by Dan Gerber

From all the trees that came before it,
the pine learned to whisper forever.

by Michael Salcman

I once stayed in a friend’s house without even a can of soda
at hand, a not so mysterious shell
because there’s no one to purchase the groceries
and no one who lives there who can bear to eat them.

So there’s nothing to drink in the house of mourning
and no one who visits really wants a drink — well
you know what’s coming.

The house sits in the midst of a tame and terrible desert —
true story —
as luxurious as the antechamber of Hell,
a subdivision on the edge of a historic city,
and its front gate has a welcome bell
rung coming and going
but not by me.

Since this is a true story there’s not much else to tell.
The owner lives elsewhere, paralyzed
but moving; he’s afraid to sell.

by Gerald McCarthy

Here, my name
becomes the sound of water
moving over shale
& as I look back
my wife recalls
the hard hours
of our life together
the years we struggled
to make ends meet —
& there was never an end.
My sons think my name
is father,
they see their own lives
stretched out — a white road
lined with wildflowers,
a song coming back —
wild rivers, islands of ginger flowers,
hibiscus, weeping lantana.
There are so many names
for grief
yet we know so little of joy
of the twisting way our lives take us —
until reaching up
we find a star-shaped flower
blossoming
where we thought the vine
would never bloom.

by Gerald McCarthy

After the night rain
wind
what is it after all
this breathless rising
now again, like a heart
beating alone, quietly
as if there were more.