by Wayne Atherton

He sailed upon
his raft of words
into the mystery
of himself and lived
by them

by Roger Dutton

his silver hair thrown by the wind in his whistle,

an ambassador of poetry &
                             good will &
                             good poetry
                                      willfully

his mellifluous words
     in poetic harmony
          poised like a panther’s paw

now silenced by affairs of the heart

a hammer on his belt
a belt of scotch

the verbosity of an Irishman
     in
          his
               pub

a voice to raze the ruins
a voice to raise a glass

a lover of the word
a lover of the voice
a lover of no other choice

here today
gone tomorrow is
intellectually illogical

by Molly McGrath

A great blue heron
flies out between
earth and sky.
Slow, deep wing beats
send him down
river to me.
He arrived before us
And will be here
when we are gone.

The heron
streamlined and graceful
lands on a rock and waits
perhaps for a fish
or just to be.
The heron is almost beautiful
becoming so
when he croaks, rohk, rohk,
a prehistoric utterance.

That voice brings me to this one.
I am cornered
in a rushed pulse
between classes,
softened when
Michael speaks poems to me
in altered time and space
and asks about
Bananafish.

Steeped in warm, rich coffee,
his voice
is the sound I am after,
the slow beat of
his laugh covered in wood shavings.
Is there a better voice pairing
— poet and carpenter —
to deliver the engraved rhythms
of writing and carving?

Strong steady hands
Warm and slow
and masculine as lead and root
work words and wood.

Words and wood live at home
in his voice,
a mellow river
flowing on always
under a heron’s song.

by Martin Steingesser

          Hardly a breeze of air.
          The small birds fall silent in the trees.
          Simply wait: soon
          You too will be silent.
                                             — Goethe

Now the voice but no body
                                           unlike the one on the phone
saying you’re gone.
                              When I turn to my wife, in some strange way you are the words. And tears —
                                                 We say, well up,
and isn’t that right, tears rising in us
                                                          like weather, like mist.
And from where? “Inside,” you once said,
                                                                  “there is always deeper.”
Days later, looking at a photo of you
                                                          walking away in a field through a sea of high ferns,
                                           I see how you were already on your way, how we’re all on our way, crossing that meadow.
Out in sunshine another morning,
                                                       sparrows flitting about chirping for crumbs, what hurts —
                                                       Michael, I hardly knew you.
A few beers together,
                                 hearing you say one of your poems — “Outside, the smallest birds . . .
                                                 begin the heavy lifting,” you read, “tugging a reluctant day over dark hills.”
                                                               I love your voice, its amber, rosin tone,
                 and hold your words in that well of tears,
bell of grief and joy, summon and say them
                                                                    again and again
for all of us, your sparrows
                                          over the meadow, the dark hills.