ODE TO PROGRESS

by Tim Walker

Where are the mayflies of years past?
Or their descendants for that matter,
missed for many a May? But hey, at least
our windshield’s free of bug splatter.

Are night-blooming plants bereft of pollination
by moths confused by light pollution?
Praise be to LED lights, so productive,
we splurge on ever greater wattage!

And how does the little busy bee
keep up morale in its collapsing colony?
Being a social insect is overrated, vastly,
like being a seed-dispersing beasty.

The plants will learn to do without them.
We’re all tightening our belts. In the long run
we’ll concoct “honey” from sorghum
and petroleum byproducts, Amen.

Tim Walker read, for pleasure, the complete novels of Charles Dickens while earning a BA in Environmental Studies, and the complete novels of Anthony Trollope while earning a PhD in Geological Sciences, and has worked as a computer programmer, healthcare data analyst, used book seller, and pet sitter. He lives largely in his own head, while he corporeally resides in Santa Barbara with his son Dana and their cat Cassiopeia. His essays and poems most recently appeared in Harpy Hybrid Review, 3:AM, Fatal Flaw, Rock Salt Journal, and are forthcoming in Sneaker Wave Magazine and TYPO: The International Journal of Prototypes.

DREAM

by Tricia Knoll

“Our biggest dream is to just be able to stand by the windows.” —Saleem Aburas, a relief coordinator with the Red Crescent near Al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis, quoted in “Two Hospitals in Southern Gaza Are Left Barely Functioning," The New York Times, February 19, 2024

 
To stand by a window. To see my neighbors water their geraniums 
on the stoop. To watch traffic, the old blue cars and the new cars
going off to work. The children waiting at the front doors for
a mother to walk them off to school. To watch my wife in the
garden. At night to watch moths flutter at the street lights. 
 
Of course it’s holidays with family. Feasting foods after fasts. 
The hug from my cousin who owes me money. My hug to him.
A first drink of cold water after sleep. It’s all these things,
 
plus those moths fluttering at the street lights who think
dreams come true. 

Tricia Knoll welcomes the arrival of her new book of poetry Wild Apples from Fernwood Press this week—poems that tell stories of downsizing, moving 3000 miles from Oregon to Vermont, running into Covid and welcoming two grandsons.