DIVING DUCKS ON NEW YEAR’S DAY

by Melanie Choukas-Bradley 

Art by Doug Pifer for The WV Independent Observer

Lithe buffleheads and mergansers
Newly down from Canada
Tandem dive into the rough blue Potomac
 
Wind whips the sycamores
Causing their spheres of seeds to
Dance as clouds race above
 
Next week Jimmy Carter will lie in state
And then Donald Trump returns
 
Today ducks are diving
Let’s just watch them dive

 
Melanie Choukas-Bradley is a Washington, DC naturalist and award-winning author of eight nature books, including Wild Walking—A Guide to Forest Bathing Through the Seasons, City of Trees, A Year in Rock Creek Park, and Finding Solace at Theodore Roosevelt Island. She has had several previous poems published in the The New Verse News and many poems published by Beate Sigriddaughter’s Writing in a Woman’s Voice, including four that have won “Moon Prizes.” Her poetry has also been featured on nature-oriented websites.

AS I WATCH ROSALYNN CARTER’S TRIBUTE

by Barbara Eknoian

Why do tears keep falling from my eyes as I watch? They say Rosalynn stood by her husband for seventy-seven years, and that she cared deeply for the most vulnerable among us. Throughout my life, although I am a good person and wouldn’t harm anyone, I never did anything as inspiring as she did for others. When the choir sings “America the Beautiful,” I’m a young girl again at school singing. Why do I find this tribute so touching? The religious music playing is the old-fashioned kind, which I miss very much. Maybe, that’s why the tears flow easily while listening to all her good works. One of the speakers comments that Rosalyn would be pleased that First Ladies from both sides have come to honor her, including Biden, Obama, Bush, Clinton, and Trump, and everyone laughs. I feel like I’m at an inspiring church service, though I haven’t attended in years. I’m so glad I’m watching. Her husband Jimmy, left hospice at their home in Plains, Georgia, traveling l40 miles so as not to miss his wife’s tribute. He is wheeled into church. Their daughter, Amy, says, since her dad can’t speak, she’ll read a love letter he wrote to Rosalynn when he was in the Navy seventy-five years ago. I imagine him thinking this right now: 

Good-bye Darling, 

Until tomorrow 

                            Jimmy

Barbara Eknoian’s work has appeared in Chiron Review, Cadence Collective, Redshift, and Silver Birch Press's anthologies. Her recent collection of short stories Romance is Not Too Far From Here is published by Amazon. She lives in La Mirada, CA with her daughter, grandson, one cat, and a very mischievous kitten.

WHEN MY GRANDSON LEARNS ABOUT JIMMY CARTER

by Jane Patten

But for a photo

Neither of you will remember

That day in front of Maranatha Baptist Church—

He, because he had held so many babies,

And you were one of many in 

Such a long and layered life. 

And you, because you were so new

That your life was in the moment.

But we others there rejoiced

How he reached out to hold you,

The aged hands against your soft ones,

His white hair in contrast to your brown,

His wide smile at your

Wide eyes.

 

You did not know then

How we traveled down the Georgia roads

Of open fields and flatter ground

Just to hear him teach 

And to shake his hand,

Or that that this elder holding you

Had made each numbered day

In a long life count—

Sage, peacemaker, 

Man of the earth,

Man of the people,

Who rolled up his sleeves

To work.

 

A little later, just a little later,

You will learn more about the man who

Showed the world how to live:

Use knowledge.

Have compassion.

Give.

Be present.

Be fair.

Have courage.

Care.

 

And with a photo we will begin:

There you are.

You’re with him.

After retiring and moving to Huntsville, Jane Patten decided to write about her adventures, including growing up in Delaware and her career as a teacher in rural Georgia. Her writings have been published in Out Loud HSV: A Year in Review anthologies, The New Verse News, and Reckon.

ALWAYS A POEM, JIMMY

by Indran Amirthanayagam 

The melanoma spread from

skin to liver to brain and

President Jimmy Carter

started to fall often, walking

in the peanut field, at church

on Sunday, at home. He wrote

Always A Reckoning. I wrote

The Elephants of Reckoning. 

We exchanged our reckonings

in 1997 in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.

I was assigned to the American

Embassy and sat down with Jimmy,

Rosalynn and Chip to talk

politics, health and environment.

The President visited to gather

facts in his fight against

river blindness, one of countless

maladies and challenges 

he dedicated his life to resolve. 

These included everything 

he faced as president—

hostages, recession, first steps

to making America green

and sustainable—and every 

election after as he traveled 

the world to observe their 

conduct, to help keep them 

safe and free. Jimmy Carter,

you walk blessed, a life 

of good deeds and 

harvests and fighting 

back against the blows, 

approaching a century, 

a marvel. Godspeed. 

Thank you again 

for the poetry.

Indran Amirthanayagam is the translator of Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks) is the newest collection of Indran's own poems. Recently published is Blue Window (Ventana Azul), translated by Jennifer Rathbun.(Dialogos Books). In 2020, Indran produced a “world" record by publishing three new poetry books written in three languages: The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, New York), Sur l'île nostalgique (L’Harmattan, Paris) and Lírica a tiempo (Mesa Redonda, Lima). He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He won the Paterson Prize and received fellowships from The Foundation for the Contemporary Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, US/Mexico Fund For Culture, and the MacDowell Colony. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

INFIRMITY

by Rick Mullin

After the Mueller Report by Barry Blitt at The New Yorker

The faithless Democrat turns very fast
on a purported savior when that savior
doesn’t let him have his way. The last
two days bring out his worst behavior.
Now the hope of a purported dossier
is dashed, the clumsy meeting in the tower
proves another harrowing non-starter.
The Democrat hangs back at happy hour,
pining for the days of Jimmy Carter
before the Gipper took his ball away.
“Perhaps that special counsel was a ruse!”
He’ll air that out on social media.
His reverence for a savior’s fast and loose,
unlike that of the MAGA ascaridia
whose savior lives to loathe another day.


Rick Mullin's newest poetry collection is Lullaby and Wheel.

INSIDE DISNEY'S HALL OF PRESIDENTS

by Darrell Petska





Transported like a side of beef,
the 45th arrived on a cart,
a small hand jutting from the wraps.

"Dog hater!" growled LBJ.
"Wall builder!" shouted Reagan.
Obama stirred. "Uh . . ."

Onto the stage, positioned off-center,
went the 45th, animatronically correct,
a dead ringer for Jon Voight.

"Jesus Christ!" prayed Jimmy Carter.
"He'll mock my braces," bemoaned FDR.
"Travesty," said Washington. "I cannot lie."

Switched on, the 45th did its test run:
hands moved, head nodded, voice sounded
rather like Putin's—

"I smell a crook," muttered Nixon.
"The only natural area he knows is beneath the belt,"
Teddy complained, and Obama gestured, "Uh . . ."

The techs fixed the Putin glitch,
except for faint tweeting in the background,
and the America First dummy stood ready to wow.

"Uh . . ." spoke Obama, "anyone whose meal preference
is two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fish, and a malt
will never complete a full term!"—

which perked up Bill Clinton: "Yum!"
Abe sighed. "Shall we never stop this bleeding?"
"Lightweights! I'm huge!" crowed their silicone successor.

Darrell Petska's writing has appeared in Whirlwind, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Chiron Review, Rat's Ass Review, Verse-Virtual, previously in TheNewVerse.News and elsewhere. Darrell worked for many years as communications editor for the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

DICTIONARY: EX-PRESIDENT.SEE JAMES EARL CARTER

by Earl J. Wilcox

Builder of habitats for persons without a house.
Eradicator of diseases among world’s poorest people.
Peacemaker for nations that have had little peace.
Overseer of fair elections where corrupt politicians rule.
Role model for human species: sincere, happy, productive,
Inspiring, gracious mortal. Mankind’s finest: see Jimmy Carter.


Earl J Wilcox lives in South Carolina, cooks, writes, watches baseball, contributes regularly to The New Verse News.