A MARRIAGE OF EAGLES

by stella graham-landau 

From Nest to Deathbed, Jackie the Eagle Entranced California and Beyond. The bald eagle and her mate gained fame during the pandemic, as a livestream tracked their nesting attempts. She died while being treated for anemia. —The New York Times, August 10, 2026

mated for years

jackie is larger than shadow 
her compadre of the skies 
both hardwired to protect 
each egg each feathered chick
perhaps they met in a playground of clouds 
an accidental encounter 
not paired by families imagining 
a coupling worthy of majesty 
they soar
own the sky 
build aeries in the tops of giant trees
relying on architectural instinct
carried in their bones
jackie 
an unpretentious name 
for a mother 
tasked to save her species
eons of ancestral instructions
to keep eagles aloft

build a nest
mate
lay eggs
hatch
fledge 

repeat

stella graham-landau is a poet in richmond va. she has been published on the new verse news and other journals, websites, and anthologies. she loves the generous community of poets she has found online and welcomes conversations with other creators.

BIRDS OF DARKNESS

by Dick Altman

The Perseid meteor shower at Eleven Mile State Park in Colo. in 2024. Eleven Mile is among several state parks in Colorado working on becoming certified with DarkSky International. (Eric Schuette | Colorado Parks and Wildlife via Colorado Public Radio, September 1, 2025

Carefully crafted and robust public policy is crucial to fulfilling DarkSky’s mission to restore the nightime environment and protect communities from the harmful effects of light pollution. We are involved in various efforts to influence the decisions of various lawmaking and oversight bodies worldwide to  formulate, adopt, implement, evaluate, or change public policies on outdoor lighting. We partner with various government entities to support policy priorities that reduce light pollution and promote quality outdoor lighting. —DarkSky

Northern New Mexico

My first night

living in Indian Country,

on the seemingly

boundless

high desert plains,

begins as I step

from my pickup,

to peer

into the blackest sky

of my life,

and not a light

anywhere near,

when out

of the far eastern

horizon,

you,

a shooting star,

burst,

to journey

one-hundred-

eighty degrees,

traversing

the entire

visible heavens,

to what,

to my eyes,

appears to be

the other side

of the universe.

I’m too spellbound,

to count how long

you take to make

this unimpeded,

rarest

of nocturnal

crossings.

 

Did Indigenous

spirits want

somehow

to further

approach me,

when at twilight,

a few nights later,

I walk up

a hilly road,

alone,

I thought,

as a Great

Horned Owl,

wings open,

glides

from the top

of a juniper,

straight for me?

I know your call,

and just as you’re

about to pass

overhead,

Hoo! Hoo! Hooo!

I chorus.

As if you abruptly

hit the brakes

in mid flight,

you circle twice,

above me,

no more than

two arms’ lengths

away,

before

your feathered bulk,

dissolves

into the fading light.

 

Instead of treating me

as an

outlier,

you spirits,

so it feels,

continue

to reach out to me.

I walk up

the owl hill,

only this time

a streak

of astral flame

races across

my view

at eye level,

just before dark.

I can’t tell

the distance

between us,

but I swear

I hear

an orchestra

of super-heated

gases billowing,

fluttering

like gale-driven

sails,

soaring

across night.

 

 

Dick Altman writes in the thin, magical air of Old West’s high desert plains, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in the American Journal of Poetry, Santa Fe Literary Review, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Landing Zone, Cathexis Northwest Press, Humana Obscura, and others here and abroad. His work also appears in the first edition of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry, published by the New Mexico Museum Press. Pushcart Prize nominee and poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has authored over 250 poems, published on four continents.

TODAY THE SKY BLED RED

by Kyle Hina

Today the morning sky bled
red with memories that I can
only imagine from a far, all
caught up in the air beneath
the hazy sun. Wisps of a thing 
infinitesimally small in size but
of infinite magnitude, summoned to
one last sail across heaven’s sea.

Somewhere in there, I’m sure,
is the country blue farmhouse 
that grandpa built, with the tan
guitar in the corner that turned 
him into Johnny and grandma 
into June when he played it. 

There are the skinny emerald
pines that dotted the trail of
a friend’s first date.  And the 
silver and rust car that caught
her sobs when she found 
that love isn’t always evergreen.  

There is the ivory wedding gown, 
all bejeweled and moth-balled, 
that hung in the closet, still 
awaiting its turn to renew a
couple's love. And the matching 
aqua tie that the husband was 
too scared to wear, for fear it 
might find that brown tea stain 
to match all of the others.

A teal blanket that went home
with the baby and the yellow
cleats he wore when he kicked
his last goal. Violet flowers, 
magenta scrapbooks. A faded 
purple skateboard and greyscale
photo of the family reunion, 1989.

On and on, memories too 

numerous to count rise in a 
prism’s worth of colors, but 
carry too much despair to 
form a rainbow. Instead they 
coalesce into a crimson blanket 
that covers the city like a car 
too old to ever be used again. 

In another world, white men 
in black suits point fingers and
shout names, maneuvering for
attention like children at a funeral.  
But my eyes are on the horizon,
where tonight the sky bleeds red.  

Kyle Hina is a husband, father, software engineer, and musician living in Zanesville, Ohio with his wife, two sons and dog. He has one published short fiction work on 101words.org .

EACH DEVASTATION

by Linda Conroy

“Blue Shadow” (original hand painted Acrylic painting of Blue petals in different shades) by Deepu.

 

brings blue shadow to the landscape

reminding of the weight of volatility

 

a volatility so broad that it might 

slam the farthest reach of sky.               

 

I see that the farthest reach of sky,

a place that could bring joy in its daily birth,       

 

a birth that may absolve our sins in joy,

is blurred with splashes of red dawn.          

 

A rawness of red dawn reflecting

all spilt blood, acts of a night just gone.

 

Blood this night spilled, done for now

and slunk away, not pushed by any squall.

 

No morning squall can push beyond                              

the bruised blue shadows of this day.

Linda Conroy is a retired social worker who likes to observe and comment on the human behaviors that we see around us, and on the connection between human nature and the natural world. Her work has appeared in many journals.

DRY JULY

by David Chorlton

Today the inside knows what the outside’s like,
cats asleep and windows closed
with nobody walking on the street
and birds in the yard waiting for a shadow
to perch on.

                     It’s a hundred-
and-Hell degrees this afternoon, the devil’s
breath for a breeze
and climate change denial melts
when the temperature dances
on the asphalt in the road.

                                                The midnight low
is too high for living outdoors. Another
record falls. The homeless camp
was swept away and a public nuisance
turned into a death threat.

                                                     A dove
has made a dust bath in a bare patch
on the lawn, a man with no address
lies down with his belongings
at a bus stop where there’s shade.

A lizard on the back wall
flashes his lightning scales as he climbs
a few more degrees
                                     of dry heat
and doesn’t stop until he’s safely reached
the air conditioned sky.

David Chorlton is a transplanted European, who has lived in Phoenix since 1978. His poems often reflect his affection for the natural world, as well as occasional bewilderment at aspects of human behavior. He still produces occasional watercolors and is attentive to the local wildlife.

THE SILENCED MAJORITY

by Katherine West

Graphic by Katherine West.

The silenced majority

that some day

will decide

which small piece of the sky

belongs to them

—Rigoberta Menchú quoted in Poetry Like Bread.

70% of Americans don’t trust politicians to make abortion policy. —19thNews

                                                                        

Today it is cloudy

I can’t see the sky at all

I have to imagine it

the way it was

when I was young

when life was a blue door

opening

on an even bluer

even bigger sky

Some days

the sky was so blue

it was almost purple

and I could see

all the way

to Mexico

The birds seemed to fly higher

farther

taking me with them

to new lands

where all the women

grew wings

wrote books

started businesses

ran for office

got married, or not

bore children, or not 

became stronger as they aged 

It was a blueberry sky

with something infinite about it, 

an exuberant potential

I gobbled this up

when I was young—

it became my marrow

and a good thing too

since the clouds

seem to be here to stay

I carry infinity

inside me

a multitude of blue doors

that I open

one by one

day by day

And there are others

doing the same

all over the world

The sky is falling

and we

we are patching it

putting it back up

wiping it clean

of clouds

We are passing out binoculars

to those

with faulty vision

We are leaving

blue footprints behind

everywhere we go

We know

there are those who erase

our footprints

who tell everyone

they meet

that we were never here

But we are here

We aren’t going anywhere—

and there are a lot of us

Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near Silver City. She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel Lion Tamer. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Writing in a Woman's Voice, Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, The New Verse News, Tanka Journal, Splash!, Eucalypt, Writers Resist, Feminine Collective, and Southwest Word Fiesta. The New Verse News nominated her poem "And Then the Sky" for a Pushcart Prize in 2019. In addition she has had poetry appear as part of art exhibitions at the Light Art Space gallery in Silver City, New Mexico, the Windsor Museum in Windsor, Colorado, and the Tombaugh Gallery in Las Cruces, New Mexico. She is also an artist.

LOOK, UP IN THE SKY

by Michelle DeRose

Trey Ganem's company, SoulShine Industries, created special caskets for 19 of the 21 victims killed at Robb Elementary School, Uvalde, Texas.

What music accompanies a Superman coffin?

What song will waft your boy over buildings

that block your sun, black your path

with shadow? Does the melody

to lull you to sleep exist, and 

will the hum of your own voice

be enough? Birdsong mocks, small 

throats on spindly legs, sparrows still

in the care of their father. Where 

will your boy fly now, outstretched 

arms and closed fists planing so fast, 

so fast, 

away from you?

Michelle DeRose teaches creative writing and Irish, African-American, and world literature at Aquinas College. Some of her recent poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Midwest Quarterly, Dunes Review, Sparks of Calliope, Making Waves, and The Journal of Poetry Therapy.

PRIME REAL ESTATE

by Emmie Christie

Sphecius speciosus, often simply referred to as the cicada killer or the cicada hawk, is a large digger wasp species. —iNaturalist

The cicada killers drone in the park

Small rockets,

A display of gold in the sky.

I glare. I stare them down,

But billionaire buoyancy keeps them

Flying. A confidence fueled by concepts,

On stinger stock options,

Keeping me inside my cardboard home

But even that’s Prime real estate,

This box someone threw out.

And I shouldn’t be sleeping here, no,

Because that nearby bush has a plaque.

Where can I go to sleep?

I guess it’s a crime to have bad luck,

To lose my savings to a fire truck.

Where can I go

When the wealthy claim even the sky,

And I am not allowed to dream?

The cicada killers drone in the park.

Emmie Christie’s work tends to hover around the topics of feminism, mental health, cats, and the speculative such as unicorns and affordable healthcare. She has been published in Flash Fiction Online and Three-Lobed Burning Eye, and she graduated from the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2013. She also enjoys narrating audiobooks for Audible. You can find her on Twitter @EmmieChristie33.

AFTERIMAGE

by Cathleen Cohen

Portrait of Kaylin Johnson (KJ) painted by Cathleen Cohen for the Johnson family as part of the Soul Shots Project the mission of which is to bring attention to and memorialize the lives lost and tragically altered due to gun violence. KJ was shot and killed in Philadelphia in July 2021.

Painting KJ’s portrait, I peer

at an image of this beautiful boy, shot

in his parked car, waiting

 

to ferry friends to soccer practice.

His mother sends photos that capture

his smile, his jaunty shoulders.

 

I can tell he was quick

with jokes, sparking others.

His mother says he’d jump 

to carry heavy bags 

for older neighbors,

even strangers.

 

The boy who shot him

was a stranger.

Afterimage is illusion.

The brain persists in seeing

what’s removed.

 

Sometimes color memory

is repressed,

sometimes brighter.

 

I cry when I take up the brush.

What about skin tone?

Reference photos lack 

saturation

and I never met him.

Or background?

 

Brick red for urban houses?

Cobalt for sky—something

hopeful?

Cathleen Cohen was the 2019 Poet Laureate of Montgomery County, PA. A poet, painter and teacher, she created the We the Poets program for children. Her poems appear in journals such as Apiary, Baltimore Review, East Coast Ink, North of Oxford, One Art Journal, Passager, Philadelphia Stories, Poetica, River Heron Review, and Rogue Agent. She authored Camera Obscura (Moonstone Press), Etching the Ghost (Atmosphere Press) and Sparks and Disperses (Cornerstone Press). Her artwork is on view at Cerulean Arts Gallery.

THANKSGIVING

by Jennifer Freed

Source: MIT Medical

For our kitchen,

for the sourdough starter we learned to make

when the stores were still out of yeast,

for my husband,

who tends and feeds the starter for days, who kneads

the dough, shapes two round loaves, waits.

For the neat white bags of flour in our cabinet,

for the grocery store, its night-cleaners, their night hours

spraying disinfectant sprays.

For the cashiers in their comfortable shoes

and the blue-haired woman bagging our food,

her purple gloves, her back brace,

the peace signs on the mask across her face.

For the long-distance truck drivers driving

past closed restaurants, closed restrooms.

For the farm, the farmer, the wheat.

For the soil, its dark depths

of invisible lives,

and the sky, answering its thirst, charming it

with sun and moon and stars.

For that same sky rounding my own yard, lighting

my window, and my daughters at the table

doing their schoolwork on-line. For their breath.

For the air

scented with bread.

For the butter, the knife, the four plates rimmed in green.

And the two round loaves, now cooled, now     

on the cutting board, now ready

for our tongues,

our bodies,

our praise.

Jennifer Freed lives  in Massachusetts. Her poetry appears/is forthcoming in various journals, including Atlanta Review, Comstock Review, Worcester Review, and Zone 3. Her chapbook These Hands Still Holding (Finishing Line Press) was a finalist in the 2013 New Women’s Voices contest. She was awarded the 2020 Samuel Washington Allen Prize from the New England Poetry Club.

THE ROAD AHEAD, 2020

by Bill Sullivan

How to know if history is slamming

on the brakes, screeching to a blessed stop

just before the ditch and the cliff--taking

a left turn, leaving behind all the outdated

models, the hesitant and reluctant drivers?

No trumpet blares, theatric announcements,

no once-every-five hundred-years comet

streaking across the night sky, no revelations.

And we wonder if history is on automatic

drive and we're just along for the ride?  Or

if we can remap our route, take detours, back

roads to avoid dead ends and fatal collisions?

Still we keep our hands on the steering wheel, 

step on the gas, sing songs to the night sky.

Bill Sulllivan taught English and American studies at Keene State College before retiring in Westerly, Rhode island. His poems have appeared in print and online publications including: Perigee, Connecticut River Review, the Providence Journal, and The New Verse News.  He is also the author of Loon Lore: In Poetry and Prose.

PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE

by Juditha Dowd

Moon Behind the Oak, a photograph by Alinore Rose

Instead I watched the moon. I watched the moon climb up

the branches of the Rosenbauers’ oak and lift off into open sky.

By then a few stars and planets had pierced the urban night,

their sparkle suggesting forward movement as I viewed them

alone from our porch—it seemed they were headed somewhere.

Soon I was so caught up in thinking about their voyage

I forgot about the frost and the ruined tomatoes and the ruin

of where we’re headed here on earth, driven by barking dogs.

Is it better now that we understand the stars? Was it easier to believe

that all is preordained and all we need to do is bow our heads

and go along? I watched the moon find the windows of every house

on our block. Same moon, same light. I watched until it crested

and fell down our hill toward the college. Then there was nothing

to do but go back in.

 

Juditha Dowd’s latest book is Audubon’s Sparrow (Rose Metal Press, 2020).

THOSE WE'VE LOST

by George Salamon

Those We’ve Lost include (clockwise from top left): Terrence McNally, Hailey Herrera, Alan Finder, Dave Edwards, Lorena Borjas, Joseph Migliucci, Jenny Polanco, Dez-Ann Romain. The New York Times

The coronavirus pandemic has taken an incalculable death toll. This series is designed to put names and faces to the numbers. —"Those We've Lost," The New York Times, updated on July 29, 2020


What do we see when
We stare at the faces,
A few culled from many?
When we turn away, does
The moment linger, while
We seek light to banish
Darkness, even as the
Dying proceeds, each
Death meant to diminish
Us, to confront pain we
Deny, plunging us back
Into moral ignorance in
Which we are born?
Days later, when  we see the
Photo of a girl who survived,
Standing by her grandparents'
House amid fields of corn, do
We glance upward, above the
Girl, to the barely visible layers
Of Blue, hiding the sky, the sky
No longer giving us answers we
Don't know how to hear.


George Salamon has recently contributed to Dissident Voice, The Asses of Parnassus, One Sentence Poems, and TheNewVerse.News from St. Louis, MO.

BREF DOUBLE WRITTEN FOR CENTRAL PARK DURING THE PANDEMIC

by Jenna Le

Magnolias, long-fingered like a thief,
their knuckles purple fading to pale pink
toward their fingertips, reach out to stir
the robin’s-egg-blue basin of the sky,

to swirl their fingers lazily around
inside that bright dyed blueness. What’s a leaf?
they seem to murmur, What can leaves be worth
when we have petals silky as a sigh,

luxurious as a glove in hours when grief
will pace the halls of hospitals bare-handed?
I struggle to make sense of this motif,
this efflorescence out of season, blur

of muchness where so much has been cut brief.
I hope it’s hope that I’m meant to infer.

Jenna Le is the author of Six Rivers (NYQ Books, 2011) and A History of the Cetacean American Diaspora (Indolent Books, 2017), a Second Place winner in the Elgin Awards. She was selected by Marilyn Nelson as winner of Poetry By The Sea’s inaugural sonnet competition and by Julie Kane as winner of Poetry By The Sea’s sonnet crown competition the following year. Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in AGNI, Denver Quarterly, Los Angeles Review, Massachusetts Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Pleiades, Poet Lore, and West Branch. 

DISTANCING

by David Rosenthal

David Rosenthal lives in Berkeley, California and teaches in the Oakland public schools. He's been a Pushcart Nominee and a Nemerov Sonnet Finalist. His collection The Wild Geography of Misplaced Things was published by White Violet Press.