the passage of time
— At dusk, a writer sits on a cold rock sketching the last light while frogs sing, watching her huge shadow wave across the page as darkness falls.
— An eleven-year-old recounts getting lost in a NYC subway station at age four, then discovers her grandmother remembers the incident differently, questioning memory itself.
— A space crew lands on planet AE-51 to establish a colony, only to discover an identical crashed ship with their same ID number and a centuries-old nametag bearing the navigator's...
— A catalog poem traces things that vanish — vapor trails, insects, melting snowflakes, flowing water — finding the hidden nature of everyday disappearances.
— During a rare July rainstorm in California, two friends watch from the window, chase the storm to the grocery store, and discover joy in shared wonder.
— A young hunter describes his first archery kill, from the three-hour wait in a tree stand to the moment the deer falls, rendered in precise sensory detail.
— A teenager finds solitude at abandoned railroad tracks, contemplating how nature reclaims human progress and feeling the ghost of trains that once passed.
— A meditation on leaving paradise, watching cars diverge on a canyon highway while coyotes howl and a finch lifts off into morning light.
— A child races to watch the sunset, imagining where the sun goes, then becomes the sun sinking into bed while darkness transforms into regenerative sleep.
— Dawn breaks through trees as birds find their perches, while the speaker breathes in the ancient scents of maple and oak between dreams and waking.