by Dick Allen

Far away, there’s what might be a windmill
or a silo, or just a trick of the eye,
and are those eye specks or crows
floating out there? Or are they

remote controlled model airplanes
and I can’t see their owners
who must be even farther away,
hidden under some small hill. Their hands are

fiddling with switches. Or are those crows
really drones in surveillance, rising toward us
from a darkening future? Are the drones armed?
Has “In God We Trust”

been written upon them? . . . . And now
a small white cloud, and now. . . .

by Leonore Hildebrandt

To discern layers
of sound and scent
begin again
to focus sink and strike
begin to rise into the rising
begin in silence.

Begin with a question
the human dilemma
of purpose and failure
your immutable tracks —
begin again
like a woman in childbirth
wailing toward her opening.

Begin again
bent over worksheets
appendices
longhand or shorthand
blurry–eyed
calculating remainders —
begin again in laughter.

Learn mathematics
aerodynamics and flow rates
angles of concrete
fire codes —
rearrange tree–rings
work in plaster or bronze
begin in the flesh.

Begin as a wound
a city in rubbles
cracked like industrial colors —
record your confinement
and mold a black–barren garden
of abraded plaster
torn like the sound
from an open mouth
begin with a trickle of water.

Like a seamstress
assembling pieces
begin again
disrupted disjointed
begin with a whimper
unquestioned.

Begin again calmly
to trim and focus the light
set accents in red
a black panel tone
sustained —
be unconstructed
unconsoled
unstoppable
your hair pulled back
your head close–shaven
begin again naked and wet.