SHOVELING OUT A MOOSE

by Skaidrite Stelzer




most of us do what we can
if we believe we can do it
if someone has not whispered in our ears
that the world is too cruel
a world that will kill us (it’s true)
yet we must move against the snow banks
dig deeper than we believe
a moose in a snowbank
that in summer would throw us
trampled in grass
now knows we are animal
surviving all of us
as best we can

Skaidrite Stelzer lives and writes in Toledo, Ohio. Growing up as a post-war refugee and displaced person, she feels connected to the world and other stray planets. Her poetry has been published in Fourth River, Eclipse, Glass, Baltimore Review, and many other literary journals as well as TheNewVerse.News.

BUFFING UP MY RESISTANCE RING

by Tricia Knoll


The young boy on the deck
of a cave fingers his ring.
Seeking to join the flock

that scoots through space,
the resistance that old women
like me have known as marches,

petitions, sit-ins, showings up,
letter writing, paying forward,
and which he may learn as war

to tilt love forward, to feed
the hungry, house them,
welcome them from the far

corners of the universe.
This forever war, I want to say
to him standing in hope,

the forever work of keeping
shine in our hands. Guard
the glow for work.


Tricia Knoll’s collection Broadfork Farm, now available from The Poetry Box, contains poetry about pigs, dogs, starry nights, predators and farmers on this small organic farm in Trout Lake, Washington. Knoll is a regular farmsitter on the property.