Curious and Counting
  Arisa White

How do I get in your atmosphere?
Tell me about your sign, look me planetarily
--those Venuses in your eyes?

There was no thought after you
and I wrote it down. Wandered 
to the wailing with my back exposed.

My kind of Sunday, your knees
buffalo and kicking up plains.
We go sockless for beauty.

Ribbons unwind bring us to tied,
I'm at your symmetry, remembering
all your digits and your lucky number mine.

Arisa White is a Cave Canem poet whose works 
is rooted in black women way of knowing. The author
of Who's Your Daddy (Augury Books, 2021) among 
other titles. She is an assistant professor of 
Singlish and creative writing at Cole College.    

At the Apple Orchard

We came from the city
to pick the apples, green, red and gold,
to fill our lungs with the scent of the fruits,
even the hidden worm-ridden scent 
is better than the city air;

we came to be surrounded by the atmosphere
of the shared goal--to be ripen, ripen only;
oh, that mature spirit!
wish to drown in it all day long, forever more.

We fill our baskets with
many hues and aromas,
but only one shared goal,
to take home;
to mix them with our daily lives,
to bake pies that bloom in our hearts. 

©Byung A. Fallgren

My two poems, Moaning of Moon and Unprecedented, flood have been
accepted for Fall printed issue of the Avocet, journal of Nature poetry.
Thank you, Charles and Vivian for accepting these pieces. 

Late August Morning

Touch of the wind lost 
the summer's heat;
older man's coolness,
yet the cotton leaves dance
in the reverie of yesterdays.

North wind, precursor 
of the snowman that
ignores the laughs of
the dancing leaves;
scheme for the October. 

©Byung A. Fallgren

 

Maple of the Junipers, in my faulty eyes

Maple ensconces herself in the middle of 
the growth, of the junipers in the yard
by the house, rising above all the prickly needles.
her slender body, lush green leaves, bright in the sun.

Come, join us, the junipers had welcomed her, when,
as a seed, she fell from the air on a windy night.
frightened, wondering if she'd survive. survive she did.
flourishing in the cheers of the junipers.

Then, alas, I cut her off.
gazed at the junipers, who don't know how to say no.
Now, happy? I smile at them.

Sudden wails of junipers, only in my ears,
shivers; rebuke the human-centered behavior
that ruined the rare beauty.
I pick up the severed maple branch, set it on
the trunk, and watch it tumble down.

Ah, but the trunk is still there, cuddled 
in the bosom of the junipers, holding on
to the last hope, she will rise again. will she?
the thought lingers on, with desire.

©Byung A. Fallgren