Michael Jennings

Calling?

So close once – now I don’t know where you are.
Bonds that seemed so strong dissolved
by always leaving you until tomorrow.
Do you sometimes give me a thought?
occasionally resurrect old times,
each thought of me spaced longer
than the time before – a week, a month, a year?
And then today … It was the letter falling on the mat;
for a second it seemed to bear your handwriting.
The brief flutter of the heart was quickly stilled,
but in that moment I saw your face now no longer young;
your hair grey, your face lined, your eyes deep with mystery.
Was that mistaken glimpse of mine a prompt?
Could you be suffering and be needing my prayers?

Michael Jennings is an ex-cartographer, ex-teacher and failed novelist who became a Catholic in 1980 after twenty years of dithering. His poetry has been published in Acumen.

Mandy Haggith

Discontent

Blue sky, fast-moving cloud,
all the trees with sun-silvered branches,

gleaming rushes bent eastwards,
backs to the wind we all know is coming,

like we turn our backs on the politicians whose untruths
sting our eyes if we face them,

turn our backs on the impacts of fossil fuel burning,
unable to countenance alternatives,

turn our backs on the people
whose forests are cut down, whose land is flooded.

Whether we face it or not,
the wind will blow.

Mandy Haggith lives in Assynt, Scotland, and teaches Literature and Creative Writing at the University of the Highlands and Islands. Her books include four poetry collections, most recently Why the Sky is Far Away (Red Squirrel Press, 2019), a tree poetry anthology, a non-fiction book about paper and five novels. www.mandyhaggith.net

Lori Drummond-Mundal

Lori Drummond-Mundal
Photo 1964

November birthdays are dark in the North,
untouched by the light of four thin candles

on a snow-white cake. Her harsh words hit
as if honed through generations, your face

ironed flat by the scolding’s scarlet slap.
You stare into the corner, as if watching

your delight stream down the slatted vents.
Curtains drawn against imposing night

shut out bright birch, our woodland allies.
If I could, I would take on muscles and cape,

leap to your rescue, but the best shield
I can supply is the happy-family-smile,

while you disappear behind wary owl’s eyes.
Fly, little sister.

Lori Drummond-Mundal lives in Stavanger, Norway with her husband, having made the move 150 degrees east from her roots in Alaska nearly 30 years ago. Her poetry has appeared in Orbis, Despite Knowing – an anthology of poems on addiction edited by Veronica Aaronson (Fore Street Press, 2021) and is forthcoming in Dawntreader. She is currently working on a collection of poems and stories woven from memory and imagination.