JANUARY 1, 2022

by Susan Delaney Spear

Aboard a Colorado National Guard helicopter, Gov. Jared Polis on Friday, Dec. 31, 2021, gets a flyover tour of Boulder County neighborhoods destroyed by wildfires the previous day. He was accompanied by Brig. Gen. Laura Clellan, Adjutant General of Colorado, and Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle. Colorado U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and Rep. Joe Neguse also toured the area in a separate helicopter. (POOL: Hart Van Den Burg, CPR) —The Colorado Sun, January 1, 2022

Drop into this darkness.

A first-born charcoal sky

and fire-scorched land

smolder yet remain.

 

Today the sun’s detained.

A sparrow pecks

a pile of ashen snow

for sustenance.

.

Drop into this darkness.

Dig deep.

Light the wick within.

Let this year begin.

 

 

Susan Delaney Spear is an Associate Professor of English at Colorado Christian University in Lakewood. Her poetry collection Beyond All Bearing was published by Wipf & Stock in 2018.

AFRAID

by stella graham-landau

we did not learn 

at the police academy

how to handle traffic leaving costco

while navigating people running in the street carrying pet cats

when the world is burning before our eyes

nor was there a module in crime prevention on 

how to tell the difference between a masked customer

or a masked bandit

and how to stay healthy in either case

in crime scene management

we were only taught a prayer

to deal with multiple mass shooters in a mall

“you better pray that it’s just one shooter and that their gun jams”

on a regular december day in boulder 

with no snow on the ground

an ordinary man

on an ordinary task to buy soup for his sick wife 

knew how bad things were

not from the dense smoke blocking the sky

nor the galloping customers racing to their cars

not even the screams of children being dragged to safety

but the face of the police officer

directing traffic

with fear in his eyes

stella graham-landau is an artist and writer living in richmond, va. she is vaccinated, boosted, masked, and insistently optimistic that we will emerge as better, kinder citizens of the global village.

PAGE FROM A BOOK OF DAYS

by David Chorlton

Swallows at the windswept pond

this morning, quick as good fortune, make the light

sway back and forth above

the water while it keeps

its secrets dark.

                         It’s a quiet time;

Say’s Phoebes barely clear the grass before

returning to the fence from which they came,

and a Loggerhead Shrike moves down

from the desert

with a prayer in his beak.

                                         The Red-tailed Hawk

has made the streets his hunting ground

where the pigeon flock

scatters left, right and skyward

as his shadow scythes between them.

One more day;

                       another step toward

the unknown, with a moodswing peak

to peak along the mountain

as it leans back against the sky. A different

message blows

                         from each direction: another

ten killed in Colorado; the doves

returning early from the tropics; music

on the radio so old

it wouldn’t recognize the world today;

and the voice within, too long

in solitude to know

what its next word should be.

Throughout the pandemic David Chorlton has lived quietly and communicated with the local wildlife. His new book Unmapped Worlds from FutureCycle Press features poems that hid in his files for too many years and which now enjoy new exposure. 

THE NEW MATH

by Howie Good

If a total of eight people

are shot to death

at three massage parlors

in Atlanta, Georgia,

 

and the following week

10 people are shot

to death at a supermarket

in Boulder, Colorado,

 

how long before

the next mass shooting

in the U.S. occurs?

 

Show all work.

Howie Good's most recent poetry collection is Gunmetal Sky, available from Thirty West Publishing.

A NOT SO PRECIOUS FREEDOM BITES THE DUST IN BOULDER

by George Salamon

Image source: Old Prison Museum

"Under a new city policy, kids spending their summer days at the city pools may not buy ice cream—the quintessential childhood delight on a hot summer day—because city officials don't think it's healthy."             —Editorial, The Boulder (Colorado) Daily Camera, July 2, 2016

First they came for the ice cream
And I did not protest
Because ice cream is fattening.

Then they came for the hot dogs
And I did not march
Because hot dogs are carcinogenic.

Then they came for the hamburgers
And I did not shout
Because hamburgers clog the arteries.

Then they came for the customers
Because they do not choose wisely.

And so there was no one left
To eat politically incorrect.


Author's note: With a deep bow to Pastor Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)

George Salamon tries to get on with a relatively healthful diet in St. Louis, MO.