Jerome Gagnon

Crow Diary

This morning, I noticed the skins of
……………………………..half-eaten persimmons
hanging from the topmost branches of a tree
and two crows perched there,
making plainsong.
I could sit with them in the branches, wrapped
in the sheen of their wings,
joining in their praise — for the return
of persimmons, for winter sky.
*
Crow says: prepare for joy, expect it.
Even if you despair of a world burning with war
and hatred, be the door through which joy enters.
If not you, who then?
……………………………………Explore silence,
revel in this very moment.
Be the empty cup into which joy pours itself
from its luminous home, filling you with shine.
*
Thoughts will come and go; let them.
Just rest in the persimmon tree,
alive to the ripening.
Sooner or later, the bitter will turn sweet.

One Morning

The morning is awake with Monarch wings,
lifting and settling in milkweed.
Not a word is spoken here, and yet
it seems as if the world is listening to the whisper
of wind in poplar trees, to the calls of geese in flight,

……………………………………..and as I listen, too,
I think of what I want to ask the music, 
now that it’s returned to my life —
how do I lean into this hollow note that stays on
after the trumpeting?

Pradeep Varadwaj

What the Pond Teaches
— A Collective Reflection

I. The Still Edge
When I sit in silence at the pond’s green lip,
the water stirs — not loud,
but shifting in slow corrections of light,
light folding over light
like silk remembering a breeze.
A thread of insect-hum stitches the air,
the sound repeating, retreating, repeating.
Dragonflies drift, looping glass wings like ancient scribes,
writing short-lived scriptures into wind.
Snails etch invisible alphabets on the stones.
Tadpoles swirl like questions without endings.
Each creature —
a rhythm,
a philosophy in motion.
Some drift like embers on still wind,
some dart like quick decisions through dusk.
And some remain,
utterly unmoved —
monks of the deep,
breathing the patience of centuries,
masters of energy withheld,
guardians of what cannot be named.

II. The Creatures
No two are the same —
not in face,
not in hunger,
not in prayer.
One sifts the mud for buried miracles,
another grazes sunlight,
gathering gold from trembling skin of water.
And some —
yes, even the dead they feed upon,
not with cruelty,
but with care.
They do not fear decay.
They tend to it,
folding ruin gently back into rhythm.
Their silence holds a steady heart;
their stillness shapes the space.
Sometimes,
they play —
a flicker,
a ripple raised like a whisper,
the pond brightening —
as if laughter had learned how to swim.

III. The Guest
And I sit —
not a master,
not a maker,
but a guest,
with dirt on my palms
and breath held slow.

Large fish drift near,
hoping I have gifts.
Turtles rise from soft sleep,
eyes patient, measuring
whether I am threat or kin.
The lotus lifts its green veil,
unsure if beauty
is still safe in this world.
I learn how to be useful
without making noise,
how to touch
without trespass,
how to belong
without the need to be seen.

IV. The Leaving
So I leave my reflection behind —
fragile, temporary.
Drifting as light drifts,
trusting the water
to remember.
Somewhere in the reeds,
a heron startles,
silver wings slicing silence —
silence folding into silence.

The pond — not teacher but keeper of mirrors —
returns only shape and shimmer —
perhaps mercy’s gift.

In its stillness,
I feel a longing I do not name,
only carry —
like a jar of unlit fireflies
whose glow I imagine
more than see.
And there,
in the hush between ripples,
I recognize what wholeness sounds like
when it does not need to speak.

Jerome Gagnon is the author of the collections Refuge for Cranes: Praise Poems from the Anthropocene and Rumors of Wisdom, and a chapbook, Spell of the Ordinary. Focusing on contemplative and environmental themes, his poetry has appeared recently in Poet Lore, Humana Obscura, Spiritus, Canary, and Modern Haiku, among other publications. Awards include the Robert Frost Foundation Poetry Award, the Louis Award, and the TallGrass Writer’s Guild Anthology Prize. A former teacher and tutor, and an alumnus of San Francisco State University, he lives in Northern California.

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