Karen Kelsay
Gathering Moss
You always stopped for no apparent reason,
whenever we walked into town--it drove
me crazy. With every changing season
you'd find a little coppice in the grove,
or see a beetle laboring across
a fallen leaf. I had to break my pace,
transform into a stone that gathered moss.
I couldn't keep annoyance off my face.
And then my knee decided I should learn
to stroll with leisure, letting pain be teacher.
I spotted lilies, pale asparagus fern,
looked up to see the pear tree's every feature.
A faster stride? It almost seems unholy.
How glad I am you still like walking slowly.
Mariana
With lowing of the oxen you awake.
And like a crow that's ferried by the moon
across a changeless night into opaque
portholes of sky, your mind is strewn
inside the molding weeds and brambles
of the past. Your farmhouse leans aslant
with age, an edifice that sadly ambles
out an addle-minded creaky chant,
that taints the sparrow-song. Your moated grange,
where even Angelo was overcome
by fields of melancholy, dies. How strange
that dogtooth violets never bloom, and plum
trees wither markedly, their fruit askew
and dim--depression always follows you.
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| AUTHOR BIO |
 Karen Kelsay lives in Torrance, California, and is the editor of Victorian Violet Press poetry magazine, and White Violet Press publishing company. She has authored five chapbooks, Lavender Song (2011), In Spite of Her (2010), Song of the Bluebell Fairy (2010), A Fist of Roots (2009), Somewhere near Evesham (2009) and a full length collection, Dove on a Church Bench (2011). Karen has been published in numerous anthologies, including Fire in the Pasture, a collection of 21st century Mormon poets. She is a five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, and was the featured poet in The New Formalist in January 2011. Her work has appeared in The Flea, The Raintown Review, The Lyric, 14 by 14 Magazine, Trinacria, The Foundling Review, Grey Sparrow, and many other journals. |
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| POETRY CONTRIBUTORS |
 Maryann Corbett
Nausheen Eusuf
Anna M. Evans
Rebecca Foust
Nicole Caruso Garcia
Karen Kelsay
Michele Leavitt
Laura Maffei
Susan McLean
Annabelle Moseley
Jennifer Reeser
Myrna Stone
Wendy Vardaman
Doris Watts
Marly Youmans
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| Holly Trostle Brigham: My paintings are rich with symbolism. I include flowers, butterflies, and other things from nature that communicate messages about the subject. These elements are interconnected with biographical references to tell a larger story about the sitter's life or place in history. | |
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