Looking north from Lord Howe Island
Jamie Derkenne is interested in photographing landscapes of solastalgia. The seas around Lord Howe Island off Australia’s East Coast are full of coral reefs, the most southerly part of the coral reefs that further north make the Great Barrier Reef. Lord Howe Island’s reefs are about the only ones off Australia not in imminent risk of dying because of global warming.
slow-crawl through thick air
mind furrows its weighty rut
& a boy flits past on his board
threads the sluggish cars
so fully his 13-year-old self
left foot lifted
headphoned rap
metal thrash
slings him wide
onto Deering
& I want to warn him
don’t ride here it’s too
dangerous
but he pulls me
into the perfect stitch
of his turn
holds all of us car-bound cynics
in thrall
weaves his net
exquisite
rule of body-need
the way
I danced once
between a mirrored wall
& plate-glass street
bare feet & red skirt
music & muscle in synch
whisper-stomp
my middle-aged body
loose-hinged
claiming this column of air
you make me feel
you make me feel
each step a truth
I danced
though I was not
had never been
a dancer
lifted all of Congress Street
my bones singing
a hymn
unlearned
& necessary
after Rising Cairn by Celeste Roberge
the stones piled variously on the thin beach
near my favorite walking path fall
when the tide turns & collect
in the crook of that place prepared
for stillness. the water beats them smooth
& makes a kind of music grief’s
innumerable chuffs & sighs. the woman kneeling
does not put the stones into her pockets
but swallows them each stone
remembered by the tongue. swallows clay & silt
taste of cavern cliff edge & crag until her body holds
the balance between weight
& right. earth-pinned I too remember each fist-sized
bruise each rain-wise stone tuned to the illumined lullaby
of loss. like the low-tide man hefting
stone in his well-muscled arms smile-less stone-
worthy. another swallower he cairns & stoops.
does not look at me even when I speak.
we swallow what gathers clamoring.
we sink a bit more each day stone-anchored.
she says she’s rising. not
sinking. in another telling she carries stones
one by one uphill. some say
the carrying goes on forever.
Inuksuk (inukshuk in English) is an Inuit word for a figure made of piled stones constructed to communicate with humans throughout the arctic. Inukshuk means “to act in the capacity of a human.” http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/en/article/inuksuk-inukshuk/
Jeri Theriault’s Radost, My Red was published by Moon Pie Press in 2016. She also has three chapbooks, most recently: In the Museum of Surrender (Encircle Publications contest winner, 2013). Her poems have appeared in journals (Paterson Literary Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Rattle, The Atlanta Review, etc.) and anthologies such as French Connections: An Anthology of Poetry by Franco-Americans. A Fulbright recipient (1998-99) and Pushcart Prize nominee (2006, 2013 and 2016), Jeri holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives in Maine.
Your neighbor Dorie says it’s hard to leave a man who is emotionally abusing you. Mom likes Franklin Graham. Your cousin Brian shared a selfie. Your colleague Jacquard published a poem that took years to write. Your niece’s husband Jesus ran Bloomsday while pushing his daughter Gabriela in a stroller. Your friend Mei is taking an online class with a comedian who kicks cismales off the stage. Brian likes Defend the 2nd. Gaia says being online is living in Plato’s cave. Defend the 2nd wants people to join their community of patriots. Dorie harvested a thousand delicious plums from her backyard. Blackivist says the government dismantled the Black Panthers because black people stood up for justice. Brian likes cutting big trees and watching them fall. Mei likes Blackivist. Sounds True says mindfulness is being fully awake. Brian can’t believe a naked woman walked into an elevator at the middle school. Mei wants people telling Hillary to shut up, to shut up. Dorie says the naked woman was on drugs and just trying to find her dog that had wandered into the school. Jacquard’s poem features three men, one of whom raped her. Dorie wants advice on how to get rid of hornets nesting under her house. Franklin Graham thanks President Donald J. Trump for his support. Jacquard learned there’s such a thing as an Assassin Caterpillar and is using that as her spirit animal. Sounds True says mindfulness is about not having a self. Dorie shared a video of three men rescuing a goat from an electrical wire. Brian likes Secured Borders.
Gaia says we are just little waves in a great big ocean. Brian and Mei checked in at Murphy’s brew pub, Jesus is at the Mariner’s game, and Mom is babysitting Gabriela.
DJ Lee is a professor of literature and creative writing at Washington State University with an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and a PhD from the University of Arizona. DJ’s creative work has been published in Narrative, the Montreal Review, Vela, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, as well as other journals and anthologies. One was a nonfiction prize finalist at Terrain and The Offbeat; another received a Pushcart Prize special mention. Yet another was shortlisted for the Disquiet International Literary Prize.
