by Sydney Lea

Insouciant
    after the Newtown massacre

After school treat, reads a certain crossword clue.
For an instant I’m dizzy with rage at the one who conceived of it.
26 Die in Shooting at Connecticut School,
said this morning’s headline, and I wonder how on earth the woman
who wrote the clue could have dreamed it up when that
sort of horror lay in waiting?  I need my head examined:

she no more knew those grade schoolers’ deaths were looming
than I did beforehand.  Like any, she likely made her way
to work, insouciant, or watched TV, or went walking
with a dog.  Or maybe she looked through a kitchen windowpane,
the same as I look now at chickadees,
pine siskins, redpolls, tufted titmice, finches and jays

all crowding a feeder, as though this clamorous mass
of birds were merely decoration, and tiny hearts
weren’t frantically beating within those flimsy breasts
and that sharp -shinned hawk didn’t lurk in a treetop.  I’ve been
playing a game,
believing its frivolous challenge would keep me smart.
I own rifles and shotguns, locked away in another room,

having been a hunter, mostly of birds, lifelong.
I’ve gone to jobs, watched sports and news on my own TV,
taken much for granted, gone out with a slew of dogs,
some of which I followed on wild things’ scent in fall.
I’ve done whatever I thought assigned to me,
just as I did years back as a little boy in school.

by Joshua Sullivan

The drainage ditch leads down to the pond,
forming the boundary of the fallow flood plain.
Paul’s farm, his father’s before since ’43,
bordered north and west by suburban homes,
half hidden in the shadow
of morning light
slanting through the oaks.

Out there they can’t feel
the swagger of the field.
The wild and uneven yellow ground,
the swaying weight of the woodchuck in a livetrap
rocking me back and forth.

I hold the rope now, waiting,
watching, Paul scoring earth with the disc harrow.
He drives with one hand and looks backward.

He says to bury them, always:
dump the drenched carcass into a pit,
fill it in,
carry away the tools.

They’ll circle inward,
out from the dark trees.
Prancing, grinning,
the pups in tow.

Rake away the surface,
and eat from a hole in the earth.

by Raymond Hall

A soul, the
Universe, awakens awestruck looking around
Interprets further, gags

I watched a
Spider spin a web, patiently
Wait.  He died

The moon moves
The color of the moon
On dark water

by Peter Krok

A Letter to Bruno: Seven Years Since He Left
Blaise Pascal: “The heart has its reasons . . . ”

It has been seven years since you left
and miles of time between us.
You with your gown of white examine
the body’s illnesses.  I probe the worth
in words.  Both of us look at what passes
for a measure of meaning.

It has been seven years since you left.
Since then I left my government job settling
into a retirement of responsibilities and family,
and, of course, the pastime of writing.
Meister Eckhart wrote, “If the only
prayer you ever say in your entire life
is thank you, it will be enough.”
I’ve found there is not enough gratitude.

It has been seven years since you left
for Nottingham, a city across the sea
where you serve the ill with your science.
How we used to talk of faith, Umberto Saba
and his struggle, the Trieste of your youth.
Since you left, winters have been less cold,
summers hotter and more humid.  And
we’ve had more rain.  I lift up your smile
remembering the way you listened.

It has been seven years since you left.
Since then I lost vision in one eye.
The central vein being blocked causes
swelling in the blood vessel feeding the eye.
Through medical technology, technicians
can trace the blockage through the pupil.
With a needle Dr. Brucker brought the eyesight
back.  Every so often, the eye needs an injection.
My book’s title, as you know, is Looking For an Eye.
It has been seven years since you left.
I’m still an editor trying to keep alive
a journal, in a city staring at its own face
on its walls.  The city of the mural arts,
Philadelphia, red brick place where
I grew up wandering for faith.
Peel my skin.  You find a catholic soul,
an altar boy stumbling in the service
of a sacrifice he hardly understands.
The heart has its reasons.  Faith too its reasons.
May we make better selves along the way.