By N.W. Hicks
When I arrive at a meadow,
ready with dandelions,
swollen with bird song,
empty of small hands,
I wish for a daughter. I wish
for the laughter in the lily of the valley
ringing like bells, the swish
of a stick parting tall grass,
the dandelions tied up in chains.
When I arrive at the meadow, I leave
to listen to the stream instead
breaking against rocks, weeping
down an old dam wall,
but there are voices in the water too.
I wonder if I will ever see my wife’s hair
on my daughter’s head, fanned out
in the current that shaped me from blue clay,
or her olive skin soaked in the same sun that cured me,
her fingers tracing eddies,
her arms outstretched like wings.
Nature's Grace I by Michael C. Roberts
Nature's Grace III by Michael C. Roberts
About the Author
N.W. Hicks is a Connecticut-based poet, a graduate of UConn, and earned his MA from Manhattanville College. His poems have appeared in The Passionfruit Review, Molecule, Yes, Poetry, and elsewhere. He believes in water but works with dirt and dreams of becoming a river’s meander.
About the Artist
Michael C. Roberts is a mostly retired pediatric psychologist who, during the pandemic, painted rocks and dropped them around his neighborhood as inspiration and motivation. He since has returned to photography. His images have been published in several literary magazines and on journal covers. A photographic book is available on Amazon: Imaging the World with Plastic Cameras: Diana and Holga. In his photography, he seeks to portray things and scenes that are overlooked or are mere backdrops to everyday life. In the last several months, he has been exploring minimalism as a way of projection and abstraction. Roberts often makes photographs in a range of colors, objects, and formats; the simplicity of minimalism reduces nature to its basics to reveal the underlying beauty of structure and form. The images may seem bleak to some viewers, but through these vestigial elements of nature, we can appreciate its simple complexity and basic beauty. These stark figures made in the Sonoran Desert have reduced nature to its essential elements and beauty.