INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Robert Nisbet
Alan Britt
Jennifer Burd
Michelle Bailat-Jones
Running Cub
Elisavietta Ritchie
Odimegwu Onwumere
Laszlo Slomovits
Lyn Lifshin
Ramesh Dohan
Silvia Scheibli
Alex Ferde
Richard Kostelanetz
Richard Gartee
Irsa Ruci
Duane Locke
Janet Buck
Nahshon Cook
Jim Daniels
Fred Wolven
Peycho Kanev
Ali Znaidi
Sunday Eyitayo Michael
Karyn M. Bruce
Arsim Halili
Engjell I. Berisha
Muharrem Kurti
Ann Arbor Review
is an independent
International Journal & ezine
Copyright (c) 2015
Francis Ferde
All rights revert back to each poet.
--editor / Southeastern Florida
------------------------------------------------
AAR history note: in print 1967 - 1980. Irregular publications 1980 - 2004. As ezine 2004 - present. Most of 48 years all together....
------------------------------------------------
Ann Arbor Review
is an independent
International Journal & ezine
Copyright (c) 2014
Francis Ferde
All rights revert back to each poet.
--editor / Southeastern Florida
------------------------------------------------
staff:
Francis Ferde
Silver Grey Fox
Running cub
Fred Wolven
Submissions via e-mail:
IN A TIME BEFORE THIS DAY
for Ken,
brother, remembering…
There must have been a moment in time past
when no one walked where we now do,
long before any of our ancestors arrived,
when creatures other than us moved here.
And now standing in the light of a crescent moon,
I remember walking alongside the spirit pond,
feeling the presence of you as I felt a tear roll
down my cheek, wondering if our Celtic
forefathers could see better by candlelight,
if native tribesmen knew more or just how,
when an eagle, rather than yesterday’s buzzard,
dipped and drifted on the currents, never
seeming to rest on anything, tree, earth or ocean,
whether the fish swimming in the stream
and the butterfly floating in the meadow,
moving from one petal, one flower, to another,
were signs of some of the wisdom of ages
or merely marks of natural beauty before us.
I may never understand the way of the dog,
nor feel the cry of the cat in the manner
of anything other than as in learning an alphabet,
but I suspect whatever spins in that black hole
is not unlike what moves from limb to limb
in these trees or rustles between the blades
of grass next to all too still waters near where
I now stand. Yet, on this day we stand near
the edge, always on the front of what is moving
this way, looking toward the future, bright and clear.
And somehow, a light shinning true and clear
enables one to adjust, then refocus one’s vision,
one’s line of sight, of thought, whether in day
or night until the mind clears and memory remains.
MEMORIES GROW LIKE WILDFLOWERS IN SPRING
for Paul, remembering your
father…
Yes, I remember as I suppose you do now.
The new flowering spring and summer plants,
first dandelions, then Queen-Anne’s Lace,
various wild roses, even very tiny Blue Bells,
and then Grandma’s geraniums, several times
tossed out, offer learning I was slow to enjoy.
These days of our lives, like the growing
morning sun has a way of spreading
as wildflowers in a meadow or water in a
spring-fed rushing brook. Some times in
memory one walks the same trail nearly
like in time past. And, contrary to song,
a kiss is never quite just a kiss, a cheek
more than soft, a touch always leaving
a mark. One’s future is part of a past.
Living is writing an autobiography;
a developing historical document with
many chapters, some sweet, others not,
yet memories when recorded preserve
helping one retain what’s been sifted
for later not unlike Grandma’s canning.
What was, being part of what is, is not
meant for tossing on the heap like
Roethke’s hag-tossed plant nor
Frost’s road already once traveled.
The where one’s been brings us to
exactly, somehow, the here and now.
Not a bad place to be no matter what.
Fred Wolven, Southeastern Florida