Raising awareness of global concerns through a marriage of the arts.
I thank you God.
For even one to disadvantage others,
please forgive me, God.
With every one I praise you immanent in all creation, God.
For all who wish to animate our planet well, i ask your help oh God,
And that includes myself.
flit of a bird
through morning prayers.
a sigh of wings
Diana Web – Leatherhead, Surrey, UK
By Tish Davis
Concord Township, Ohio
A local artist sketches him in full Indian headdress. At the entrance to the trail, two painters read the short biography about Bill Moose before setting up their easels along the north rim. A viewing platform overlooks the ravine where brown leaves ferment along the bank of a stream. Glacial erratics are scattered along the bottom— fallen warriors on flat limestone. Indian Run Falls, heard but not seen. Voices in the abandoned village.
I’m a few steps behind carrying my camera. The sunlight is filtered by Maple, Blue Ash, Shagbark Hickory. An occasional opening exposes roots, granules of dirt freshly creased. I slip off trail and follow the sounds to the secluded basin where Indian Bill once washed. I remember the biography that I‘ve read: He slept outdoors every night during the summer and once a month in the winter with only a blanket for cover.
Moss covered formations cling to the ledges. Flowering rockcress juts out into space. The camera, now wrapped, hidden under a giant sycamore; the light in the spray against my skin.
leaves in a shallow pool
paragraphs of fine print
tacked under glass
*First published in Frogpond, 32:1 (Winter)
Ref: https://uahistorytrail.upperarlingtonoh.gov/bill-moose-memorial/
By Reid Hepworth
Sidney, British Columbia, Canada
People sometimes mistake innocence with ignorance. It certainly isn’t that way with my brother.
Today, my brother got a bee in his bonnet and won’t let it rest. He keeps bringing it up. It doesn’t take long, what with his incessant harping and a healthy dose of reality checking, to motivate me to start listening.
In no time, he has a bunch of us agreeing to give up our afterschool hours and weekends to help him. Armed with clipboards and a handmade petition, we knock on neighbourhood doors, and ask for signatures. Most of the adults we talk to just smile at us, or ask if our parents know what we’re doing, but some actually sign our petition. This motivates us to continue.
A few weeks later, my brother drafts a letter to Prime Minister, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, puts it in an envelope with the signatures, seals it and gives it to my parents to mail.
Much later, he receives a letter back.
locking hands
we sit silently in the middle
of our street
a small group of children
wanting to change the world
By Alan Peat
Biddulph, Staffordshire, United Kingdom
This morning I awoke with an ocean inside me. The faint cries of gulls gave the game away; that, and a gentle lapping at the back of my throat.
With every breath, salt air filled the room; shoals of fish swam in my belly; sharks slept; the calls of whales boomed deep within me; kelp waved behind my eyes.
All was well until lunch when the cramps began. By evening, I had no choice but to take a taxi to the hospital.
The doctors ummed and ahed; the nurses frowned. I guess they’d never seen a man with an ocean inside him before. The senior doctor buzzed for a surgeon who had once saved a mermaid. Immediately upon seeing me, he plunged his arm deep into my mouth and down until I felt his bony fingers clasping inside me.
He pulled out a child’s ball, rubbed by the sand until it was as white as an eye. He pulled out plastic bricks, a spoon, a hosepipe, credit cards, a beat-up bath duck. Then, quite suddenly, he raised his scalpel and sliced me open. A wave of water bottles spilled upon the floor. Puffins circled.
“Now,” he shouted, and with all the medical staff assisting, a net was hauled from the deepest part of me; a net so large that it stretched from my ocean to an ebbing time: before ice retreated back up mountains; before junk fell from the vacuum above; before we all ran headlong into waves.
day moon . . .
footprints still
in its dust
Frogpond 44:3 Autumn 2021
By Pravat Kumar Padhy
India
no chirps
in barren trees
I grieve
for the lost treasure
of mountain green
By Roberta Beach Jacobson
Indianola, Iowa, USA
straying far
from the truth-be-told
cracks in democracy
Anju Kishore
Bengaluru, India
cracked soil
this thirst for more
high-rises
By Anju Kishore
Bengaluru, India
pancake moon
stories the beggar feeds
her toddler
Published in THF Haiku Dialogue 3/23
By Barbara Anna Gaiardoni
Verona, Italy
March 8 . . .
a timeless pink protest
forged in talented tears
by Neal Whitman
Pacific Grove, CA, USA
In a poem the Soviets pre-dated 1916
Akhmatova wrote no one would want
to listen to songs now that
the bitter days foretold had arrived.
Fifty years later in 1966 Frank Sinatra quipped
that the world would be a dreary place
without a song. He mused that
it gives you something to think about.
Actually, the Russian poet penned her poem
in 1917 after the Bolshevik revolution.
That gives you something to think about, yes?
Gary LeBel
Gary LeBel
Gary LeBel
By Tish Davis
Concord Township, Ohio, USA
The Ohio is the most beautiful river on earth. Its current gentle, waters clear, and bosom smooth and unbroken by rocks and rapids, a single instance only excepted. 1
the muted river—
a towboat nudging a coal barge
upstream
the passenger in the back
of a company van
jackhammers
on the driver’s side
cracking concrete—
the road crew boss
signals with his hands
In a gravel lot not far from the road, workers change into noontime poses. Some have removed their shirts. One rubs his biceps; another twists the cloth to wring out the sweat. Some of the younger men gather around a standpipe and splash water on their faces.
As the van starts the climb up and out of the valley, the passenger rehearses her presentation. Soon they will arrive at their plant in Ironton where one of the Vice Presidents will announce that it is closing. Remembering the train derailment in East Palestine, she reminds herself not to over wash her hands, and to politely pass, if offered coffee.
graffiti on rail cars
painted with a thick brush
locomotives
linked together
drawing a dark line
There’s no caboose. The train simply ends retracting the line that separates the road from the river.
Now the passenger fumbles for the switch that lowers the glass. There isn’t one that will tint the river blue . . ..
__
Peggy Hale Bilbro
Alabama, USA
Day after day we hear the news: the hottest July ever; the once every thousand years flood; Canada on fire; the Gulf Stream collapsing; the fortieth day of temperatures above 110°; arctic ice melting; sea levels rising; coastal areas threatened. I don’t even know what to say. If you can’t see it, I can’t convince you with my words.
forest bathing
the smell of smoke
drifts by
Published in contemporary haibun online Issue 19:3, 2023
By Peggy Bilbro
Alabama, USA
mixed
into the chili
jalapeños
the special flavor
that gives spice to life
Our favorite Mexican restaurant. The best flautas and quesadillas, not to mention the sizzling fresh fajitas. Their margaritas weren’t the best, but the food and the servers over-rode that deficit. They were the sweetest employees who always recognized us, and loved to speak Spanish with me, as a retired Spanish teacher. Then we noticed that one by one they started disappearing. Our favorite server was no longer there to greet us. The young fellow at the cash register had disappeared. The motherly lady who always sat in the first booth and calculated all the accounts and especially loved to chat with me in Spanish was missing at our next visit. Then the flautas and fajitas just weren’t up to their usual quality. The next time we were there the teen age girl at the cash register confided in us that our state’s aggressive anti-immigrant policies had caused most of her family to flee. Her father who had established this delightful ethnic corner. Her mother who kept track of the accounts. Her brothers who were the charming waiters and excellent chefs. All had found themselves unwelcome in this city and state that they had contributed their heart and heritage to. The young lady, U.S. born, was determined to stay and finish her education though even she felt threatened. So many have fled, and we are the poorer for it.
swallows
immigrating
for them no wall
if only
we could fly
By Peggy Hale Bilbro
Alabama, USA
our sins
unto the seventh generation
we watch
the rivers run dry
and do nothing
By Željko Vojković
Vis, Croatia
By Richard Grahn
Evanston, Illinois, USA
Energy.gov lists the following resources as the primary sources of energy on Earth:
Nuclear energy, fossil energy (oil, coal and natural gas), and renewable energy (wind, solar, geothermal and hydropower).
The following are listed as clean energy (solar, wind, water, geothermal, biomass and nuclear). (I have to beg the difference where nuclear is concerned because spent fuel rods need to be stored somewhere and whenever a power plant has a disaster, the surrounding area becomes a toxic wasteland.
It’s also interesting that the fact that fossil fuels are “dirty” is conveniently omitted.
By Richard Grahn
Evanston, Illinois, USA
“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.” Dwight D. Eisenhower.
I will add that war is distracting humanity from solving the real problems we face on this planet as a species. It is the antithesis of collaboration, something we desperately need in order to be able to share this planet in a sustainable fashion.