LIFE AT LAND’S END

by Mary Eileen Knoff

In January, for thirty years, I have left behind
grey Seattle skies to sit beside the Pacific shore
at Land’s End, on the Baja’s southern tip,
seeking respite from the northern chill.

Each year, thunderous surf lashes the land,
crashing against its standing stone, La Roca,
filling the sky with mist and foam.
This year the scene turns my thoughts toward home:

there an explosion of presidential orders
overwhelms like a deluge, threatening
to reshape truth as surf reshapes the sand.
Can our country withstand the onslaught thrust upon us?

Many of us now cast about for a course
to follow through these treacherous times.

Life at Land’s End calls out to me through the fog:

Stand firm like this rock, persist like the tide
shine like lighthouses for those who ride on stormy seas.
Your words and deeds of truth and mercy will be guides,
like bright, shining stars in a blackening sky,
like rafts of life on fear and greed’s wicked seas.

Mary Eileen Knoff spent the first two decades of her professional life as an English teacher, editor, and freelance writer. In the mid-1990s she studied for pastoral ministry and then served as a spiritual companion and small group facilitator since the early 2000s. She has lived in Redmond, Washington near the foothills of the Cascades for the last thirty years. For the last decade I have been crafting a collection of poems about life on the pond that I call Ponderings. I am in search for a publisher of that collection these days. In 2012, as part of a doctoral program in ministry, she collected, edited, and published writings by myself and others, now in a second edition, called Seasoning the Soul: Meditations for the Celtic Year.

HOW MANY MORE?

by Laura Apol

I don’t start to cry until I see Hannah’s name and a quote from her
at 10:57 p.m. on the New York Times feed—which means at least 
this one’s alive, this last-semester student with the pink hair and the
big laugh, and I realize I’ve been holding my breath for hours, for
these hours of not-knowing. I keep looking at the same images: the
streets, the sidewalks, the doorways, the windows, the diagonals of
the museum turned blue and red, blue and red with lights from
ambulances-firetrucks-police. Every intersection closed, students
fleeing, huddling, wearing clothes they wear to class each day, and
I search the images, blurred by distance and dark, for faces I know.
The sounds of helicopters overhead are transferred through the
microphone of a reporter who seems at a loss loss loss for what to
say. Time and again this happens, beads on a broken rosary, but
this time it’s here—the place I’ve called home for twenty-five years.
These students are still children, and these are the buildings we’ve
met in, sidewalks we’ve walked, sometimes in celebration, sometimes 
in protest, sometimes in snow or rain, sometimes under star-bright 
skies, but never on a night like this. A colleague writes, Part of me 
is hoping that none of the deceased students were in my classes 
these past years. A selfish hope, indeed and while I’d like to disagree, 
she’s right. Of course it’s selfish; tell me, how can we not be selfish,
praying that the ones we love are safe—though no one’s safe—
knowing that each silence, each not-answering is someone’s 
student, someone’s roommate, someone’s best friend, someone’s
child. How many more?

Author’s note: This poem was written in response to the first message that appeared on the MSU Rock and before the names of the students who were killed (Arielle Anderson, Brian Fraser, Alexandria Verner) had been released.

Laura Apol is a faculty member at Michigan State University, where she teaches poetry, literature and women's studies. From 2019-2021 she served as the Lansing-area poet laureate. 

SCHOOL DOORS

by Alejandro Escudé

Doors are important in schools.

That’s why when you’re a teacher

they give you lots of keys, keys

that you then have to return when 

you leave for summer break, which

is why leaving for summer break

feels so final, so like confronting

a kind of early retirement, or death.

It’s also why after twenty years

teaching English, I hate doors and

I hate keys, which feel so primitive

to me, those flecks of coded copper

that pinch your upper thigh, get stuck

in your sunglasses, become tangled

up within themselves and you have

to wrestle them free. Once, I lost

a whole set of school keys; I’d

stopped at a gas station and they

slipped out of my dress slacks.

I got home and reached into my

empty pockets, and I felt this

utter panic, my face turned cold.

I drove back and there they were 

beside the fuel pump, laying as if

waiting for me to swipe them.

I looked around and felt a welling

up of gratitude. Who could’ve

had access to this world of youth

that I was in charge of every day?

Who could’ve hurt them? I worked

at a school not long ago who often

left the back door to the gym open.

Mornings, I’d walk by and see

the door propped ajar, inviting 

anyone from off the street to come

inside, take anything they wished

from the locker rooms: gloves,

helmets, jerseys, pompoms, lives.

So I’m empathetic when I read 

about the school shooting, how  

a teacher left the door open. Then 

how it was shown she hadn’t, yet 

locked doors often refuse to stay

locked. Doors like remaining open,

they prefer to welcome others.

I’ve been around school doors

so long, I believe I can hear that 

thing screeching as the shooter 

yanked it back, the big rock 

the teacher had used to prop it 

against the grass, to one side.

And like that—nowhere to hide.

Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

A ROCK IS NOT A RIFLE

by Akua Lezli Hope

A rock is not a rifle
a jackass is not a genius
hysterical raving is not fact
might is not right

a caravan is not an invasion
a child is not a commodity
a refugee is not refuse
a rock is not a rifle

resentment is not democracy
fear is not strength
denial is not affirmation
a rock is not a rifle

commitment is not a joke
accords are not accidents
science is not opinion
a rock is not a rifle

abuse is not a right
hate is not a right
murder is not a right
a rock is not a rifle

a rock is not a rifle
though you be goliath
and we are david
a rock is not a rifle

Akua Lezli Hope is a creator who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, handmade paper and wire to create poems, patterns, stories, music, adornments, sculpture and peace whenever possible. She has published 125 crochet designs. Her new Word Works poetry collection Them Gone is now available.

MY MOTHER’S OCEAN

by Bill Meissner

vis Giphy

I can never take just one photograph of
the ocean. The cerulean waves are too
lovely, too graceful, tumbling gently over themselves,
then turning to foam that kisses
the sandy lip of the world.
There are no other words for it—this
huge and endless ocean’s rise and fall, this
rocking back and forth, back
and forth, the way my mother used to

hold me when I was a small child, afraid
of the oncoming storm.
The brittle window glass rattled, but
she rocked me, and replaced the thunder
with a humming, a lullaby
that rose and fell.
It’s a melody I would,
as the years passed, remember,
then forget, then
remember again. There are no words

for this song my mother sang, her liquid voice
small, but still filling the room,
overpowering the fists of wind and stabs of lightning
with a language I couldn’t understand

at the time.
One single photograph
is never enough. I know now
that there is beauty in the things that are
closest to us, and beauty in the things
that we lose. She

is gone now.
But as a wave lifts itself and rolls
toward me, then bows down and becomes
a wing of bright diamonds,
I stand again on this shore, without words,
my bare feet sinking into
the hourglass sand,
and wait for that song to wash over me.

Bill Meissner is the author of eight books, including a novel and four books of poetry.  His most recent poetry book is American Compass from the University of Notre Dame Press.

TENDING

by Jeremy Thelbert Bryant

BREAKING NEWS: The Army Corps of Engineers said that it would not approve permits for construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline beneath a dammed section of the Missouri River. —The New York Times, DEC. 4, 2016

A mother bird, in the tree my grandfather planted, drops food into babes’ beaks.
How long have mothers tended this world?
A police officer opens hose on a woman protesting pipeline. A piece of her rips away.
How long have women fought for earth and man?
The babes without knowing to be grateful, blindly eat.
Water washes away blood, but dirt and rocks remember.

Jeremy Thelbert Bryant is a poet and a writer of creative nonfiction who lives in Virginia. When he is not teaching English, he is burning incense, listening to music, drinking coffee, and writing. He finds inspiration in the red of cardinals, in the honesty of Frida Kahlo’s artwork, and in the frankness of Tori Amos’ lyrics.

SIX-YEAR-OLD SYRIAN BOY RESCUED FROM DEBRIS AFTER A BOMBING IN ALEPPO

by Ryan McNamara





My body beneath the weight of rock and rubble,
taken by what surrounds me, wanting to return
my feet upon the sturdy earth, but still,
rescue men search through rock and wreck
toward me. My words have fled the border lines
I hear them shouting, say something, please.
Photographers surround my lonely emergence
As I'm lifted like burdened stone, toward war.

As I'm lifted like burdened stone, toward war,
photographers surround my lonely emergence
I hear them shouting, say something please
toward me. My words have fled the border lines.
Rescue men search through rock and wreck.
My feet upon the sturdy earth, but still
taken by what surrounds me—wanting to return
My body beneath the weight of rock and rubble.

Ryan McNamara is a student at Central Connecticut State University majoring in Biomolecular Science. He lives in Meriden, CT. This is his first publication.

Editor's Note: When the bombs rain down, the Syrian Civil Defence rushes in. In a place where public services no longer functions, these unarmed volunteers risk their lives to help anyone in need—regardless of religion or politics. Known as the White Helmets, these volunteer rescue workers operate in the most dangerous place on earth. You can help: Support the White Helmets.

LAST PICTURE

by Anne Graue

A couple taking a photo on the edge of a cliff died when they fell hundreds of feet while their young children watched, according to news reports. The Polish couple died after falling from the rocky edge in Cabo da Roca in west Portugal. They were apparently taking a 'selfie' photo of themselves, according to NBC and others, though details of the events leading up to the fall were still hazy. A local English language news site, the Portugal Resident, said the parents had given the children the camera to take a picture. Their children, ages 5 and 6, were turned over to Polish diplomats and are undergoing psychiatric care. --USA Today, August 12, 2014. Photo: Portuguese National Tourist Office via USA Today.

Stepping back, waving
to the boys

smiling as one foot
slips on loose rock
before the other goes

they fall together
back into blue
sky, the camera

still in the hands
of the six-year-old

watching his mother
as she leans
back into the sun

his father as he
reaches for her
to catch her hand

the terror

realizing the cliff
the water below.


Anne Graue writes poetry and teaches online from her home in New York's Hudson Valley. Her poems have appeared in Compass Rose, Sixfold Journal, VerseWrights, and The 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly. She is a reviewer for NewPages.com.