by Ralph Angel

All night long the moon is wandering behind the clouds
and upon the water. All night the flickering

in shop windows across an empty street, in the small
café that won’t open for hours, if at all

today, where fish skins have yet to be swept
from the floors and the air is stale

with drink. All night long
the faint outlines of faces you’ve loved

and forgotten, and a bicycle
tied to a tree. A rat plops from a fence

and if you listen carefully you might hear
the first stirrings in the harbor

or the cry of the gulls
and catch yourself mumbling

and not know who in the world
you are talking to.

by Thomas D. Absher

Before paper,
medieval writers wrote on animal skins:
cattle, sheep, and goats
for parchment; vellum from calves,
prized for its buttery look
when held to the light.
Reusing a page, writers
scraped off the ink of one text
and wrote another on it.
This happened again and again —
palimpsests: ancient pages of
writing with older writings
buried under them, visible
with ultraviolet light —
and this is how I picture my soul,
a page of vellum, buttery
when held to the light, speaking
overlays of spirits, selves,
ancestors, in whorls and curlicues
of visible and invisible script.

by Thomas D. Absher

Do not make the mistake
of studying alchemy
before you have studied
the one feather left in your yard
by a raven, maybe left there
just for you, one among
the many hundreds which
enclose the raven in a glossy panoply
of pitch black, iridescent blue,
green and purple,
all the feathers joining together
to make and win
their plumage argument with gravity
for ascent, flight, for soaring, wafting,
becoming airborne and staying airborne,
wing beat after wing beat
each feather a miracle of design and beauty
whether a primary, secondary,
or contour quill
from a wing or the tail,
or a downy feather
from the inner coat of the raven’s
dark breast; do not search
for the philosopher’s stone
until you have studied this feather closely
imagining where it has been, what
it has seen, the part it has played
working in silence high over the earth,
lofting the raven up with the thermals
to glide and drift as if it were
finding its way toward heaven.

by Gibson Fay-LeBlanc

Seventy –six, two new hips, skates
that look pulled off a museum shelf.

He plays with guys half his age, plus
a few a full half –century younger.

Some skate around him like a cone
and you might hear Kaner mutter,

“Come on, Les,” but at least two times
every game that same bench chants

his name, Les, Les, when he steps in front
of a shot or picks the puck of a saucy

center who thought he’d glide on by
or sends a pass right on the tape

of a speeding wing. Les, Les, we stomp,
thanking him for being here, for

strapping on pads, pulling a jersey
over his head, snapping the helmet,

Les, Les, for the way you beat back
what’s coming at all of us with a stick.