Flying Island

Apprenticeship for the Walking Life For Kristen Did you learn to love to hike on those long tundra walks when I carried  you cocooned inside my parka, the one  you wear now on polar vortex nights?  We rambled over the frozen lagoon, and then past the singing Wulik.  Together, we traversed the hummocky  waves of Alaska’s permafrosted tundra.  Sometimes, I sang but mostly my Sorels  sawed through the snow, a sound similar  to tuning an old tuba. Nights came early,   at two in the afternoon, a pale, ulu-shaped  moon rose.  Riding abu, your world  was primarily sound then: ptarmigans hurdled into flight, a snowy owl mewed being chained  to an old log, one that had ridden  the sea currents all the way from Siberia.  Now I walk the Griffy Lake trails,  cross fallow fields, pace beside the endless  railroad tracks. Car lights point and shoot,  and once or twice a year, a pale aurora  hangs over ...

  At the edge of the sea you are more than human: you are whale and flounder dancing porpoise and somnolent seal.                  You are sunlight and the blue-grey depths. Saline infuses your cells as though  all the salt caverns of the world  circulate through your body. You are ocean sounds: crash and whoosh, splash-release and lap, lap, lap.  Some days  the scalloped edges of the sea write and rewrite  their stories.  Other days the last two inches  of a wave elevate you skyward, and you water-ski  over crumbling sand. In the sea foam, shells  clink and clank; the softest pings of the tiniest  seek shelter inside your suit. The ocean— whatever its name—Atlantic, Pacific, Caribbean— enters you, fills you. You are the mango orb  the sea releases into sky each morning,  and rocks gently to sleep each night. Doris Lynch has recent work i...

Amid the Plough, Orion, Cassiopeia Sometimes we assume the stars have all the horses: plowers of want, whinniers of need. Eye-graze those silver orbs miniaturized by distance, dazzling light across the cosmos. How improbably shaped constellations are with their fiery suns, backward- revolving moons, pastures of possibility. In the Gaia wind, prance awhile, weave your spiral hair over your cave ancestors, pretend that they--Denisovans, Neanderthals-- now scattered bone relics and mud DNA, will remember, be remembered. Doris Lynch has recent work in Frogpond , Modern Haiku , Tipton Poetry Journal , and in the anthology Cowboys & Cocktails: Poetry from the True Grit Saloon.   The Indiana Arts Commission awarded her three individual artist's grants, and she has worked as a librarian and an Ivy-Tech creative writing instructor.

Hey, Moon!       by Doris Lynch Before I was born, my parents rolled your clay in the translucent ether but like a sea urchin you spurted away from them. During girlhood I cut you into pristine wedges, rags to catch menstrual blood but you changed into a stream and cascaded away. Later, while lovemaking, I propped you on a pillow but my hipbones slashed your lunar flesh and you jerked away. When I gave birth, you duplicated yourself and became breasts spurting milk, but when I looked up, both you and baby had disappeared. Now I search the night sky for sign of you but find only small relics, cold to the touch, barely bright enough for eyes. Doris Lynch has recent work in Frogpond , Modern Haiku , Tipton Poetry Journal and in the anthology Cowboys & Cocktails: Poetry from the True Grit Saloon .  The Indiana Arts Commission awarded her three individual artist's grants, and she has worked as a librarian and...

Every Night My Sparrow Flies by Doris Lynch On cloudy nights I don wings and follow her—it feels like dancing our bodies so close, sometimes they brush. At each turn we swerve apart then curve together again. To urge allegiance I place her head at my elbow, her beak becomes the tiny bow of a miniature boat as it prows our world. Doris Lynch has recent work in Tipton Poetry Review, Frogpond, Haibun Today, and in the Flying Island. In 2017, she won the Genjuan International Haibun contest.

Night: Sangre de Cristo Mountains by Doris Lynch Here. Now. Not above but mated to earth through journeys of clarified light. The Navajo etched crosses onto rock walls in Canyon de Chelly to mark the placement of stars. Tonight I watch one fall. It skips across Heaven’s meadows, close enough to grasp with my hand, close enough so that God’s fiery hair singes my head, my heart. Doris Lynch has recent work in Tipton Poetry Review, Frogpond, Haibun Today, and Flying Island. In 2017, she won the Genjuan International Haibun contest.

Furrows by Doris Lynch "The plowers plowed…they made long their furrows."   Psalm 129:3 Where will I sleep in the furrows of death? Will I find a dove willing to pillow my cheek against its soft down? If only the sun-patterned grasses might curry my bare arms and legs. This burrow, this shaped hummock, will it provide a clear view of sky? What of those clouds racing past-- are they too fleet for shrouds? Where will I sleep in the furrows of death? What will I cling to? Root, barnacle, rock face? Piercing the hard soil, will clods of earth block my passage? Will my body find its way? Find sanctuary, shelter? Doris Lynch has work recently in the Tipton Poetry Review, the Atlanta Review, Frogpond, Ha...

Earthquake in Blossom Time by Doris Lynch I fold into my pocket the handkerchief you used shortly before dying and go out to greet the backlit clouds, so frolicsome and adventurous. In the neighbor’s yard redbuds offer their mauve tears. Poking through lawn’s needlepoint, so many green slashes of hope. The earth woke me this morning bucking feelograms from deep within its crust. The window sashes that I wiped clean of cobwebs yesterday rattled in percussive approval. Earthquake, felt so rarely in the Midwest. In bed, I lay shaking-- a fledgling in wind-- awash in both terror and joy--anticipating that the ground will be solid and still beneath me. Bio: Doris Lynch has work recently in the Tipton Poetry Review, the Atlanta Review, Frogpond, Haibun Today, and Contemporary Haibun Online. The Indiana Arts Commission awarded her three individual artist’s grants: two in poetry and one in fiction.