Lisa Cowley | Skimmer

Skimmer

Every summer I play God
hold the miraculous blue net
save the hundreds of bees, beetles,
ants, dragonflies, gnats, wasps
& ladybugs, that crash-dive the pool.

They emerge from the chlorinated water
like victims of a shipwreck
half-drowned and soaked to the core.
Surrounded by many casualties of the swim
they gasp the air, dry their wings for flight
and gaze around half-dead, examining the others' plight.

The recent divers fly away unharmed
yet some have been in there all morning.
You have to breathe on those to know they are still alive
sensing the world around them.

I wonder whether any are missed
back at the busy communist hive
or whether dragonflies overhead at dusk
are searching for friends
who weren't lucky enough
to reach my grace.

by Lisa Cowley

Lisa Cowley, of Long Island, NY is the author of Noah's Dove, which was published by Writer's Ink Press in 2003 as part of The New Scene Poets Series. She has always been fascinated by the lives of insects as well as all living things and has saved many bugs from drowning or being squashed throughout her life. "Skimmer" was originally published in Noah's Dove.

© Copyright Lisa Cowley 2003

Charles Pierre | The Reflecting Pool

The Reflecting Pool

An invisible insect breaks the sheen
of a forest pool, as widening rings

move out from the center to awaken
the April images reflected there:

buds, flowers and leaves rippling in circles
to the rhythms of spring and single touch

of an insect, whose one insistent note,
heard deep in the woods, pierces the mild air.

by Charles Pierre

(Originally published in the Fall 2006 issue of Avocet)

Charles Pierre is the author of two poetry collections, Green Vistas (1981) and Father of Water (2008). Over the past 30 years, his poems have appeared in numerous literary journals, including Appalachia, The Ledge, and Rattapallax.

© Copyright Charles Pierre 2006

Mindy Kronenberg | Catching Fireflies

Catching Fireflies

In the heat of summer evening, a boy
crouches with a glass jar
twice the size of his head, eyeing
the miniscule, momentary flame
of insects that burn out
and glow again. In the last light of day

he watches for the brilliance
he longs to keep, and rushes to
sweep it from the air, his small hands
reaching and missing its flight.
Sparks dance all around him,
igniting and dimming

beyond his grasp, his mouth
curled in pursuit of their magic.
His old man, clutching an amber bottle
by the neck, slouches on the ground
and cajoles him, shouts to the boy
with a yellowed grin:

Over there! Over there!
and bellows each time a firefly
escapes. He knows the tragic
quest for dreams—has felt
a glimmer of delight
die inside him again and again.

But the boy, young and callow,
feverishly runs in circles
blurring the world.
The jar, flying from his grip,
lands in un-mowed grass and
catches the last bright beads of dying sun.

by Mindy Kronenberg

Mindy Kronenberg teaches at Empire State College and has published poetry, essays, and crticism in journals here and abroad. She edits Book/Mark Quarterly Review and is the author of a poetry collection, Dismantling the Playground.

© Copyright Mindy Kronenberg 2008

Mark Terrill | A Poem for Those Who Mean Well

A Poem for Those Who Mean Well

There's a big black bug with curved wiggling feelers brown filigree wings & long angular legs crawling across the inside of the kitchen window looking for a way out & not wanting to find myself trapped in a crippling stasis of voyeuristic entropy like John Wieners in his poem "A Poem for Trapped Things" I quickly grab a water glass & a beer coaster & gently & efficiently capture the bug & open the kitchen window & watch him fly out across the pasture toward the canal where some watchful-eyed hungry stork or insatiate bullfrog will probably snap him out of the air before you can even say the words voyeuristic entropy.

by Mark Terrill, Germany

Photo Credit: Moon

Mark Terrill is a native Californian and former merchant seaman living, writing and scraping by in Europe since the early 1980s. Recent books & chapbooks include Something Red (Plan B Press), The United Colors of Death (Pathwise Press) and Bread & Fish (The Figures). Visit him online at http://home.arcor.de/markterrill

© Copyright 2008 Mark Terrill