By Mark Laskowski

Here in the highlands 
whatever they shout 
immediately converts 
to whatever is heard, if only by those 
who throng to bask in these reverberations. 
Echoes can be quite the draw. 

The canyons help 
the mountains stand, 
usually in a silence 
the aforementioned cannot imagine 
to be of inseparable twin design. 

But it’s true. 
The quiet before 
their “Here we are!" yodels 
is no different than the quiet 
that will soon return after they're shut up 
or leave of their own accord. 
Then? Only the drone of bees 
among flowers, 
calls and songs of birds 
among trees, 
deer chewing laurel 
and the babble of slender brooks, 
quicksilver and cold — on and on 
in the thin-aired sunshine 
or the keening chill of star-stabbed night. 
If you could hear all this music merge into a human voice, 
what would it say of the echoes now gone? 
Could it comment 
through its constant laughter? 
Would it care enough to mention 
that of such matters it never cares 
to speak at all?  


In Good Time by Louis Staeble

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mark Weston Laskowski currently lives in the town of Longmeadow, located in the western part of Massachusetts. His day job for the past five years has been (and is) that of digital marketing copywriter. He has written poetry and short stories off and on for decades but thus far has not been published.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Louis Staeble, fine arts photographer and poet, lives in Bowling Green, Ohio. His photographs have appeared in “Blue Hour”, “Cenacle”, “Clever Fox” “Conclave Journal”, “Elsewhere Magazine”, “GFT Magazine”, “Fifth Wednesday Journal”, “Four Ties Literary Review”, “Goatsmilk Magazine”, “Havik”, “Inklette”, “Light- A Journal”, “Little Somethings Press”, “Olney Magazine”, “Rubbertop Magazine”, “Sunspot Lit”, “The Helix”, ”Tupelo Quarterly”, “Twist In Time”, and “Windmill”. 2016, 2017 and 2018 as part of the Wood County Invitational.
Instagram@louiestaeble Web page: staeblestudioa.weebly.com

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