Issue No. 13

AVOCET The Weekly

Issue No. 13 | March 13 - 2013

“Nature, the manifestation of divinity.” - Joseph Campbell

Weekly Avocet - Issue No. 13

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Early Morning, Winter

Blinding snow swirls

under the yellow glow

of a lonely streetlamp

as northeasterly wind

gusts bank uneven drifts

across quiet landscape,

transform garden rocks

into woodland creatures

motionless like a poised

frog at a pond’s edge

in late June. Hours later

I begin the ritual-heavy

lifting and throwing

until I stand the shovel

in the crusty mounds,

gaze at crisscross

prints of a cottontail

intersected by those

of a tabby, wonder

by how many minutes

they missed one another.

Jim [email protected]

“A flower blossoms for its own joy.” - Oscar Wilde

www.avocetreview.com

mailto:[email protected]


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The Mix

The snow on boughs like Hokusai Outlines the cedar’s restless waves

A life that never stops to sleep Within the folds of winter’s deep

A force that ice cannot enslave The painter’s brush is never dry

James F. Gaines [email protected]

“The earth laughs in flowers.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Snow Terraces

Snow folds through my yard blown by a furling wind,freezing all inside it.Sidewise, crystals slide like sand, scour the land,cut new hills and valleys. Through windows, my eyes search blindlythese flying sheets of wind,seek streetlights which nightly beaconpeace in a violent world. In thrall for a time to phantoms I chase,I seek your voice, its cadenceheard once, remembered now—sound for warrior whose breasts give milk. For a moment I hear your words as you could mean them, and love with you a woman from Soweto, and tear up marigolds with your brown hands. Searching anew, I see you in snows terracing,curved by a force they cannot withstand,etched jagged as shale, crumbled by touch,brittle, delicate, predicated by wind’s refrainraging down from your outpost of love. for Audre Lorde

Colleen [email protected]




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Winter in Hawaii

Winter in Hawaii?

Oh, yes it can get cold here.

Not that one needs a parka,

but a sweater, jacket, or layer of clothes,

for sure.

And the ocean?

Brr.

But, the surfers don›t seem to mind.

They catch the waves in wet suits,

or just swimming trunks and bare feet

clinging to surf boards.

The birds don›t even notice.

They chirp and flutter and fly away

singing joy to the world

knowing warm sunshine is just moments away.

Winter in Hawaii?

Who cares?

Stuart Watkins [email protected]

“Poetry can keep life itself alive. You can endure almost anything as long as you can sing about it.” - James Wright



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Wintertime High

The prickly crystals crunch

As my warm-hearted hand breaches Earth’s exterior

My system flickers on

Like the candle lights of an endless hallway

An endless beeping

Marks the mountains upside down

More snow pellets assault my doubts

Perhaps they are God’s liberating force

A sculpture so defined and so hard

Was once a tasteless, soft powder dissolving

Recharged, I plough through

The all layers of the land

I discharge the finely crafted specimen

Only to be smacked in return

A cold ache numbs my reddish cheek

The electrifying powder. First published in Poetry Scotland

Allen Qing [email protected]

“The best mood-enhancing therapy might be found in one’s own yard. The study found that the presence of flowers triggers happiness and feelings of satisfaction.” – Ginnie Roeglin, Publisher of the Costco connections magazine, March 2013 issue




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Elegy of Snow

once upon a time

christmas used to be all in white

although the winter was colder

and more or less longer

snow has long disappeared from here

since it melted into seawater

of tears and sweat

both so thickly salty

instead of piling chubby snowmen

and playing snow fights with our children

now we recall summer clouds, reed flowers

bursting cotton or rolling dandelions

they are no less fluffy or white than the snow

but in here we have white christmas no more

Changming Yuan [email protected]

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that receives it.”-Edith Wharton




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Wild Swans in March

On the banks of the Great River, wild swans sleep peacefully against each other, slumber and dream as one body, shift their weight, alert to coded danger, a pebble moved, a stone misplaced, they stir— unsheathe their necks from silken down, stretch as dancers do in arabesque, hesitate a moment before they leave solid ground, slip with heavy grace into flowing water, never glancing, as we do at the river’s backward wake, the last remnants of the day left behind, a muted exclamation point into a universe, newly exploding. Karen [email protected]

“Writing is a combination of intangible creative fantasy and appallingly hard work.” -Anthony Powell

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The March 2013 issue of the Costco Connection magazine, has many good,

short articles on flower power, “birding” being the fastest growing hobby in America, and excellent nature quotes. If you get a chance, pick it up. It’s easy reading and will help you get ready for the coming Spring.

We hope we provoked you to thought. We hope you leave having experienced a complete emotional response to the poetry. I want to thank our poets for sharing their work with us this week.

“Thank you, dear reader!”

Be well, see you next Wednesday

Charles PortolanoEditor of the Avocet, a Journal of Nature [email protected]

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winter-themed poetry for now.

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Issue No. 13