INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

Shutta Crum
Paul B. Roth
Laszlo Slomovits
Duane Locke
Felino Soriano
Chris Lord
Jerry Blanton
Carmen Firan
Amelia Makinano
Connie Stadler
Fred Wolven
Duane Locke
Tolu Ogunlesi
Running Cub
Joanie Freeman
Gerald Clark
Karyn M. Wolven
Holly Day
Dike Okoro
Fred Wolven

Shortly after sunrise in the middle of June
I walk into the field heading toward the small creek.
Slowly moving through the clumps of weeds,
I notice the delicate beauty of Queen-Anne’s Lace,
the occasional young daisies, their dainty petals
small, pointed and opening in the early sunlight.

When Roethke walked in the fields outside his hometown,
he reached deep into the muck of many summer rains,
stretching to capture the essence, the very art
of each plant along his way.  This morning as
I make my path through this meadow-like area,
I feel the very pulse of his Michigan world, now
also my own, in the strands of grasses underfoot,
in the color of bluebells and smell of creek side moss. 

Whatever it is, whatever it takes to fashion,
to gather as possession, however momentarily,
I find, take, briefly borrowing, and then seek to return
whether in spoken word or in poetic image and line.
To absorb and remit, to garner, comprehend and
give back out remains a wonder, oft-times nearly a puzzle,
for my sighting is minuscule in contrast to the masters
whether on canvas, in photographs or in verse.
For a tiny moment, I seek to breathe in and out fresh air.

Fred Wolven, South Florida