Dusting the Mountains by Polly Brown (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER Series)

Dusting the Mountains
by Polly Brown

      Up on a stool where she probably
shouldn’t have stood, my mother tacked
      two plastic maps to the wall: pale green
rectangles of molded relief. Carefully
      she matched terrain along the seam,
creating this span from Portsmouth,
      near the lower edge, to Kingfield
toward the top—mountains a bumpy
      rubble strewn north to south.

      Her great-grandchildren stand here
sometimes, to read like Braille this model
      of her world, their fingers following
the Sandy River as it threads between hills,
      or discovering how only a corner
of ocean in the south feels flat. (I myself
      have climbed Mt. Washington,
several different routes, and flown
      with hawks, peak to peak.)

      Today, before a family visit, I apply
the tender cloud of her lambswool duster
      to the mountains. I hold in mind
a recent image of Mt. Blue—that lavender
      sweep of shoulder, trees bare—
and thank once more the ghost who gave us
      this wrinkled place to love,
who chose, all her life, when she could,
      a long, wide view.

IMAGE: Maine raised relief map by Hubbard Scientific, available at Mapshop.com. 

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: After many years elsewhere, my husband and I now live in a place that was my mother’s and before that my grandmother’s, across the river from my father’s family’s dairy farm. Layers and layers of memory, along with new understanding of the weather, landscape, risks and changes in this place. My mother—a map-collector, kite-maker, genealogist, naturalist, poet, librarian, and legendarily kind person—still shows up everywhere, often in action, and that’s mostly wonderful and always clarifying.

PHOTO: The author and her mother at the Green Hill Senior Living, West Orange, New Jersey. Photo by Alex Brown (May 2017). 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Polly Brown took her first two years of retirement to write a blog about what she’d learned from teaching young adolescents, at ayeartothinkitover.com. Now she’s resettled an old family farm in western Maine, where she’s raising poems and a few green beans. Pebble Leaf Feather Knife, from Cherry Grove Collections in 2019, followed two chapbooks, Blue Heron Stone, from Every Other Thursday Poetry, and Each Thing Torn from Any of Us, from Finishing Line. Recent poems have appeared in Appalachia, Hole in the Head Review, Poetry East, and Quartet Journal, among others. Visit her at pollybrownpoet.blogspot.com.

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One with green fingers by Srabani Bhattacharya (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER Series)

One with green fingers
by Srabani Bhattacharya

Maa will rescue plants
unwanted on pavements,
come home to wash leftover
pickle from an old jar
or scavenge a cup with
a broken handle and shove
in a handful of soil, make
a hole and tuck in roots
crooning baby talk lovingly
asking it to grow well only
to repot it over and over again.

She will run after the sun
and steal sunny spots from
basking cats to favour her
flourishing flower; cry if
I throw away banana peels
or drain the rotting pan of
vegetable-washed water
because everything in kitchen
belongs to her family extended
from children who have escaped
her wing.

I see her call her new younglings
pet names and think that
she has not known anything better
than the time of day when the sun
shines brightest to feed her brood:
Not the tea kettle where she
makes rounds and rounds of
tea to bribe baba to hang planters
on hooks or trim the overgrown
hedge of the shiuli. Nor the
rusted gas stove before which
between her endless chores
and preparation of four dishes
for four people, she studies
poetry when she is not searching
“how to make terrariums” or
“best rooftop garden ideas”
on YouTube.

No. She has not
known anything better than
to pile desires and dreams
in compost pits to decompose
with the egg shells and vegetable
peels to feed her children so they
can grow and grow and grow.

Previously published on The Kali Project (2021).

PHOTO: Balcony garden by Alexi Novikov.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: My mother can turn any empty container into a planter. All our unused kettles, cups, bowls, jars, bottles, pencil holders – you name it – are refurbished into plant homes. The best part of her day is the few hours she spends composting, repotting, and tending to her terrace garden. I have seen maa put her everything into her plant projects – her time, her savings, her online studies, her creativity. As a grown daughter, I often wonder how much of herself she put into her family and in bringing me and my brother up.

AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: This photo of Maa and I was taken by my father when we were on a family trip to Puri in April 2018.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A poet, editor, and copywriter based in Kolkata, India, Srabani Bhattacharya completed her MA in English Literature from Jadavpur University in 2019. Her work has been published on LiveWire, Muse India, NOVUS Art Literary Journal, Usawa Literary Review, Rigorous Magazine, and other literary spaces. She was the finalist in Wordweavers poetry contest and Five Elements of nature poetry contest. You can find her weaving poetry @paperbird.me.

What’s in a Name? by Marilyn Zelke Windau (SPICES & SEASONINGS Series)

What’s in a Name?
by Marilyn Zelke Windau

Nee Zuehlke (Zelke) from ancestors of Germany,
literally, from Prussia,
my maiden name means herb gatherers.

When I was a little girl in a Chicago neighborhood,
You, dad, planted corn and tomatoes and lettuce,
onions, and carrots in a 6’ x 4’ plot.

You weeded and watered.
You nurtured, gathered,
made the most wonderful vegetable soup.

I grew to teenage years in the suburbs,
agreed to your request:
“Here are 100 asparagus roots.
They’re two years old and wanting soil.”

I planted them in shade of elm and locust trees.
I knew they would cry for sun, for warmth.
Our suburban yard closed its eyes to crops.

No yield that year or ever.
My dad still planted tomatoes out back
by the garbage cans
that would be attacked by raccoons nightly.

I inherited his love for growth, for dirt under my nails,
plant a garden yearly,
Sage, thyme, oregano, garlic chives
come up annually.
Parsley overruns my life.

Soil nurtures my soul.

PHOTO: Herb garden by Barbra Ford.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I have been an avid gardener and a poet for most of my life, due to my father’s influence. This year, my garden has an abundance of zucchini and pattypan squash, collard greens, chard, carrots, and six types of tomatoes. Green beans hang from vines growing up my garage wall. One of my three daughters got married in our backyard. I grew multitudes of flowers that year to beautify her day. I became a Master Gardener volunteer several years ago and am part of a team of five people who nurture the seven gardens at the University of Wisconsin-Sheboygan campus.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Marilyn Zelke Windau, of Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin, started writing poems at age 13. A former art teacher, she has had five books of poetry published: Adventures in Paradise, Momentary Ordinary, Owning Shadows,  Hiccups Haunt Wilson Avenue, and Beneath The Southern Crux. Her award-winning work can be found in many journals and anthologies. Marilyn includes her maiden name to honor her father, who was also a writer.

Divinity of Nature by Jenny Bates (SPICES & SEASONINGS Series)

Divinity of Nature
by Jenny Bates

If you lose something
you have not wholly understood

Nothing is Holy.
I would shade you under the most

beautiful tree ever made.
Then, I would dapple you

with sunshine as you listen,
the peace of the vast Forest

I would serve to you with clove,
star aniseed, willow bark, orange.

Let the breeze lift you to a high place
as you breathe in its fire

on your skin, its water
at your feet.

Guide you back to where you began.
As I let you go like a leaf on the wind.

IMAGE: Sunrise by Georgia O’Keeffe (1916).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I have lived in the Piedmont Foothills for 26 of my 40 years as a resident of North Carolina. I am locally known, in Stokes County, as an animal whisperer especially to Donkeys, Coyotes, and “Crow Folk.” My experience is full of friendships I would never have thought possible. Adjacent to Hanging Rock State Park I myself, have blurred the lines between what is tame and what is not. My surroundings for the most part are still and peaceful and timeless. The woods go on and on forever, you think, and there’s nobody in them but you. My poetry reflects all of this unique relationship I have to the area of land and the company of animals I keep. My poetry yearns and transfigures itself, like nature.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jenny Bates is the author of five poetry collections. Her work has appeared in a variety of U.S. and international journals, and was presented at the 2023 Ecopoetics and Environmental Aesthetics Conference in London, England. Her poetry collection, ESSENTIAL, was published by Redhawk Publications in September 2023. Her previous books can be ordered from Malaprops Bookstore, in Asheville, North Carolina.

Moon-Seeking Soup by Penny Harter (SPICES & SEASONINGS Series)

Moon-Seeking Soup
by Penny Harter

Last night when the December moon was closer to the Earth than it had been in years, huge on the horizon, blazing hills and craters, I saw it too late, too high in the sky. Still, I could almost count the peaks that held the sun.

Tonight, after slicing potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, onions, and garlic into a base of chicken broth; after shaking a delicate rain of basil and tarragon onto the surface and stirring those sweet spices in—while the soup simmered, I threw a jacket on over my nightclothes and went out to look for the moon. My slippered feet were cold as I searched the sky, wanting to raise my face into white light.

But there was no moon, no glow over the apartment roofs to say it was rising, so I went back in and stirred my soup, raising the ladle to my lips to taste again and again the dark fruits of the Earth.

moon-seeking soup—
my own face reflected
in the broth

Previously published in the author’s collection The Resonance Around Us (Mountains and Rivers Press, 2013). 

IMAGE: Winter moon landscape by Senryu.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I wrote this poem about the first December (2008) after the death of my husband, William J. Higginson, the previous October. The soup recipe was one we enjoyed making together. I made it the night after I’d missed going out early enough the night before to see the December super-moon in all its glory. The poem (especially the final haiku in this haibun) reflects my working through grief.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Penny Harter’s work has appeared in Persimmon Tree, Rattle, Tiferet, American Life in Poetry, and many other print and online journals and anthologies. Her recent collections include Keeping Time: Haibun for the Journey, Still-Water Days, and A Prayer the Body Makes (2023; 2021; 2020; Kelsay Books). Other collections include The Resonance Around Us (2013); One Bowl ( 2012); and Recycling Starlight (2010). A featured reader at the 2010 Dodge Poetry Festival, she has won three fellowships from from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, as well as awards from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the Mary Carolyn Davies Award from the Poetry Society of America, the first William O. Douglas Nature Writing Award for her work in American Nature Writing, 2002, and two fellowships from Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA). Visit her at pennyharterpoet.com.

Kaʻūpūlehu by Joanne Corey (ONE GOOD MEMORY Series)

Kaʻūpūlehu
by Joanne Corey

Wilds chanted to the forest
            as we stood in a circle
                        asking permission to enter

Though I could not understand
            the Hawaiian words, my eyes
                        welled, tears ran down my cheeks

The forest answered that we could
            tread lightly on the jagged
                        lava rocks and visit the new

Trees, planted for their preservation
            protected from invasive competitors
                        fenced from hungry goats

My daughter touched their leaves
            told us their stories, more alive
                        than I had seen her in years

Awe
            and tears
                        and tears

First published in the Binghamton Poetry Project Spring 2022 anthology.

PHOTO: Dry forest, Big Island, Hawaii by Notwishinganyone (Sept. 2017).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This poem is a response to a prompt from a Binghamton Poetry Project session about a memory of communing with nature. I was immediately drawn back to a visit to the Kaʻūpūlehu Dryland Forest Preserve on the Big Island of Hawai’i. My daughter Trinity had spent a semester in the Islands while doing her undergraduate work in environmental science at Cornell University and had interned at Kaʻūpūlehu. The intersection of natural beauty, cultural richness, and familial connection was overpowering. This poem attempts to share that with you.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joanne Corey is thrilled to once again be a contributor to a Silver Birch Press series. She currently lives in Vestal, New York, where she participates with the Binghamton Poetry Project, Broome County Arts Council, Tioga Arts Council, and Grapevine Poets. With the Boiler House Poets Collective, she has completed an (almost) annual residency week at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams since 2015. Her first chapbook Hearts is forthcoming from Kelsay Books in 2023. She invites you to visit her eclectic blog, Top of JC’s Mind.

Compost by Joe Cottonwood (ONE GOOD MEMORY Series)

Compost
by Joe Cottonwood

Always an embarrassment, my father,
a bow-tie guy and president for Pete’s sake
of the Daffodil Society
so when he fenced a corner of the yard
and filled it with yellow bouquets wilted,
with grass clippings and moldy leaves of elm
wafting an odor like an old sponge,
it was another sad fact to hide about my family
until the dry winter day I saw steam rising.

With friend Jimmy I jumped in,
made burrows, caves,
prairie dogs in a warm hill of decay
spreading chaos which my father
must have cleaned later.

Some gone days like wilted bouquets
grow warm.

PHOTO: Leaf compost by Yves Bernardi.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: An ancient oak tree fell at my children’s school. The arborist cut and chipped. After the next rainfall, a mound of wood chips wafted steam. The scent was the trigger. As a child I thought an old sponge. The scent so sharp yet rich and deep I could now recognize as of an old whiskey barrel. I placed my hand inside the mound and yes, so warm. After decades dormant, this memory poured into my cup, and I drank.

PHOTO: Joe Cottonwood at the intersection of Cottonwood and Pine.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joe Cottonwood has repaired hundreds of houses to support his writing habit in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. His latest book is Random Saints. You can find him (and his poems) on Facebook. Visit him at joecottonwood.com.

At Middle Falls by Tamara Madison (ONE GOOD MEMORY Series)

At Middle Falls
by Tamara Madison

Icy water drops
from the rocks
in sheets

We swim like otters
in the pool the falls
have filled

How hot the sun
How sweet the water
My children near

PHOTO: Middle McCloud Falls (Siskiyou County, California). Photo by Adri.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This poem is about a camping trip to the McCloud River, near Mount Shasta, California. There was a heat wave that week, and the campground had no showers. Fortunately, the cold mountain water was always available and we loved swimming laps in the pool below the falls. The photo of me and my son jumping in was taken at a different spot along the river on that same trip.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Tamara Madison is a native of the California desert. A retired teacher of English and French, she is a well-traveled lover of nature, dogs and water. Her poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Chiron Review, The Writers Almanac, The Worcester Review, Pearl, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, and many others. She’s the author of two chapbooks and two full-length collections of poetry, with two more in the wings. More about Tamara can be found at tamaramadisonpoetry.com.

Spring Storm Along the Yuba by Robert Coats (ONE GOOD MEMORY Series)

Spring Storm Along the Yuba
by Robert Coats

Red osier dogwood over black water,
Each flaming twig rimed in white.
A ghost of snow lit by lightning flicker,
Dark clouds hasten on-rushing night.

Each flaming twig rimed in white:
A sudden unexpected gift.
Dark clouds hasten on-rushing night;
In deep shadow, the last remaining drifts.

A sudden unexpected gift
After a day in the woods, alone.
In deep shadow, the last remaining drifts,
Ahead, the long drive home.

After a day in the woods, alone
Wind-driven hail pummels the truck.
Ahead, the long drive home
Down highway carved through glistening rock.

Wind-driven hail pummels the truck,
A ghost of snow lit by lightning flicker.
Down highway carved through glistening rock:
Red osier dogwood over black water.

PHOTO: Red osier dogwood reflection in water looking like kissing lips by Jean Landry.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I believe that we are surrounded all the time by poems, but most of the time we do not see them.  I have been fortunate that my work often takes me to beautiful and amazing places, and provides opportunities to catch potential poems as they fly past. My submission describes the moment of catching some raw material that, with considerable sweat, eventually became a poem.¶ “Spring Storm Along the Yuba” was published with 10 other poems that together won first prize in a 2010 contest of the on-line journal Word Worth (apparently no longer accessible).  It won first prize in the “forms” category of the 2020 contest of the California Federation of Chaparral Poets, and is included in my book The Harsh Green World.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Robert Coats is a research hydrologist with the University of California at Davis. He has been studying climatic, hydrologic, and ecological processes in the northern Sierra Nevada—and writing poetry—for more than 40 years. His poems have appeared on the websites of Canary and Poetry and Places, and in Orion, Zone 3, Windfall, Song of the San Joaquin, in two anthologies (Fresh Water: Poems from the Rivers, Lakes and Streams and Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California), and in his book The Harsh Green World, published by Sugartown Publishing. He spent his childhood years in the deciduous forests of the Potomac River basin, and the summers of his teenage years in northern Elko Co., NV.  He lives now in Berkeley CA.

Mill Creek Hike During Covid-19 by Tina Hacker (ONE GOOD MEMORY Series)

Mill Creek Hike During Covid-19
by Tina Hacker

A sycamore leaf. One leaf. But large
as a dinner plate, falls
right at my feet in early October
before the wetlands trail
turns into wallpaper patterns
of locust, oak, maple.
I stop, pick it up. This is new to me
or seems new after weeks in lockdown.

Swarms of marsh cattails line the route.
Their tall slender stakes sway
at the whims of autumn winds,
eclipsing smaller scrambles of prairie grass.
Algae spreads over a pond like a ‘50s
poodle skirt, wide swaths of green, smooth as felt
with a blue heron replacing the iconic symbol.

Walking through a tunnel, I am pressed
into a crouch when a train passes overhead.
Fun! I decide to wait for another train
then stroll until late afternoon shadows remind me
of the dark time I am traveling through.
But for a couple of hours on this lowland journey,
nothing more dangerous than a leaf.

First published in the Mockingheart Review (2021). 

PHOTO: Sycamore Leaf by Rich Herrmann,

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This poem reflects true events. My husband helped me identify the sycamore leaf and other plants we encountered throughout our hike. I scribbled down notes from our first steps till our last steps on the trail.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Tina Hacker, a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, was a finalist in New Letters and George F. Wedge competitions and named Editor’s Choice in two literary journals. Her work has appeared in numerous print and online publications, including The Whirlybird Anthology of Kansas City Writers, San Pedro River Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, The Fib Review, and I-70 Review.  Her two poetry collections, Listening to Night Whistles and Cutting It, have been joined by a new collection titled GOLEMS  (Kelsay Books).