Month: December 2013

Se Desvela

Poetry

Por Nicole Eitzen

Quisiera estrechar la mano para alcanzar aquello
que frente a mí se desvela,
aquello que mi corazón desea y que a mi alma enternece.
Quisiera ser aquello que sólo mis sueños contemplan;
no una, sino dos: la que se libra y la que permanece.
Es que el querer y desear lo imposible
en mí se viven constantes:
No voy a renunciar a instruirme, voy a mi misma elevarme.
Pero dejar el amor, me dicen, resulta en falsos pasos dictantes.
La vida sin él es posible, pero amar sin él: para nadie.

¡Y paso las noches en vela, por él y su mundo velando!
Por noches de un mundo de encanto que frente a mi se desvela.
¡Y como decirle quisiera, que a su querer le tenga cuidado!
Porque cuando el alma dulce enternece,
el suave roce: desvanece.

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The Leaf Scouts

Short Stories

By Cody Claassen

The Old Forest reaches from top to toe,

And through this woods we all must go.

Let evil be vanquished with each kill we sow,

What the Children learned then, the Elders now know

            “Wilric, what is the most important thing to remember during The Great Hunt?” Teacher asked. Wilric jolted awake from where he sat in the clearing, lit with the dying sun and the content flames of the fire in the middle of the circle of children. He saw a disappointed look from the retired Forest Guard. Snickers from the other Leaf Scouts tittered from his left and right side.”I’m sorry, Teacher, I didn’t hear the question. What was it again?”

            The scarred teacher sighed. “During The Great Hunt, what should you do?”

            “Ummm… You should chew on willow bark?” said Wilric, his tone jovial.                         

            “No, Wilric,” the teacher chided. “That’s for mild pain. Can anybody else remember?” Many other hands shot up from the other children gathered in the clearing. Murmurs and pleas for selection arose from the young students. “Marten, what is the answer?”

            “During the Great Hunt everyone should stay indoors, lock all doors, and open them only after the sun has risen again, always keep something made of iron on your person or close by, and keep a fire made of rowan burning hot in the hearth,” said Marten with no hesitation or pause.

            “Very good, Marten.” said the teacher, scarred from age and combat with a smile, pride briefly touching his one good eye. “And if you are caught outside?”

            Marten paused before speaking. “I don’t know. I suppose I would want to seek shelter anywhere I could.”

            “Hmm, that’s part of it, definitely seek shelter: find the safest place you can find. But the most important thing during the Great Hunt is to be mindful. Be mindful of your surroundings, be mindful of the time, and most importantly, be mindful of the horns,” the teacher said grimly.

            “Well,” said Wilric. “I think we should also look out for antlers and tusks and all manner of pointy things.”

            The teacher’s face changed into a gnarled mass of anger, but only for a second. “No, Wilric,” he said in a restrained voice. “By horns, I mean bugles and trumpets. Horns that would be used in a hunting party. If you are outside during the Great Hunt and can hear the horns, find the direction it is loudest and then go the opposite way. If the horns end suddenly, you’re already dead. Find shelter, do not build a fire, and do not draw your weapons. That will only enrage her.”

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The Collecting

Short Stories

By Kaitlin Schmidt 

            She wrote of her father’s family, which she met only in dreams. The fabrication of details didn’t upset her conscience because the doctor gave her license to ‘create’ whatever she thought would contribute to healing. Claire created and recreated, things from her mind and life and things from an imagined life she might have lived once.

            Instead of unpacking the boxes that formed cardboard towers all around her childhood bedroom, she rummaged in her old desk for paper. Her palms became coated in soft gray dust while she investigated the empty cubbies and drawers. She had been gone long enough for these spaces to be unfamiliar now. Out the window and up the street – the lawns and houses were only the bones of her memories, while all the flesh and color had changed.

            She found a yellow legal pad with scribbles about a missed phone call on the top page. She ripped it off and started fresh.

            The facts were never nailed down, the youngest sister craved answers but they floated between her fingers like mist, only moistening her palms. She listened to her mother speak of family photographs.
“Some folks in everyday clothes and alongside them full Indians with feathers and beads all the way down.”

They were relatives, she said. The people in the photos were the great aunts and uncles that had left the reservations for a different sort of living and then came back to visit. These photos, though much discussed, could never be produced when relatives were called upon to search them out from top-shelf closet boxes and from basement storage bins.

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The Creeker Sonnet

Poetry

By Megan Siebert

Out to Sand Creek. Campus abandoned
Students trek for singing and fires
By academics and studies orphaned
Young adults their social lessons acquire

They can hear the bottles sipped on
Warm Fridays recall laughter, shouting
Twigs and brambles freely tripped on
I can’t see anything, battle cry of the outing

Smoke fills their eyes, their cups and clothes
Darkness clouds as new hands meet
Bluegrass rests for the profane, swear-filled toast
And cheerfulness fills as hearts and fire heat

At end of night, they bear welcome pressures
Drinkers and dreamers morph to Threshers

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World Building

Poetry

By Kaitlin Schmidt

When I nap in the afternoon, on top of the sheets,
I imagine the tingling ghost of something
in the space between my palm and fingers.
I imagine the weight of a hand on my hand.

I like to pretend you apologize to me in languages I can’t read –
“I’m sorry” says the glossy painting in the Chinese restaurant.
“How very careless I am” say the Spanish subtitles.

I imagine that the sparrow who studies me while I work,
who creeps and fidgets, pauses and peers,
houses the diamonds of your condensed soul in its chest.
It bounces here and there; you rattle and shine.

Tipsy and light on melancholy chords, I drink my illusions by the gallon.
I toss them up like confetti and all things ordinary blur as you flutter down.

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Made in America

Poetry

By Justin Greger

Mandalas
made of steel and dreams
swept into the junkyard of civilization.
Compassion for those who conform.
Sea of milk white sedans
flowing to fabricated fresh out of the box houses.
Purel the colour green
growth must be planned.
Graffiti belongs in the gallery.
Price the homeless out of their clothes.
Gentrify the hood to live the real life.
Young folks come and go
the system remains unchanged.

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