In Her Fading Voice
I used to hear her in the drying river;
In the dwindling artic ice;
In the eyes of the ozone layer, as the tear drops.
Then her voice is fading.
I remember my mother's weakened voice when ill;
So the Gaea is in dire health. When I wander around in my dream,
Thinking about what to do,
I hear her voice: Water issue; Global warming, the ozone layer.
They remind us:
1. Keep the Water Sources Safe, like protecting our children
Or, the food; don't pour the hazardous wastets down the drain,
On the ground, into the storm sewers; this could foul the soil;
Ground water and surface water.
2. The ozone layer protects us from too much of
the ultraviolet radiation from the sun, the Earth's Sunscreen.
3. Global Awarming: greenhouse gases warm the Earth by
Absorbing energy. And slow the speed at which the energy
Escapes to space;
They act like the blanket.
It heats the Earth.
Plants absorb carbon dioxide from atmosphere.
Restoring vanishing forests helps stop climate change.
Protect Mother Earth, protect us.
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The Weekly Avocet, and my poems
My poems, Morning Wher I Live, Pink Vace, Pink Lilacs, Spring Tree Song are published in this issue. Thank you, Charles, Vivian, for taking the pieces.
Spring
Some buds are ready
to begin their world, some not
just like human
The Weekly Avocet
She Settled There to be With Her Mother’s Eternal Place
She Settled there to be with Her Mother's Eternal Place
The old friend waits for me outside of the door
to her apartment, at the end of the long, dingy hall.
In recognition of her morphed figure, I smile.
"Come on in," she says.
Her beaming face lightenes up the place; yet,
her room, conforming to the rest of the place; dim;
is gray every senior's favorite color?
Gray hair; gray emotion.
Red mood is a taboo; a villain, the cause
of insomnia and heart failure.
I'm doing better than the shape I am in," she quips.
I nod to be nice; stealing a glance of her pot belly and
missshaped eye lids;
for which she blames the recent Parkinson's.
I humor the subject: "Do you live here all alone?"
"Uh-huh." We both laugh.
"I like a poodle," she says. "But I can't take care of it."
We continue on chattering; me, informing of
my writing life; her, about the neighbor and
the weekly card game, etc.
"My son is supposed to pick me up," she says.
"I am going to watch the ball game in the city."
"Your son moved to the city and you stay in this little town?"
She nods, matter fact.
I nod; her family's root is in this town and so this
is their resting place; so will hers to be with her mother.
Something stirrs in my heart; melancholic;
her alonness at the somber place, waiting...until...
she a leaf in the wind?
Ah, just enjoy; this is the part of our life; like that.
©Byung A. Fallgren
The Weekly Avocet
The Weekly Avocet
American Abyss
American Abyss
Cynthia Dewi Oka
I followed here the heart
I built for you. Here it is, blue
as the preening peacock’s crest, bruise
renewed again and again. Blue as
children made vapor, families ground
to grist raining on the accordion
chest of the sea. I followed here my own
forgetting of the fireflies that blink
like prayers in belligerent grasses; my
dreams of mattering, as in appearing–
a noun in your syntax. that stone
you strike for water. Is this not
the dream? To take more than
bodies have to give, then eat without
discord? I want you to know I have
always understood my place. That
the only feeling more beautiful than
your fear is your want. Look,
how your flowers light the world.
Cynthia Dewi Oka is the author of four poetry collections.
She lives in Los Angeles.
On the Same Hill
On the Same Hill
We Pursue
The same dream,
Complying with the laws,
Purple and yellow
On the same hill.
I remember
How I got here,
Just as others do;
Some are here by the wind;
Desperate waves,
Baffling the concerned.
We avoid
making more tears;
Find the right solution,
To put everything
In order and
Embracing all.
©Byung A. Fallgren
This poem first appeared in Talking River Review
Issue 48, Spring 2020.
Byung A. Fallgren 