A Tidings of Magpies

Arc by Amy M. Clark My seatmate on the late-night flight could have been my father. I held a biography, but he wanted to talk. The pages closed around my finger on my spot, and as we inclined into the sky, we went backwards in his life, beginning with five hours before, the funeral for his only brother, a forgotten necktie in his haste to catch this plane the other way just yesterday, his wife at home caring for a yellow Lab she'd found along the road by the olive grove, and the pretty places we had visited— Ireland for me, Germany for him— a village where he served his draft during the Korean War, and would like to see again to show his wife how lucky he had been. He talked to me and so we held his only brother's death at bay. I turned off my reading light, remembering another veteran I met in a pine forest years ago who helped me put my tent up in the wind. What was I thinking camping there alone? I was grateful he kept watch across the way and served coffee in a blue tin cup...

Our Friends in Minnesota by Amy M. Clark A woman (I would be her) says to a man (he would be you), "Let's go stay with Ted and Jan." And what are Ted and Jan? Ted and Jan are our friends who live by the lake in Duluth. They have beautiful teenage daughters. Tanya, the older one, plays the cello. Shelly captains the Irish dance team. Ted and Jan have invited us up to sail with them anytime we want. Late June is good. In the evening, we play cards on their screened deck. Crickets. Cocktails. Tanya comes down and drapes over the back of Ted's chair, her arms around his shoulders. "Daddy, I see you're losing again," she teases. "Where's the love?" Ted says, and Jan flourishes another full house. Her cheeks are reddened from the day on the boat. Later, we listen to Ted strum the guitar, and we talk of food and people we know. When Shelly isn't in by eleven, we hear of the boy she's taken up with, the one who threw up in the lilac bushe...

by Richard Jones When I went home to visit my sister in the stone house by the river, I couldn't sleep, and so I rose early, before dawn, and entered the quiet temple of the living room to sit in simple meditation. Palms up, legs crossed, shoulders squared, I took a minute to relax my body, then began to count slow breaths, attentive to the task of emptying the merest thought from the mind, as if sweeping cobwebs from corners. Moment by moment my heart grew calm. The windows filled with light and birdsong announced the morning. Out of nothingness, light and birdsong. With eyelids almost closed, I imagined a peaceful sky free of drifting clouds— heaven's immaculate, eternal blue. As I sat, time passed, like the river quickened by wind. Sun-diamonds sparkled on wind-shirred water, and all around the house red azaleas blossomed, burning like a fiery moat as towering pines swayed high above. Perfectly still, quietly alert, I sat and I breathed—the mind balanced. Then I heard the ...

Some wadded up clump of denial has washed clear of my psyche and I am finally peaceful with the fact that my children are not ever going to use the set of encyclopedias, old Life magazines, multiple maps of the world, books about the presidents, How Things Work , and The Human Body that I thought they might someday need and use for a report. It is an internet world of information for this generation. So, I am tossing and bagging and schlepping, and otherwise clearing spaces for new adventures. What a fun ride it was with little ones in the house. It helps that some items can be moved up to our place on the lake. Treasure Quest, James Herriot's Treasury for Children , and Wind in the Willows . The Friends Trivia Game. What I may lack in denial I more than make up for in immaturity. Boy Blowing Bubbles By Deborah Pope They erupt with the suddenness and ease of his laughter, rising like the high, wobbly syllables of his singing. Shimmering, drifting, perfect in their roundness as...

The Secret of Life by Ellen Goldsmith I grabbed the streetcar from Fisherman's Wharf to the Ferry Building to save my feet for later. My dollar bill, wrinkled and worn, resisted disappearing into the slot. I stuffed the transfer in my pocket without looking. As the streetcar rounded the Embarcadero, I called my mother-in-law with mother's day wishes, imagined the conversation I'd have with mine, were she alive. On exiting, I asked the conductor how long the transfer would last. I gave you extra time, he said. Just show it. Hardly anyone looks. It's good until it's taken away. please note: photo by Chris Gulkey, Embarcadero Pier

D.H. Lawrence (1916) This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green, Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes, Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering rushes. I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze Of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration, Faces of people streaming across my gaze. And I, what fountain of fire am I among This leaping combustion of spring? My spirit is tossed About like a shadow buffeted in the throng Of flames, a shadow that’s gone astray, and is lost.

HoneyHaired is out of school for the summer!! First Year Teacher to His Students by Gary J. Whitehead Go now into summer, into the backs of cars, into the black maws of your own changing, onto the boardwalks of a thousand splinters, onto the beaches of a hundred fond memories in wait, where the sea in all its indefatigability stammers at the invitation. Go to your vacation, to the late morning cool of your basement rooms, the honeysuckle evening of the first kiss, the first dip and pivot, swivel and twist. Go to where the clipper ships sail far upriver, where the salmon swim in the clean, cool pools just to spawn. Wake to what the spider unspools into a silver dawn dripping with light. Sleep in sleeping bags, sleep in sand, sleep at someone else's house in a land you've never been, where the dreamers dream in a language you only half understand. Slip beneath the sheets, slide toward the plate, swing beneath the bandstand where the secret things await. Be glad, or be sad if you...