LET’S DROP THE BALM

by Melanie Choukas-Bradley

AI-generated graphic by Shutterstock for The New Verse News.

Salve for the whole planet
Nuclear, to the last atomic particle
A wind so obliterating it removes all hate
Leaving a fallout of divine love with no half-life
Across all lands, all cells, all souls
 

Melanie Choukas-Bradley is a 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 three previous poems published in 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.” 

AN ODE TO SILPHION

by Maryanne Hannan

This miracle plant was eaten into extinction 2,000 years ago—or was it? Silphion cured diseases and made food tasty, but Emperor Nero allegedly consumed the last stalk. Now, a Turkish researcher thinks he’s found a botanical survivor. Photo: Professor Mahmut Miski cups a handful of flowering Ferula drudeana near Mount Hasan in central Turkey. The scholar of plant medicine believes the species is silphion. —National Geographic, September 23, 2022

Oh you slice of yesteryear 

Stalk of ferula drudeana

Last seen dribbling down

Nero’s chin, he of Roman

Emperor fame, wildly

Pursuing immortality 

To enhance his lifetime

Omnipotence appointment.

Now a thousand miles away

And two thousand years later,

You sway alone and majestic

In a field, high above your

Gnarly root, insects feasting

On your pearly sap.

And loving it, they say.

Could it be you, and if so,

Where have you been 

All this time? When we too

Needed your balm, the way

You cure baldness, epilepsy,

Maybe even cancer. When

We too needed to season

Our lentils, our fish sauce.

Look deep, to the earth, 

You say, the hidden fields, 

To the dirt, the goats, 

The lowliest. 

What was lost, now found?

More like, you say 

What’s old is ever new-ing.

A retired Latin teacher, Maryanne Hannan lives in upstate New York and has been writing poetry and watching the world evolve for many decades. 

IN THE CONTEXT

by George Held

When long waves roll in at Napeague and roil the tidal pools, I feel nature’s force and nature’s balm soothing my wounded body and my troubled mind,

All in the context of Covid-19, the plague upon all houses...

Ah, “coronavirus,” that beautiful poetical word, amphibrach + trochee, a perfect word for free verse, a word that can break any meter the way the virus can break down any human organ—

“Coronavirus” - caress its divine sonic details on the tongue, in the pharynx, the miraculous voice box,

As you murmur the all-consuming word—
coronavirus,
coronavirus,
coronavirus


George Held, a longtime contributor to TheNewVerse.News, is sheltering in Eastern Long Island.

THE TYGER AND THE LAMB . . . AGAIN

by Earl J Wilcox

She said: we forgive you.
He was mute.

She said: hate will not win.
He looked straight ahead.

She said: repent and find your savior.
He said” Yes, sir, to the judge.

They said: Every fiber of our being hurts.
He turned and walked out.

Today there is no balm in Gilead.


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