I recently went to Tanglewood to see the Boston Symphony perform Beethoven’s Ninth, and as I was laying on the lawn amidst a thousand other people, I noticed within different clusters of adults who were quietly and intently listening to the music, children dancing alone, each of them leaping and twirling and bowing to imaginary audiences. My fantasy was that I too was performing my own little personal ballet amidst a crowd of people who were really ignoring me, not just pretending to.

—Lee Anne

Impact

It doesn’t take much
to write a poem—
even less
to read one.

Whence comes the urge
for the bee
to the flower?
for the honey to crystallize?

In but a moment
without thought
it is realized,
and the silence
is broken.

It doesn’t take much
to strike a bell—
even less
to hear one.

Robert Grawi

 

There were many.
The crowded sky precludes the wish.
I loved but one;
The rest was gibberish.

Kathleen Thomas

old cornfields reach up through snow like bones in an enormous sugar bowl
and crows devour the daylight with dark oily feathers

there are no flowers but the bloom of our lips
no leaves but the opening green of your eyes

oh, I have not eaten but am still satisfied

Alicia Marie Howard

 

voids

in the absence of that
which you have never wanted
lay the holes
filled with secrets
little treasures
little songs
whose words
you will never
know the privilege
of forgetting.

normal