To Travel
To travel
Is to find a home.
Or complete a goal.
Maybe just for fun
Because traveling is for everyone.
To travel
Japan.
With its exotic culture
Hawaii.
With its climate
Las Vegas.
The Big City.
China’s past.
Iceland lights.
Australia’s critters.
Places to go.
Monuments to see
I want it all
To travel.
—Joseph Rocco Goldberg (12 years)
To the Question
To the question,
“What happened to you?”
a voice said,
in the garden,
“I merged into oneness.
All division,
all drama
fell away,
along with
all else
unnecessary.
Enveloped in
light,
soothed in song,
this is the way
to carry on.
Enveloped in light,
soothed in song,
this is how I carry on.
Enveloped in light,
soothed in song,
we elegantly
in peace
as one
carry on.”
—Christopher Porpora
Encounters
If it’s there, because she was here,
then her fragrance lingers, as a given
when such things occur.
Even if you no longer call her name,
the notion of lingering cannot be overlooked.
She is seen now as being alone even when she isn’t,
even when she does not want to be,
so her presence because of absence is palpable.
Where she is not can be accounted for,
even if variable, her motions.
Who’s keeping count of all those places?
Not me. At least, not any more.
I have a photograph, more than just a souvenir,
her fragrance, one earring she must know she left behind.
The framed picture on a shelf, eye level
if you are standing nearby, its prominence
gaining in importance the longer the distance
between then and now. The momentum
of where she is, certain to become a memory
when you are elsewhere, well into the future
when you write all this down, in a dimming light,
of course. Pen or pencil, whichever is nearest at hand.
—Robert Harlow
Riverside Reverie
The pebbles of another shore
swell against my skin
as if they were my own
an eternal compass
pieces in the gears
there’s no rust there
life itself curls around you
cold like a whip
the sudden kiss of wind
you walk, so as to talk
because it rhymes.
—Tom di Mino
The Anniversary of Sandy Hook
December 14, 2012
Behold the sky
Weeping angels hold their eyes
Tears as heavy as spent shells.
—Daniel W. Brown
What Praying Mantis & We Need
In yellow passion fruit pulp-colored
field, I flung my thin green body
to blade of grass cradling most
light. My front legs leapt to last
orb before sundown. I closed
my eyes, absorbed the warmth.
Big shadow of me disappeared.
I rested on red barn door. Did you
bathe in sunlight as I did? Did you
lie in slim lit corner of the field, lift
your arms, embrace rays as you do
a lover? Arrival of moon, I lie in
rawness of sound of crickets, scatting
of toads in pond. Now, lightning zigzags
white in sky. Gone diamond winged fireflies.
Speckled sunlight webbing, we need.
—Jerrice J. Baptiste
This article appears in January 2025.
