FINDING GRACE
by kate ball
Faith in clouds... my religion.
My wise child heart knew
they’d hold me.
Never a doubt that they
were as they looked.
As an adult, I struggle
to find that trust
in white wisps of vapor.

Do you remember that daydream? I’m looking up at the blue sky, trying to find grace. Sitting on a mossy bank, where fish lurk in the cool deeps of the brook. Cool stones against my feet, the constant bubbling rush pulls at my ankles, calls me to explore. Big rocks in the river cast shadows over the water. Feel a need to clamber up those rocks, stand at the small peak of each, hands on my hips... The trees stretch up further than I can climb, and they themselves merely dot the mountainsides. The mountains stretch their humps under an endless expanse of sky. Standing on this rock, I’m just one more grain of sand on a beach. A piece of something larger, carried by waves.

We haven’t an ounce of the control we try to convince ourselves we have. We can lengthen a life span, engineer faster travel, explain away magic with science... but we’re all still just sand. I love this fact. Nature is still the boss, and the gods are still in charge, and I feel all that and stand on rocks, hands on hips. Relieved to be a speck in a world in which nature talks to us with hope, love, peace, simplicity. Most of us never learn to look for it. I’m lucky...

HOOD PARK/NIGHTFALL
by il Signor Giuseppe

Green dusk shadows
deepen,
bending,
blending lake and trees
into one
sweet,
thick,
velvet black,
until the sky
surrenders
hushed
by the blood lust
of the mosquitos.

BLIND DATE
(Fat but not too bright)
by il Signor Giuseppe

Little
mind
over
lot of
matter,
over,
little
mind.