Nature and the Environment Feature

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.

By Rachel Close

Another bright, summer dawn.
A soft breeze wafts through the valley.
I mount a mower
housed in that gasoline-scented garage.
These tasks can seem dull,
but for me it becomes meditation.
I admire the big sky.
I feel the wind whip my face.
The sting against my cheeks energizes me 
in the early mornings. 
I pull the knob, thrust the choke,
and kick the machine into gear. 
I focus on the pattern,
because alignment is key.
I keep my mind focused on the trails I make,
careful not to zig and zag.
Alone for my eight hours with the open sky, 
I map the sun with my eyes to keep track of time.
Relaxation and composure help the day go by,
as I try not to focus on meanings. 
When I’m alone with my mind.

By Aaron Suranofsky

A pond-wet nose sifts air, spinning the brown strip of fur
like a dancer's wrist draws a ribbon 

into delicate loops, crisscrossing dogwood bristles 
a few feet from where I petrify myself into a tree.

Dull black eyes curl my reflection:
another tall brown blur

for the rodent who sacrificed clear sight
for fancy third eyelid goggles.

It sniffs out the perfect snack-strip of branch, pinched level 
with rubber fingers, it slides the wood through its ivory lathe,

roughing off chips of bark, sharpening raw tan
into tasty puffs of dust. For five minutes

its jaw drums the pond, quaking the sound
of flinting stone into even spaced O’s of force.

Like the beaver’s a star, the tiny splash-flicks of frogs 
have chosen to revolve,

their peeps meeting the rhythm
of water wobbling over their green noses.

I lean to the music, a twig snaps alarm– its eyes catch me,
like a sequin glimmer on a cloudy day,

and it sledges its tail paddle to the water,
thwacking a crater, and in the spray of cover

it twirls, swallowed lithe without a tremble
in the pond clean of any sign it was there.