SQUALLING

I.
The storm finally erupts, torrents tumbling
down roofs into patios, streaming down the street.
Lightning shreds the sky, immediate thunder,
the rain blowing in waves across the Carib sky.

Quick currents rivers rise in these calles,
eddying with leaves & trash.
Black waters strong & rancid seep through wooden
dikes wedged in doorways, seep through tiled floors.

A dappled hackney pulls a scrap-wood wagon
through hub-deep water, still rising, still swirling
& disappears into the rain undecipherable from
solid grey clouds from the churning sea.

II.
After two hours the downpour lessens, the booming
thunder further asea.
Pallid sunset bleeds through a tear in the clouds.
The river recedes, yet whirling yet rushing
towards the Caribbean.

III.
& with this new night, a softer rain falls.

Editor’s Note: The poet paints a series of pictures with words to create an experience of squalling in a reader’s mind. The last line brings the calm after the storm home.

Lorraine Caputo is a poet, translator, and travel writer. Her works appear in over 200 journals on six continents; and 14 chapbooks of poetry – including On Galápagos Shores (dancing girl press, 2019). She also authors travel narratives, articles, and guidebooks. She travels through Latin America, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth.

Unimagined Possibilities

Eyes focus on dust motes, yellow swirls
xxxxxhover, animal smells in the air.
My cousins soar between hay bales,
xxxxxexcitement crackles with fear.
Voices loud, mouths wide, leg scratches,
xxxxxstill we chase and scream.
Shoes full of hay stems never slow us
xxxxxdown as over the bales we fly.
Games done, we empty socks and pockets
xxxxxof dried grass, brush each other off.
A tidy for the youngest, a glance around the barn,
xxxxxready for departure.
Oblivious to the black-cloaked figures, scythes
xxxxxraised, who haunt our play.
Death lurks overhead; rusted bale claw held
xxxxxby a tattered rope.
Injury loiters by the open end of the barn,
xxxxxa two-floor drop into a manure pile.
Mortality dallies in the hay mows, a plunge
xxxxxto mangers or stone floors.
We are children, oblivious to grim possibilities
xxxxxskulking around the cows.
Back up the hill to our parents, enjoying
xxxxxgin and tonics in the late afternoon.
We leave the barn reapers to their dark pleasures
xxxxxas we escape the possibilities again.

Editor’s Note: This childhood narrative is sweet yet filled with dangerous possibilities.  The innocent childhood games at twilight, away from parental oversight, are often tinged with danger. It is a miracle that most of us emerge without any harm. The vivid descriptions in this poem bring this barn scene to life.

Susan J. Wurtzburg is a retired academic and lives in Hawai‘i. She writes and runs her editing business (Sandy Dog Books LLC), in between water sports, hiking, and socializing online, while she waits for the pandemic to diminish. Susan’s poetry has appeared in the Hawaii Pacific Review, Poetry and Covid, Quince Magazine, and the Rat’s Ass Review.

In Darkness

Migrating birds
cross the disc
of the full moon,
silhouettes flitting
on a white screen,
like moths caught
in a searchlight beam.

But a moonsworth
is only a fragment of sky,
the visible just an inkling
of all that moves
in darkness.

Coyote, venerable dignitary
of the country of night,
swaggers past me
on his nightly patrol.

A family of mule deer,
antlers moon-silvered,
browses on dried grasses,
the old buck
keeping an eye
on the interloper.

A great horned owl
looms high
in the scaffolding
of a dead cottonwood,
scrutinizing all.

What I know is of little use here.
Furless and featherless,
I’ve forgotten the nocturnal
language of shadows,
the song of bare branches
as they fracture the moon.

Editor’s Notes:

The rich imagery of the dark nights and the moon fills this poem with a melancholy tone, and the last stanza cinches all those images into the futility of human knowledge. The assonance in almost every stanza is captivating.

Lois Levinson is the author of one book of poems, Before It All Vanishes, and a chapbook, Crane Dance, both published by Finishing Line Press.  Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Canary Journal, Global Poemic, Gyroscope, The Carolina Quarterly, The MacGuffin, Cloudbank and other journals. She lives in Denver, Colorado where she is quarantining, birding and working on her second book.