An orchard has many seasons, each tree its sequence of life following a dormancy masked as death.

And now I find myself between two deaths, longing to live more fully, awaiting a body not discarded but renewed.

I’m sitting next to a man missing the tips of his ears like they were bitten or ripped off he can’t see too good either...

I start where I was borne out of my sadness, the Maine coast where the veil was lifted and I could suddenly see again...

If bodies are more than spirit vessels, what then was the bird: Messenger? Message?

let my poetry live out loud among starfish and coral,

Each day in between my shadow blurs the water’s edge, a raven perched in my throat

Nothing is chosen that weighs them down -- no over-stuffed closets, no unrealistic promises

by Justin Lacour If today for work i step into this hospital room where a stranger is dying and the television is on no one is watching...

by Karen Gookin Those nudges make more sense now, seem real and recognizable— as clear as the red-winged blackbirds following alongside...

The mist of morning shreds in streams Revealing hints of sky...

I can hold it, cup its six pounds in my hands, feel its rough, hard mass and trace the hewn path

by Ada A. Ohnezeit I look upon the Autumn scene And leaves that only yesterday were green With vividness of Summer's sheen – Now faded,...

An oak stands sentinel over this haven, Disrupting the old fence, tangled wire, Moss green posts, sunken reminders

Had I not met the souls who gather at Miriam’s Kitchen each morning for a meal, I could not have shared poems that sway like sensate trees

I am full of bewildering awakenings. I stare at the faraway collision of tree-blur where every moment vanishes. I hear a stirring.

The stippled trunk curves left, almost as thin as my wrist, its branches bowing toward the rain-matted grass.

Diamond-bright, Jupiter rides the moon’s crown, Distant harmony describing the immeasurable,

And years from now, she’ll tell herself this was a moment—a moment

your plum-rounded face and your plum- darkened pupils, soft