You Don't Know When Light Will Come Again, But It Will

It's how you move at night
the late hour biting through
torn photographs strewn across the floor
from a time when memories were tangible
you could rip right through them
but you can't delete the shred
it shows up again in the back yard
from a heavy fall wind
through a hole in the trash bag
as if to say ‘you cannot undo yourself,
no matter the cost’

all love has a danger in it
the love of parents & friends
the profoundest feelings
can tear you apart
in an instant

it's how you handle yourself in the dark
that matters
how you go on living
beyond right now,
& now, & now.


James Diaz (USA)

Alberta Bound

I own a gate to this prairie
that ends facing the Rocky Mountains.
They call it Alberta,
trail of endless blue sky,
asylum of endless winters,
hermitage of indolent retracted sun.
Deep freeze drips haphazardly into spring.
Drumheller, dinosaur badlands, dried bones,
ancient hoodoos sculpt high, prairie toadstools.
Alberta Highway 2 opens the gateway of endless miles.
Travel weary I stop by roadsides, ears open to whispering pines.
In harmony North to South
Gordon Lightfoot pitches out
a tune,
‘Alberta Bound.’
With independence in my veins,
I am long way from home.


Michael Lee Johnson (USA)