Earvin Wilson

Seeing Things

It takes time to see a lot of things, and yet,
in a lifetime, we seem to not have the time.
When we could just stop one day, and watch
a beautiful sunset.
Walk along a shore, and just be in that time.
We can miss so much, looking for it all,
like not noticing the mist off the roaring waves.
It's cool in the summer, barefoot in the
grass of morning dew.
But it takes a lot of time, to see a lot
of things, when all we got to do is look.
That's when you can really see the joy,
In seeing things...

{Poem by Earvin Wilson}

Roger G. Singer

Faithful

My fingers greedily crawl
into spring soil;
a salve for hands deep pocketed
from past winter winds.

Up into me an aroma
spills my senses to warm.
I breathe in the green flavor
of growth
while studying the land.

Faithful is the change
that tilts the earth,
raising the sun with blessing
onto the place I live.

I will swim in the suns hold,
opening my shirt,
forgetting my shoes and
welcoming screen doors.

{Poem by Roger G. Singer}

Kevin Cole

This Sidewalk Was More Interesting

This sidewalk was more interesting
In the evening leafy sun
A whitewashed wall
Some roses
A tended hermit’s yard

Paths like free verse stanzas
Trellised vines in poet’s light
A garden of word solitude
A summer of the mind

A few steps in the June past
An evening’s finished pages
This sidewalk was more interesting

{Poem by Kevin Cole}

Brandi Underwood

Smudged

I throw the Twain pages into ember flames. Edges of paper turn crisp brown. Reflecting from my brother’s eyes ink words change hues now inflamed violets. By time twilight runs its time clock, the bottom of the black oil drum ash collects. Bully points out the smile the ash forms. We move along. Towers of charcoal window panes stand evergreen roots a hundred feet long. Billy sees an odd indigo magazine. He sits along the curb edge. His eyes flip through jargon he did not know.

Before the Drop, lands in the central plains grew lush, and kids sat in class and knew that their destiny was like whispers easily re-written. Now out eyes are crisp with dry morning tears. Every sunrise I check Billy for indigo rings almost like bruises. A side effect from radiation. We travel. Our legs grow weak and muscles inflamed by time twilight with few stars. Another side effect partial blindness. Age three towers of red legos towered over me. Now towers of brittle charcoal threaten to crumble. Our bodies turn to ash.

Food: number one priority. Keep moving for Billy’s sake, or his bones will crumble to ash. In Mother’s womb when the Drop came. Radiation seeped through her skin. Now he’ll never know how moist grass feels against your feet. Instead he feels dry lakes of ash. Solomon’s towers are now dawn’s past. Frankenstein, I will remember the story. I will remember inflamed faces as I shoveled dirt upon them. Death’s blanket won’t make me forget mothers crisp eyes of indigo. Six years to the day, to the hour since the Drop. Happy Birthday Billy. Indigo Streams and irises of his eyes still deep, just like hers were. Our night cradles ash flakes. As I lay, I feel the warmth of dying embers. Few travelers along the road but memories of faces are inflamed in the back of my head. In time will I forget what they even look like? No! Just how I will remember the yellow sun. How I miss modern towers. Dreams crystal cut sky with diamonds scattered. The one thing that never changed. Towers with panes of glass still firm in their steel frames, before the flames of burning indigo hues. Story books, fresh from press, typed words to life. Crisp mountains soothed reader’s moral. Now it’s reduce to ash flakes at bottom of countless barrels. I read Frankenstein to Billy. He’ll know stories because of me. I will teach him words are treasures that bring truth inflamed.

The sun rose in the powder sky. Men gazed at clouds with inflamed sins still lingering. Our world was at peace. What a lie. Plane engines buzzed, and boots stomped, towers never stood after the turning of the key. We all know the date October 22 1962. The horizon would shine bright red before the dawn, now indigo shadows replace. “Don’t blink this world changes in an instant.” Ash falls as rain daily. Billy’s tears smudge, but his smile still remains crisp. Crisp, inflamed ash towers no indigo.

{Written by Brandi Underwood}

Peter Lattu

Our Trip to See the Trey McIntyre Project

Saturday night we were off to see a dance performance by the Trey McIntyre Project at the Sidney Harman Hall across from the Verizon Center. We hopped the Metro at Huntington.

There was an intriguing crowd on the subway into the city that night… a man in a kilt with a frame backpack… a woman in a long celery green formal evening gown with bare shoulders listening to her iPod… an older man in jeans and an indigo kimono top in a wheelchair reading a small book… a blonde woman dressed in black and white with a gift bag writing her card on the way to a party… two young women resting their boots on the handicapped seat… a woman way behind us coughing… all this on our train ride to Archives-Navy Memorial-Penn Quarter.

Emerging from the Metro, we walked past the Navy Memorial with pleasant memories of its summer concerts. Regrettably, the Navy Memorial Visitors’ Center itself no longer displays changing daily reminders of events of the day in Navy and Marine Corps history. We used to enjoy reading those historic reminders as we walked by its window. But tonight a red carpet was out for a film showing at the Center – an inviting touch.

On the way to Harman Hall we noticed the packed restaurants and bars. Lots of people were walking along the sidewalks, including a couple pushing a baby and a small white dog in a stroller. A woman in very high heels walked into the street to avoid the grate.

The performance consisted of three dances: Ma Maison, In Dreams, and The Sweeter End, all created by Trey McIntyre in the past several years. Ma Maison featured eight dancers in death’s head masks with recorded music by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Sister Gertrude Morgan. There was a bit of vaudeville and a sequence channeling the Roaring Twenties with an ecstatic Charleston. The death’s head masks reminded us of how death is a part of life even in present pleasure, like a New Orleans jazz funeral. At one point the dancers formed a chain of death as in Ingmar Bergman’s film The Seventh Seal. A hint of plagues and coffle gangs was there in that chain of dancers.

In Dreams, set to recorded music by Roy Orbison, was created for the Ballet Memphis in 2007. The Sweeter End brought us back to jazz with more recorded music by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. The dancers were costumed in post-twentieth-century urban grunge. Sweat flew as they vamped exuberantly to jazz of yesterday.

The program did not have photographs of the dancers in the company so we could not tell who was who except for Jason Hartley, one of our favorites from his days with the Washington Ballet. His characteristic casual soaring lightness remains and we were happy to see that he is now assistant to the artistic director as well as one of the dancers.

Interestingly, this dance company makes its home in Boise, Idaho. All of the dancers are sponsored by someone, including several by people in Boise. Idaho is a long way from New York City, that fertile center of contemporary dance and ballet. However, Trey McIntyre’s company showed no sign of missing the big city. His dances are twenty-first century creations, chic and modern.

After the show, we stepped out into the street and into rain. Several people were wearing police badges with black bands. Later we heard on the radio that it was National Police Week with events downtown. There was track work between Pentagon City and Braddock Road, so our train took twenty-five minutes to appear at Gallery Place. On the way home was a woman wearing a silk kimono in circles of color on black with a purple obi. Back at Huntington, we got in our car and headed home after an exciting night out.

{Essay by Peter and Alison Lattu, May 18, 2011}