When California locked down last March to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the physical world seemed to shrink overnight. To contain the virus, we were instructed not to travel unless we were frontline workers. Many of us were confined to our homes.
by Dean Smith Saturday afternoon, summer of ’44, heat rising from the Durham tar, Private Booker T. Spicely boarded a bus, cradling a watermelon for a mother and her son, strode proudly in uniform into the second to last row. The driver, Lee Council, watched him from the mirror, never said a word until two white soldiers got on, then…
By Cliff Saunders
What happens when you die?
I think you’ll open at last
into the pain of oceans,
into memory and its horizon,
into music, music, music.
I can’t tell you when the lilies
will be glorious, when red flags
will be singing over the edge
By Cliff Saunders
There is no brotherhood of smiling wizards,
no mantra against the bells of teen spirit.
No mystery here—stones celebrate with song
how they shape the world into mountains
and waterfalls, their voices full of gracefulness
and elegance. We ought to let them dream
By Cliff Saunders
Want to be happier?
Welcome birds to your
vast coral bed of remembrance.
You are assured of getting
your compass of moles,
your weekly copy of available space.
Give your heart a little bit
of soul, a pivotal spin
on the altar of your mountain porch.
by Sean Cho A.
and you wake. You’re in the passenger’s seat
now here’s the first choice:
look forward or
look left
what you chose says a lot
about trust. Let’s say you look left.
The man driving looks like your father.
By Guna Moran
Mother
Bless me to turn into dust
Would stay stuck to both your feet every day
Mother
Bless me to be your teardrops
Would glitter in your eyes in times of joy and sorrow
By Guna Moran
A rock can only be made smaller
By beating and hitting
Can never be made larger
Rocks are generally homeless
They lay everywhere
by Lauren Rose burnt bush skeletons like a haze of unbrushed hair ohoo a dead deer, she says as we drive past it and never think of it again Lauren Rose was born on Misawa Air Force Base in Japan in 1999. She is a senior at Sierra Nevada University studying biology, creative writing, and outdoor adventure leadership. She currently…
by Lauren Rose
hail mary full of grace,
I sit in a pew
head bowed
dress torn
drinking her whispers
the lord is with thee.