INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Bilall Maliqi
Duane Locke
Eddie Awusi
Silvia Scheibli
Amit Parmessur
Lyn Lifshin
Juan Hongi
Shutta Crum
Peycho Kanev
Fahredin Shehu
Lana Bella
Laszlo Slomovits
Abdulrahman M Abu- yaman
Elisavietta Ritchie
Michelle Bailat-Jones
Keith Moul
Aneek Chatterjee
Tom Evans
Robert Nisbet
Paul B. Roth
Alex Ferde
Alan Britt
Ali Znaidi
Running Cub
John Grey
Jennifer Burd
Fred Wolven
Helen Gyigya
Ann Arbor Review
is an independent
International Journal & ezine
Copyright (c) 2018
Francis Ferde
All rights revert back to each poet.
--editor / Southeastern Florida
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AAR history note: in print 1967 - 1980. Irregular publications 1980 - 2004. As ezine 2004 - present. Most of 51 years all together....
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staff:
Francis Ferde
Silver Grey Fox
Running Cub
Fred Wolven
Submissions via e-mail:
TWICE VISITED I OBSERVE NATURE’S BEST
When I least expect, in the middle of
the same little used gravel roadway
leading into the undeveloped
wild back Forty, there in front of me
barely some thirty feet away stands another
of Nature’s graceful creatures nearly
in the same spot as earlier my Florida
panther stood. In this delightful early
spring morning the lightly dark spotted
bobcat turns looking straight at me,
stopped dead in his/her space along
the east side of this pathway. Then
satisfied or not it lopes elegantly off
into the brush till out of my advancing
sight. At first I think it a panther,
perhaps a youngster as they have like
dark spots before maturing; but, as it
is fully adult-sized, it turns out to be a
Florida bobcat quite a bit larger than
the smaller ones populating Michigan
woodlots and streamside campsites.
Those are more mainly night prowlers
I have encountered and heard their cry.
And unlike its northern cousins this
one today, suddenly transfixed before
me, waits till having settled its gaze
upon me, like my fox of earlier days
or rather nights here in this southern
clime, thus turns away neither afraid
nor anxious just casually loping off
into the brush. As I make my way
back onto the far reaches of this
untraveled byway, I notice a larger
than usual dark chocolate colored
furred rabbit alongside another
stretch of a less used path though
he is too far afoot for us to connect
in more than my distant observation.
Moving around onto the poorly paved
asphalt I wonder if the bobcat, not
yet mine, would be again in view
as it, unlike the panther, is known
to frequent dumpsters for scraps and
thus come into closer human contact.
Surely, my anticipation is rewarded
as about 100 yards ahead of me this
creature is moving along the roadway
heading toward housing until it turns
and looking my way, notices me
and once again moves further east
into more dense woodlot growth.
Ah, surely there is something about
being out in Nature’s pathways
with my eyes open for this chance
encounter like frequent earlier
fox connections and my solitary
panther association must surely be
so much more than chance greetings.
How fortunate I am to be here today
as no doubt these visits are purposeful.
STANDING ALONGSIDE A POND
Standing here alongside a pond at the end of the
neighborhood
I wait quiet, barely breathing, looking out through the steam
rising off the still water. Now, letting my thoughts, my body relax,
I feel a light joy in my chest but sense an interruption that’s abrupt.
Why, in this peaceful scene, here, where I can walk unencumbered,
here, where I feel so quickly, so completely at home & not alone,
does my heart now start to feel heavy, tears drop from my eyes,
& I remember as vividly as I see what’s graphically in front
of me, here & now, being in December or maybe January,
at my father’s funeral, at his gravesite—the earth frozen,
the wind icy, no one talking. Then, I remember his dying
in the hospital room, such a strong man at that moment seemingly
helpless, & I alone in the hallway, unable to be with him. Then,
my memory shifts to his mother’s funeral & seeing Dad break down
& cry, childlike, his head resting on my wife’s shoulder.
Then I didn’t reach out, & he needed me more, more than I ever knew.
Perhaps, here now, beside this pond, he knows I am connected with him.
Fred Wolven, Southeastern Florida