Tomorrow they will leave;
already the scouts are searching.
This old queen has gathered her followers,
split from the hive and its new queen,
making the fraught commitment
to an unknown home.

Things are not as they should be:
the grass gone coarse
and sharp as wire
the horizon a haze of smoke
threatening to choke
our lungs in past neglect.
by Ryan Keating A dance in medias res Our hands and feet together Cast identical shadows Of union and uniqueness In overlapping circles By common light refracted Onto the floor…
He startles and flies—
but for a moment, a pool of warmth,
a pool of stillnesss, for a moment
When the dream awakens & the sleeping coma
is no longer present, the self finds an awakening –
its love revelation
Overnight,
new toadstools
shoulder through
sodden grass
the way sorrows
emerge,
Praise the cicadas, the hydrangeas blown
against the bathroom window; praise
the wind-chimes, the whisper-press
of pages in my hand; the poem,
however it descends.