The Air of the Present For his timeless remark, finally said, My feet

ache
Robert Parham
At attention for your absolute genius. Maybe
I was trying to remember some important quip
She was his muse, so to speak, and this place
By a famous person that rang of wisdom
Which took me in on Sundays deserved respect.
Or was prescient, so obviously so that even

In retrospect we feel brief awe in having

bumped Outside, the crows gather among trees nearby,

Into what must be an immemorial aphorism. Their number growing for a reason surely;

Only yesterday the newborn cardinals vanished,

But, over and over, as the brain muscle flexed, Then the gorgeous pair whose nest grew

The words of Uncle Lemuel recurred, indeed, In the crape myrtle before the white blossoms

Several of them. Watching Wheel of Fortune,

Beer in hand, he cleared his throat from that Surged so the slender limbs sagged with the
place burden

Which only seemed disengaged: Not mental Of summer in their arms. Today the dogs found
giants.
The bones of a hawk-stripped squirrel. I
grabbed

My uncle came from a place where horse sense The jaws of the black Lab who fought to keep,
ruled,
To swallow, forced them open, made her cough
Where holes in ones shoes was hard but fair,

But failing to wear any shoe where the hard

stones,
The sharp glass, the brutal edge of the real
world bruised
Was That kind of man bleeds stupid.
The treasure sure to choke the sweet beast
Gone savage with the blood tapped beyond
Todays breath I forced shut until the body
Demanded reversal, rejection so immediate

It was the gagged song of the present.

My aunt, never undone, once stared at him,
waiting perhaps
Leave NoTrace

Maggie Dietz

No gate, no main entrance, no ticket, no ranger. Not far

From where Frost once raised chickens and ill-fated children, near
Where the Old Mans glacier-hewn face though bolstered to
Its godlike roost by rods and turnbuckles slid
From our fledgling millennium into oblivion,
You can cross the Pemigewasset on a bridge
Then, compass-north but southbound on the trail,
Ascend an old grassed-over logging road
To the carved out collarbone of Cannon Mountain.

This is Lonesome Lake. How you go from here

Depends on why youve come: to out a spruce grouse
Or listen for the whee-ah of a Bicknells thrush;
For a breezy picnic or a midlife crisis,
A long haul or a day trip to the cascades.

Bring for your purposes only what you need:

Salmon jerky, a canteen or Camelbak,
Band-aids, a ratchet and strap, a roughed-up heart.
Bring sunblock, a notebook, the Beatles, Beyonc,
The Bhagavad Gita, a Bible, some Hitchens or Hegel.

However long you stay you must leave nothing.

No matchbox, no pole-tip, no grommet, no cup.
Carry in and out your Clif Bar wrappers,
Your fear of bears and storms. Keep the rage
You thought youd push through your boot-soles into the stones,
The grief you hoped to shed. If you think youve changed,
Take all your changes with you.
If you lift
An arrowhead from the leaves, return it. Pocket
No pinecone, no pebble or faery root. Resist
The painted trillium even if its purple throat
Begs to be pressed between your trail guides pages.
BAD GIRL