I write to you, for the first time,
after the year’s long ache.

The back door was my savior, leading me
To jade insertions of a picket fence

It came first to the waters. The shores thicken, nothing like life.

When diverse colours in a forest blend
the greens like olive emerald lime & jade

When our fathers
approached your
holy Mountain,
brushing a blade
of grass meant death.

by Ace Boggess No cable TV. No internet.No power this morning. Gas leak, gas leak, gas leak—how the walls begin to speakthrough their O face, holy. Foundation digs itself deeperunderneath…

“I have bruises too, a smattering, and I know
it doesn’t make sense”

“Thick with the unseen,
the autumn air quivers
with angels.”

by Laura Reece Hogan The time of April ticks onward outside, on the hills, in the chaparral,under sagebrush, an awakening from the ashes and the barren ache. The swallows return,…