NEA Big Read at PWPL

A Mantle of Antlers by: Ann Richmond Garrett When you watch your husband shoot a red squirrel off the roof, remember? How you once believed you were made only to watch city lights come up like a tide each night? And in the morning rise to follow the scent of bread, in thin October air? There’s comfort in how that place will go on without you, a continuum untended. Unlike the shingles here that need mending, or garden box you couldn’t bring yourself to weed, where–as summer moved– the beardtongue drowned in switchgrass. There’s a way your grandmother knew this too: as a girl, sent with cash on Michigan Ave for takeout and cigarettes. Her steps rang new, electric. In afternoons she stole away to films with her Oma. They whispered in German, at ease in multitudes. She left Chicago for a garden in the north to tend while her husband worked, children running feral in the scrub. Some nights, letting white sheets go chilled on the line she walked the orchard’s edge, envisioning her city’s vis...

The Couch by:  Betty Harriman Long before she birthed me and my brother, my mother made the decision to buy an old, frumpy couch. She knew children loved to play and ruin furniture, like little tornados flying through the house. This mouse-brown couch saw many games of the-floor-is-lava , as we jumped on it over and over, creating creases and tears. It hid my skittish kitten that ripped and burrowed into it like a fluffy white termite. Our couch watched movies with us and ate chips, crumbs, popcorn, and coins. Old enough to be our parent, it was around to see me and my brother grow from destructive little kids into teenagers... until it was sold away to become a parent to some new crazy kids. Betty Harriman is an 8th grader at Bothwell Middle School. She loves creating art, visiting her family, and spending time with her friend, Ava.  She is a Yooper.

A Gentle Songbird by: Andrew Ciupak A gentle songbird, white and pristine, Perched contently in a cage of gold. Soft brown eyes, glowing with empathy, Her heart sings of love- pure and serene. Listen--the songs never grow old. She sways with joy in gilded chains, Merry within her quiet reign. Yet when the first snow starts to fall, She knows she must go—must travel far. Fluttering free, light as a fairy, To sunlit shores where palm trees stand tall. Her keeper watches, silent, still— Face as pale as winter’s chill. The plows grind on, and the sky turns gray. Ice spreads, and life gives way. The world holds its breath, frozen in wait, Until one day… The songbird returns, with flowers and warmth, The bracelet shining at her slender wings. She steps on her keeper’s open hand, Singing her song, soft and bright. She flutters, she dances- to a waiting smile. The sun burns brighter, the frost melts away. She heals the wounds, as if she was never gone. A story of letting go, setting love f...

Growing Up Without Inky by: Jim Edwards (From the  Undermountain Review , Fall 1991) Tony and me, we were watching the girls, Cathy and Sarah in the playground. They were showing off, running around the boys. They skipped and their hair bounced and they could shout their happiness the way us boys weren’t supposed to. I look back now, and five was a great age to have been. “That’s skipping!” demanded Incledon. We called him Inky. It wasn’t so difficult to say. Inky hopped. Two feet on the floor. Two feet lifted at the same time. Two feet returned to the same spot. He hopped. The war between Inky and the rest of us waged every week from Monday to Friday at school, but sometimes Inky would come to Sunday School and then we could kick him when he had the right answers – he always sat in the front row and we could whack him if we swung our legs. Inky had new boxing gloves, but Tony had beaten him up behind the garages. Tony only had an old left glove, but he beat Inky’s new shiny red pa...

  Aunt Alice by: Beverly Matherne Aunt Alice chooses a strand of pink floss separates it slowly. She snips a piece puts its tip into her mouth pursing her lips drawing it out priming it for easy passage into the needle’s eye. Aunt Alice shows me how to hold the embroidery hoop in my left hand   drive the needle up from the back with my right pull it through the fabric lifting the thread all the way up then driving the needle down reaching for it from the back and pushing it up again over and over running stitch back stitch chain stitch my little fingers tired my little fingers pricked and pricked again. Aunt Alice shows me how to tongue my little wounds ease the sting stop the blood its smack of salt and iron lets me take a break after each mishap boosts my courage. When Aunt Alice thinks I’m ready she chooses two strands of floss cornflower blue for blossoms forest green for leaves. The petal of a small flower guides my d...

When I Return as a Crow by:  Janeen Pergrin Rastall For Rick When I return as a crow, albumin will cling as I pip my shell. Head first, I will thrust, damp and fierce into the nest. I will hop down branches, and sideways eye caterpillars, wintergreen, and you. Day after day, I will watch you, delight in your grin, your bear-like snatch at berries as you stride the paths. I will call to you, my voice the rattle of gravel in a can. Wanting to woo you, I will strut and flap. Roadkill and glints of fast-food litter will not tempt me. I will guard your blueberries, molt, grow bald beneath my beak. When winds from Nunavut rush south, I will not fly away. I will perch in the pine east of your window, quell my raucous call, wait the next turn of the wheel, another chance to behold you. Janeen Pergrin Rastall , a retired system analyst lives in Gordon, MI with Richard Rastall, the editor, and publisher of Superior Voyage . She likes to hike, travel, and occasionally write poetry.  She...

Life Is Samsara, She Said by: Yan Ciupak I fell asleep beneath the Bodhi Tree, the ocean of Samsara swirling around me. Kali, the fierce divine mother, wearing red, whispered cosmic truths thunder loud. “Life is Samsara,” she said, A dream churned with birth and death, a fleeting sigh of moments between the first cry and the last breath. In the stillness, the Gita spoke, "Unreal never is, the real never ends." A secret woven through veils, where loss and gain are but mirages. Dream upon dream churned endlessly, a cosmic sea of light and strife, each birth a ripple, each death a wave, Samsara, the ocean we call life. The wheel of being, relentless, turns, joy and sorrow, fire that burns. Yet Krishna whispers, calm and deep, "Be steadfast, Arjuna, awake from sleep." Beneath the Bodhi Tree, petals fell, As the Buddha smiled and broke the spell. “See through the samsara, reveal nirvana. Dreams and dreamers are but one and the same." Dr. Yan Zhao Ciupak is an Ass...