne Lutz Warren is author of Aldo Leopold’s Odyssey. This book unfolds the journey of this twentieth-century American ecological thinker and author of best-selling A Sand County Almanac towards his ethical vision of land health, coextensive with Earth’s ecosphere. Julianne has also published a variety of creative writings expanding on that vision that entertain possibilities for authentic hope and generativity in what might be called the “Anthropocene.” Julianne formerly taught in environmental studies at New York University where she was a recipient of a 2013 Martin Luther King, Jr. Faculty Research Award for her work in the climate justice movement. She has since been named a Senior Scholar and Fellow at the Center for Humans and Nature.
Beth McDonough first trained in Silversmithing, and finds poems swimming in the Tay and walking and foraging nearby. Often writing of a maternal experience of disability, she is currently Writer in Residence at Dundee Contemporary Arts. A poetry duet collection (with Ruth Aylett) will be published in May.
Char March is an award-winning poet and playwright. She wrote ‘Nest’ as a result of being Writer-in-Residence for the Pennine Watershed. She currently has a wren building a nest from dead oak leaves and moss in her allotment shed.
When not writing, Dave Hubble is an ecologist and he aims to bring his scientific and environmental background into his poems. He has been published in places such as Ink, Sweat & Tears and Fair Acre Press’ ‘Maligned Species’ project. His first collection is Subduction Zone (2014).” He can be found at davehubble.wordpress.com/
Gerry Boland is a poet and author. He was born and lived for much of his life in Dublin and moved to north Roscommon in 1999. His first collection of poems, Watching Clouds, was published by Doghouse Books in 2011, and his second, In the Space Between (Arlen House) appeared in January 2016.
