Flying Island

Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night,  and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. Matthew 2:14-15 Passage to Egypt A Jewish husband and his teenage wife scurry like prey into an alleyway and steal along the shadowed side, then splay against a wall while spotlights slice the night. She grips her newborn son against her chest as he begins to stir, and soldiers near.  Against the night she feels the weight of fear, in darkness sees its face, then bares her breast to nurse the child so he stays silent while the soldiers pass and leave behind a bearded man and bride alone to find  a passage to an Egypt with their child while armored trucks and tanks in columns roll  through Mariupol.  James Green is a retired university professor and administrator. He has published five chapbooks of poetry and individual poems have appeared in literary journals in Ireland, the UK, and the USA. His website can be found at www.jamesgreenpoetr...

Summer Solstice on the West Coast of Ireland This afternoon the sun is more a rumor, probably still high behind a stretch of somber clouds in shades of dappled grey. The wind is brisk and plumes of ocean spray rise against the cliffs and sea foam drifts all the way to the bog, settles on the stubble of freshly cut hay and backs of sheep that face to lee, huddled against the day marked as the longest since the age of hoary-haired men dressed in ragged wool capes who aligned boulders to measure their place in creation, who tuned their lives to follow the light like the lilies on the bank of the estuary. It’s why I’ve come here, a blow-in like the neckless starlings motionless on the wire.   Sometimes they fly to a standstill against the wind before suddenly rising as one winged flight into an updraft, turning with the precision of a drill team, becoming specks then disappearing. Yes, it’s why I’ve come here.   I come here to be neith...