North of Oxford – The Pandemic Issue #5 | North of Oxford

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. Thanks to the poets for contributing to The Pandemic Issue #5 from North of Oxford and Mary M. Michaels for graciously providing her art .  In order of appearance we present: Howie Good, Robbie Nester, J. Joy “Sistah Joy” Matthews Alford, Ray Greenblatt, Dee Allen. , Dan Brady, Mike Maggio, Michael D. Amitin, Mark J.…
— Read on northofoxford.wordpress.com/2020/08/11/north-of-oxford-the-pandemic-issue/

equinox

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The october sky beckons

robin, dove and wren

scatter about

to gather

pine tag, dusty hairs, warm cotton leaves,

edging about scoping the landscape

for berry, seed and mite.

As the early blink

of the sun comes up eagerly sending

mice and chipmunks into a pure frenzied rage

to gather and bind all these things

twisting and turning

— as small moles run

scattered under pine tag looking, digging.

Tiny wren find worms

fatten up their young till

the sound of duck

at twilight,

their shrill calls into the amber sky.

Shadows fall sharp as the glint of the moon

has been blown into the sky

full now and glowering over,

creatures all.

concentric

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she lives inside a shell

cut off from land, sea and water.

dried up and left

shriveled

brown and turned

crumpled  like a fallen leaf

bouncing aimlessly

tossed carried through

dry air.

dead ended, backed up

and bumping

right back into

her reflection.

someone needs to open

a window

and let the world back in.

bent over,

one hand on a chair.

breathe in

watch the color change.

life begins again

roots itself

hope returns

she starts over.

January Walk

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Yellow forsythia fortells spring’s secrets

in its canary branches reaching out through green

December holly.

Winter armaments seal in their promise.

Birds take quick flight-then bristle and furrow

in their web of hope, while spots of florescence peek through

finding the gradient of light pleasing.

Furtive chirping from high branches avove

echo the dep hollow from ground nesters.

Crow complains from a rooftop

while wilted winter pansies drop

their black blotchy cheeks

from inside yellow bowls.

Woodpeckers deep drilling

sound like my cold bones-hollow

creaking, stiff in the frigid damp air.

I taste a tinge of mossy dirt while

treading on padded grasses.

Thrump of heartbeat-

as my shadow sways forward and back

like the new grass fronds reaching

up toward sunlight.

Safe Harbor

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I flip my hair forward and breathe in the musky roots

-like a forest I hide there and follow the rootline.

Under dark mossy earth I escape into night shadows

of my deep brown and settle safely.

Harboring like a refuge-there where

I could be ten or twenty.

Behind the shutters of my face, peering out unaffected.

Safe and swimming  along the shore of safe house I peer out

at the ocean bounce. Framed by expectation, away from the

shadows of worry. No one can find me here- safe

in my corner away from the ocean of pain.

No one can touch me here except my dreams

as they turn the corner and dissolve back from where they came

into the night shadows-dreams never done

that I dreamed years ago.

They repeat and roll back

like waves in the ocean never subsiding

and I like a shell covered in fragile seaglass.