BEYOND THE TIPPING POINT

by Tamara Madison

"Climate goals missed, UN says" —The New York Times, September 2, 2026 

Heron so still we do not see him;

then, he opens his wide wings

and glides across the lake's

rippling mirror. 

 

Blue dragonflies skim the surface. 

Beneath the footbridge a turtle 

feasts on the carcass of a carp.

 

A hawk wings low, 

an omen across my path, 

then vanishes into the brush

before I can really see him.

 

Green shadows ring the lake;

at the tips of a tall liquidamber, 

pink leaves rustle 

in late summer wind and I wonder:

 

Can it really be that I and we 

are unworthy of all this beauty?

 

Tamara Madison is the author of the chapbooks “The Belly Remembers” (Pearl Editions) and "Along the Fault Line" (Picture Show Press) and three full-length volumes of poetry: “Wild Domestic” and “Moraine” (Pearl Editions) and "Morpheus Dips His Oar (Sheila-Na-Gig). Her fourth collection, Russian Honeymoon, is expected from Fernwood Press in 2026. Her work has appeared in Chiron Review, the Worcester Review, A Year of Being Here, One Art, the Writer’s Almanac, and many other publications. A swimmer, dog lover and native of the southern California desert, she is retired from teaching English and French in a Los Angeles high school.

SHISHI-ODOSHI IN THE CONSTITUTION GARDEN

by Richard L. Matta 

A bamboo pipe

sun-bleached to parchment paper white

trickles water like truth

makes deliveries to a receiver pipe,  

and when it’s had enough, it doesn’t lie still 

but sounds an alert. 

Big red dragonflies 

alight on the pipe, as if to refute the value

of the water, and all the while 

little blue dashers 

zigzag for attention. The lower rocker pipe 

fills and pivots and spills 

and smacks a rock and

who should stay in place 

but the big red dragonflies. 

The device is like a gavel for everyone to hear

but despite the crack 

it’s become background static.

Not even a deer or boar

would hesitate to spy and steal 

and disrupt the plentiful garden 

where a shishi-odoshi 

is just an artful design. 

Richard L. Matta grew up in New York and now lives in San Diego. Some of his work is found in Ancient Paths, Dewdrop, San Pedro River Review, Third Wednesday, Gyroscope, and many international haiku journals.