A Tidings of Magpies

by Charles Wright The mares go down for their evening feed into the meadow grass. Two pine trees sway the invisible wind— some sway, some don't sway. The heart of the world lies open, leached and ticking with sunlight For just a minute or so. The mares have their heads on the ground, the trees have their heads on the blue sky. Two ravens circle and twist. On the borders of heaven, the river flows clear a bit longer. please note: photo by Dalla*s

by Barry Spacks Sometimes people who judge and judge turn lovely in summer, with gin & tonics. They shop at little roadside stands; brood in a trance over silks of corn. Lounging around, still starched from swimming, they speak mild words in the evening air and leave the work of keeping up standards to bickering children, questions of worth to the waves. In town, in handkerchief dresses, rumpled white suits, they smile, they visit— they water the garden; hum with the cat. In shirt and jeans they climb the rocks with wine in a thermos, a bag of bread to throw to those ravenous muscles the gulls— and there they offer a round of applause (of the gentle sort once used watching tennis) to see the fat sun dip away through its showy orange time.

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...

by Julie Cadwallader-Staub The air vibrated with the sound of cicadas on those hot Missouri nights after sundown when the grown-ups gathered on the wide back lawn, sank into their slung-back canvas chairs tall glasses of iced tea beading in the heat and we sisters chased fireflies reaching for them in the dark admiring their compact black bodies their orange stripes and seeking antennas as they crawled to our fingertips and clicked open into the night air. In all the days and years that have followed, I don't know that I've ever experienced that same utter certainty of the goodness of life that was as palpable as the sound of the cicadas on those nights: my sisters running around with me in the dark, the murmur of the grown-ups' voices, the way reverence mixes with amazement to see such a small body emit so much light. On another note, leaving for a visit with our CollegeGrrrrl and will be gone for a few days. Hope everyone enjoys their weekends and Happy Fathers' Day t...