V E R S E and I M A G E

Wrens are first out of bed at sunrise. Their sharp warbled song suits the sky’s deep red at sunrise.

Down the hill a deer slips out of mist. Then her fawn, ready to be fed, at sunrise.

Then a fieldmouse, light as a wisp, climbs a spent coneflower with most careful tread – at sunrise

The night’s winds are done. Above, only a last fading star, and a few clouds sill ragged at sunrise . . .

I join this pause to which all things have led (at sunrise), I close my eyes on what he last said, at sunrise.

from BRILLIG: a micro lit mag, Winter/Spring 2025

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Gravity is an illusion, a charade played out behind the scenes by matter as it warps spacetime. The illusion is complete within my deep never-spoken sense that somehow the universe ponderously orbits me. Where is my wider view? Long lens and tight focus blur everything except the center where for one moment light falls.

Thoreau sits beside the pond for hours so long and so still that the otters have come to consider him simply a natural element within the universe they inhabit. They pursue their plashy play all about him unperturbed. When the otters finally leave for elsewhere, Thoreau walks to town to buy a pair of socks.

Oh Mr. Lennon, my beloved, my idol, is life really what happens while you’re making other plans? Or is life the plans the universe has made for you whether you subscribed to them or not? Evidently the universe is not a bus you can hop off at the penultimate stop before you reach the bad side of town.

I’m trying to figure this out. The mockingbird doesn’t shut up when my neighbor fires up his Terrafirminator and attacks the clover. Just sings louder, it seems. And me? An hour walking in the woods, sweat and deep cleansing breaths, but driving home I hear again that last snarling conversation and begin another rehearsal of its next installment in my head. I thought I might have hopped off that bus, but no.

The titmouse perches above the peanuts I’ve laid out and squeaks and scolds with his head thrown back, ten iterations. Then he swoops down and pecks the hell out of them. What was he saying up there? “These are mine, bug off!” – or – “Hey world, good eats here!” What am I saying to the universe? Scratch that – what am I saying to myself?

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Your clay pots are stacked into towers.

Stakes propped in the garden shed corner.

Out-of-use stuff claims off-season place:

a montage of tools ready to oblige.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Regret

drops by every day, helps leisure select midwinter

pastimes. Our most-recent waltz only a twitch

in the calf on gray afternoons. So much

overlooked when we busy ourselves.

I rake leaves wedged into fences. Sharpen tools

in case we plant again. Zest fallen out of favor,

the Almanac forecasts weather cycles, but desire

for a new garden is shelved.

++++++++++++++++++++++++ Verve fastened

behind the shed door, our pursuits dwindle.

Intuition must carry us through seasonal tedium,

and each loss it festers. You stare at me and ask,

+++++++ Tell me again where do seasons go?

from BRILLIG: a micro lit mag, Winter/Spring 2025

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When Deborah Doolittle first placed in my hands a copy of her hand-made lit mag BRILLIG, all I could say was, “O Frabjous Day!” The slim booklet is delicate yet solid with surprising heft; it is simple in its turning pages yet subtle and complex with its interlockings and interweavings, concealing treasures, revealing them. But glue and ink and color are not enough to create treasure. The words, the lines, the flow, the side-steps and juxtapositions – these poems by ten authors link arms and pull me into their circle.

If you were to step into my office and attempt to calculate the mass of processed printed-upon cellulose that surrounds you, you would intuit that I have a thing for words on paper. Oh yes, most every day I read from my bright paper-white monitor the poems the internet offers up to me, but if you were to step onto my back porch today when it’s 85 degrees and 85 percent humidity and discover me there with a book nonetheless, you would intuit that real creative thought requires an adequate escape velocity from computer gravity. And if a print journal’s appeal is an order of magnitude greater than poems online, then art and quirky originality, BRILLIG, is an order greater yet.

I unfold the pages, read backwards and forwards, turn and return. These poems surround me as if I am an element of the universe they inhabit. While they pursue their plashy play, I will abide in their circle. I have all the socks I need.

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Deborah Doolittle contrives and creates BRILLIG: a micro lit mag with the help of artist friends and submissions of poetry. Each issue is published in a limited edition, but she no doubt has one she would like to send you and will make an extra copy if you subscribe.

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I think of you prepping risotto,

stirring the pan while you add

onions, red wine and broth.

you wore a red-striped apron.

I have it still. Should have worn it.

My shirt is dotted with oil.

Oversized sweet onions

roast in the oven, ready

to add life to a sandwich.

My eyes leak. Nose drips.

I yank a paper towel off

the rack and remember.

from BRILLIG: a micro lit mag, Winter/Spring 2025

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