PUSH PULL By Ruth Wood, Talkeetna   Emitting vivid tones of summer and warmth Last year’s photo catches my eye Heart and mind leap forward in anticipation Until glancing out my window Today’s world of firm sun-glistened snow Pulls me back I gaze at birch and spruce Standing leafless and beetle-stress bare Their natures redefined

MARCH By Pamela Cravez, Anchorage   I am sitting at my window watching the snow, lint Adrift on the breeze, steady Yet invisible to my camera when I try to capture these bits of mist That are accumulating, an inch, maybe two, The persistence and deception of March, treading toward spring. For a year I’ve

HALF LIGHT MIS-TAKEN By Monica Devine, Eagle River   Today is not a day I dreamed it will be summer, always   not a day I longed for tall grasses to froth like winded sea waves not a day I wished to hike hills the color of grasscloth.   How could I?   Light clears

RIVER MEADOW By Margo Waring Juneau The quiet brown river punctuated by exclamation points of fallen trees. Standing in the forest shade surrounded by alder and spruce. Early spring quiet without insect hum. Listening to the call of Steller’s jay. Spot lit by sun a river meadow, edged by chartreuse of early blueberry; bright with

OVERLOOKED By Jonas Lamb, Juneau What it sees is not insignificant though at such scale and magnification we likely seem so much less than small. These bodies, their dark openings where we let in the light. Despite all our ruminations, our labors— blunt and bizarre we do not sparkle but blend in against the backdrop

GLACIAL REBOUND By Jeffery Brady, Skagway   Standing now where glacier towered seventy years ago, Blue ice of colorized photos, crevassed and crept upon By fanciful tourist picnickers, gives way to boulder erratics, Moraine, misgivings on move up mountain out of sight. How long does it take for land to start rising After such a

THE DAY I FINISHED MY SECONDARY EDUCATION CERTIFICATE APPLICATION By Jamie Lynn Buehner, Douglas The turtle that showed up and disappeared in equally mysterious ways did not make a good bedtime story. I know this, told it anyway, and was put into place by my daughter. I spared her the retelling of the recurrent childhood

THE MOUNTAIN THAT TOOK THE PLACE OF A POEM for W.S. By Doug Capra, Seward   There it was, stone for stone, the mountain that took the place of a poem.   He felt its cadence, its rhythm, even when the mountain hid in clouds   it reminded him of the steep journey toward meaning,

SOLSTICE By Daryl Farmer, Fairbanks   The sun today is a drooping eye its lid lifting over the horizon and then, in early afternoon drowsily closing again. The December stillness is like an old monk resting heavy against the sliding door, and sighing crystals onto the glass. I read Tranströmer’s poetry by dim lamp. A