A Tidings of Magpies

...after the festivities subside.

by Aaron Fagan Once upon a time, Books began this Way—the O of once let The reader beware up Front that a story as Ornate and colorful as We are would follow— And not for any of us To be shocked to find We must return and Stand for what we are.

by Theodore Deppe Like a woman in Vermeer, she ironed by the kitchen window, blue towel turbaned about wet hair, three-quarters of her face suffused in sun. From the cellar doorway I called to her, unwilling to descend those nightmare stairs alone, unable to compel her to join me. Mother gazed out at the sky. Ignored the televised warnings. With terrifying calm, flapped a shirt and spread it flat. Strange about beauty, how it lives on the best of terms next door to nothingness: if a twister came she wanted to see it. If I could paint that 1950s scene where nothing finally happened, I'd have to crush her best pearl and blend the powder in my palette— how else catch that kitchen's luster? A tiny wisp of vapor to suggest the hiss as the white shirt's pressed and the silvery iron becomes a curved mirror in which a boy is captured and diminished as he calls. Or perhaps I'd leave myself out, let that glossy surface reflect only the blue plume spiraling up (she sometimes sm...

by Dorothea Tanning On one of those birthdays of which I've had so many I was walking home through the park from a party, pleased that I'd resisted mentioning the birthday— why hear congratulations for doing nothing but live? The birthday was my secret with myself and gave me, walking under all those trees, such a strong feeling of satisfaction that everything else fell away: party sounds, the hostess who stared and as suddenly disappeared on seeing her husband walk in with a young(er ) friend; another guest examining garment labels in the room where I went to leave my jacket; one of two waiters balancing a trayful of foot-high champagne glasses; a bee-like buzz of voices I ought to have enjoyed but heard as foreign babble, so remote it was from a birthday, so empty of import nothing would remain. I got my jacket, waved from the hall, pressed Down. In summer the park, for an hour or so before night, is at its greenest, a whole implicit proposition of green leaves, a triumph of ...

Horizon of Feet by Philip Dacey "I hate dancers. Well, I don't really hate them, but they're not musicians. They just count beats, oblivious to the music. They wouldn't know a theme if it bit them. They're arithmetician-athletes." We're sitting, cooling off, after racquetball, and I've asked the principal flutist of the New York City Ballet Orchestra, Paul Dunkel, to solo in words, to talk about his work. "Musicians are there to serve the music, not vice-versa, as with dancers. Think of us as the composer's lawyers, and our job's to put forward for our client the best possible case. "But playing for dancers we're little more than drummers in a circus, just there to highlight with sound the dog whose trick it is to run and jump through a flaming hoop: drumroll, rimshot. "Likewise, some composers think they're tailors, writing to order. They make the music fit the dancing. Four extra steps? Then add two bars. I call that mu...

by Barry Spacks Clear now of our long struggle I can hear your voice, its strength the sweet coldness of river water. And I can see you as in the photograph with your father and sister, tall pretty girl, pigtailed and freckled, led, misled, until you doubted your beauty, body, that you were one among us, a person, like any other. And, given distance, I think of you becoming smaller, but cheerful, the way the old are with short white hair and an easiness you'd never know before, and me, incredibly, not there.

School began again here in CinCity on Tuesday. I continued to deny it for a couple of days because I was working, but today I have driving duty and my September-May routine slid automatically back into its groove. I'll have to pay closer attention this year since one of these morning drives will be my last. I won't know it though until weeks or months later. HoneyHaired has her temps. She's working on her driving hours. Once she gets her license some crazy work schedule conflict will arise which will just make it simpler for her to drive to school and that will be that. I remember many days of driving CollegeGrrrl back and forth, up and down and round and round, but I had no inkling that it would end so suddenly and so completely. Even as I write this I know I won't realize it this year either for that is the nature of baby birds leaving the nest. So, I will strive to follow the words of wise men and yogis far and wide to BE PRESENT, and to pay attention, because, you...

by John Pillar It's easy to believe you can go back Whenever you desire, jump in the car And drive, arrive at dusk—the hour You recall most vividly—and walk Among the buildings spread across the farm, Out toward the pastures, woods, and fields. There is music in the leaves, in the dense Columns of green corn. The wind lays down The tune. You can play it, too, simply By walking with eyes closed, arms Stretched out, lightly striking the stalks. Who wouldn't desire, like the children Lost in so many similar fields, To sit down on the turned earth and drift Away on the rhythms of his own First possible death? Rescuing Voices come closer, veer off. Flashlight beams Strobe over your head. You do not care. Each building you remember—hen house, Sheep shed, corn crib, barn—caved in upon itself, The walls and roofs collapsing with a final Percussive clap, since you last walked those fields. No one you will ever know works that land now. It is as green as Eden. Life rises in the roots, in...

I suspect there will come a day not too far in the near future when I shall be sick of rain and dark dreary days. It t'ain't today, though. The heat wave is in full bloom and the weathermen keep promising a break to the high temperatures "Sunday and the beginning of next week...," but they are bloody, bloody liars sipping lattes in air-conditioned comfort. I think I might actually hate them. I have a wedding to attend this evening. A joyful occasion for those of us who love the bride and love to see her happy. While searching for just the perfect visual aide I came across this photo from blueridgeblog. The photo and the blog are both too delicious to not share... A Wedding Poem by Thomas R. Smith Bright faces surround the woman in white, the man in black, the sweetness of their attention to each other a shine rising toward the high ceiling. The men watch the groom, and the women the bride, as they speak their candle-lit vows, as if there were something in it for us ...

by Rainer Maria Rilke Do you remember still the falling stars that like swift horses through the heavens raced and suddenly leaped across the hurdles of our wishes--do you recall? And we did make so many! For there were countless numbers of stars: each time we looked above we were astounded by the swiftness of their daring play, while in our hearts we felt safe and secure watching these brilliant bodies disintegrate, knowing somehow we had survived their fall.

by Wislawa Szyborska It could have happened. It had to happen. It happened earlier. Later. Closer. Farther away. It happened, but not to you. You survived because you were the first. You survived because you were the last. Because alone. Because the others. Because on the left. Because on the right. Because it was raining. Because it was sunny. Because a shadow fell. Luckily there was a forest. Luckily there were no trees. Luckily a rail, a hook, a beam, a brake, a frame, a turn, an inch, a second. Luckily a straw was floating on the water. Thanks to, thus, in spite of, and yet. What would have happened if a hand, a leg, One step, a hair away— So you are here? Straight from that moment still suspended? The net’s mesh was right, but you—through the mesh? I can’t stop wondering at it, can’t be silent enough. Listen, how your heart is beating in me.

Our neighbor died this week. Truth be told, I didn't really like him all that much. He was a bit rude, perhaps just socially inept, but enough times and in just the right spots to be hurtful. The couple's about 15 years older than we are. Too old to be similiar to older siblings, not quite old enough to be the next generation, but not Baby Boomers either. Who knows...maybe we're those pesky younger cousins coming in to disrupt the status quo of the street. But lately, when his wife would see me walking the dog or in the grocery store she had questions about his chemotherapy and gave me the latest numbers on hemoglobin and hematocrit, platelet counts, number of units of packed red blood cells, and corresponding blood pressures. She confided she was ready for hospice, but he wasn't. And unasked, but clearly standing right next to us, how long do we have? Hubby and I went in when asked with wheelchair assistance and that last evening to help position his head to ease his b...

by Elaine Terranova In the heat, in the high grass their knees touched as they sat crosslegged facing each other, a lightness and a brittleness in their bodies. They touched like shells. How odd that I should watch them say goodbye. What did it have to do with me? There was my own stillness and the wasps and the tiny flies for a long time taking stitches in the surrounding air and a comfort I felt, as the wind tore through, to find the trees miraculously regaining their balance.

Illustrated Guide to Familiar American Trees by Charlie Smith I don't get it about the natural world. Like, greenery, without people in it, is supposed to do what? City sunlight, I say, how can you beat it— the walk to the pool after work, shine caught in the shopkeeper's visor, bursts. I see myself moving around New York, snapping my fingers, eating fries. My ex-wife's out in California. I wish she was over on Bank Street, up on the second floor, and I was on the way there to call to her from the sidewalk. There's a cypress on that block, two honey locusts and an oak. I love those trees like my own brothers.

by Agha Shahid Ali First, grant me my sense of history: I did it for posterity, for kindergarten teachers and a clear moral: Little girls shouldn't wander off in search of strange flowers, and they mustn't speak to strangers. And then grant me my generous sense of plot: Couldn't I have gobbled her up right there in the jungle? Why did I ask her where her grandma lived? As if I, a forest-dweller, didn't know of the cottage under the three oak trees and the old woman lived there all alone? As if I couldn't have swallowed her years before? And you may call me the Big Bad Wolf, now my only reputation. But I was no child-molester though you'll agree she was pretty. And the huntsman: Was I sleeping while he snipped my thick black fur and filled me with garbage and stones? I ran with that weight and fell down, simply so children could laugh at the noise of the stones cutting through my belly, at the garbage spilling out with a perfect sense of timing, just when the...