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By Bill Wilson

One day, on your way to the garden,
an Eastern Phoebe sits atop a metal post.
Bobbing tail and tell-tale song,
you pause while she waits
for food to emerge
from within the rows.

Another day on the familiar path, 
you watch her labor 
to gather a nest, mud-splattered window ledge
measures her work as back and forth she dashes 
with her mate, hurrying to build a nursery.

Days later, you stroll in the quiet morning 
and she sits stoically on her eggs, 
head and tail visible, vigilant
body neatly tucked down and away
and out of view.

Another day, commotion; 
dawn broken by piercing cries
of barely-feathered hatchlings 
bellowing newborn hunger,
and you steal a closer look 
while mom gathers their meal.

This continues until one morning
you edge along 
and sense the silence is too soon.
A few steps ahead, scattered brown feathers
litter the grass along the fence, 
and you pause.
And your heart skips a beat,
and you take a deep breath,
and you close your eyes to convince yourself,
but you open them to the hard truth of this otherwise perfect day,
and you remove your cap as if entering a sacred space,
and slowly, oh so slowly,
walk the difficult walk 
to five orphaned, lifeless nestlings, 
gaping beaks screaming silently, necks straining skyward 
as a gentle breeze tickles their fuzzy little crowns.       
And you gently place them in your hand,
and return to your familiar walk in a different way,
and you open the garden gate,
and you open the earth,
and you bury them in the shade of the weeping willow,
and you begin to breathe again.  

By Aaron Suranofsky

Seasonal depression is
a hillside of gray 
trees naked
color stripped.
The chilling wind a passing hand 
clutching around each branch, 
loose grip snipping the leaves,
fingers splaying a confetti of brown,
pencil strip boughs left to mourn.

Seasonal depression is
baring a foot of snow
on each straining branch,
cold,
lifeless,
blank.
Sun molding tears
into drooped spears of ice,
each morning sunken deeper.

Seasonal depression is
conifers peaking
their rounded summits.
Beaming green
from needles piercing
their verdant shades past cloaks of white.
Eternal conifer,
a soft shoulder to lean
when winter's too heavy.
The cardinal’s conifer,
humble it dries
its breathing heart of red.

Seasonal depression is
shrugged off by neon buds of green,
boughs unraveling,
icicles crackling
shattering
at roots held firm,
still holding.
On the conifer smiles
bright new supple spines,
ever stretching
to catch who'll be falling.

By Aaron Suranofsky

Leaning back in my chair,
from a sterile white word doc
bleached of ideas.

I breathe cramped bedroom,
scrunching the empty page of my brain,
and blow out lip-funneled scrap

that strums a ceiling corner web,
like a mouse's guitar strings
lightly resettling their neutral.

Stitched float staying strong
weeks after I swept its seamstress–
legs buttoned up, off my desk.

Would she be satisfied
that her embroidery still hangs?
The intricate emblem she lived.

I rack my chin on my knuckles,
stretching my sequestered thoughts
into the blue past my window

blocked, by a mini bramble of bird's nest;
weed-tied twig-tangle basket.
Still, it sits on my windowsill, without a robin chick

peeling its lungs for food
from parents with beaks wrapped in worm.
Only the bundle tagged with a Twix wrapper, crinkled 

by the air guiding those once-babies in their glide
somewhere, dipping wind lanes. Do they remember
their childhood home, and know it’s still here?

Brought back to my laptop,
I find these words pixeled to the page,
pleasantly surprised.

Except for the cricking of chipmunk claws
grinding tunnels mazed of my house,
and holes scrambled through my thoughts.

By Aaron Suranofsky

Everyday I live, I feel like this ditch puddle 
frog-fart boiling
on a dirt trails grass-patched armpit.

Turtle-shitish moss scums 
the sun x-rayed skin,
like blehhing in bed, blanket-tied, stank greenhouse of myself.

Mosquito eggs breed the pool’s heart
pumping a mindless squirm;
like getting up, parasitized by the instinct to survive.

Algae ulcers the muck stomach lining
from a diet of rotted remains and sporadic rain,
like routining my day gassed with animal crackers, caffeine, and breath.

Brown pubic weeds float
greased with newt piss and moist death,
like "When was my last shower?" And "I'll just wear that again."

Until it’s bombed open–
brown dog named Brook;

Rolling the scunged skin clear,
beating paws to the slimy heart,
feeding it with barking excitement,
trimming the grease weasel grass at the roots.

Unstagnating everything,
paddling splashfuls of life
with momentum

But I don’t look forward
to washing her when we get home.

By Jourdan Robbins

Snow coats the ground in a thick blanket,
shimmering a rainbow of colors when the sun touches it.
Heavy powder weighs down tree branches.
Creeks frost over with ice,
water gurgles below the surface.
A car lays on its hood.