A Tidings of Magpies

For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out. --James Baldwin     please note: art by Ana Juan, Reflections as New Yorker cover

by Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno Long-faced irises. Mums. Pink roses and white roses and giant sunflowers, and hundreds of daisies. Fruit baskets with muscular pears, and water crackers and tiny jams and the steady march of casseroles. And money, people give money these days. Cards, of course: the Madonna, wise and sad just for you, Chinese cherry blossoms, sunsets and moonscapes, and dragonflies for transcendence. People stand by your sink and offer up their pain: Did you know I lost a baby once, or My eldest son was killed, or My mother died two months ago. People are good. They file into your cartoon house until it bows at the seams; they give you every blessed thing, everything, except your daughter back.

by Meg Kearney New Hampshire air curls my hair like a child's hand curls around a finger. "Children?" No, we tell the realtor, but maybe a dog or two. They'll bark at the mail car (Margaret's Chevy Supreme) and chase the occasional moose here in this place where doors are left unlocked and it's Code Green from sun-up, meaning go ahead and feel relieved— the terrorists are back where you left them on East 20th Street and Avenue C. In New York we stocked our emergency packs with whistles and duct tape. In New England, precautions take a milder hue: don't say "pig" on a lobster boat or paint the hull blue. Your friends in the city say they'll miss you but don't blame you—they still cringe each time a plane's overhead, one ear cocked for the other shoe.

"...It is rather for us, the living, to stand here, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Abraham Lincoln Peace be with you.