AN ENDANGERED SPECIES

Across the flats in Provincetown, Cape Cod
walking at sunrise in autumn
breathing in coolness of morning      low tide
like a bathtub draining empty
bubbles and crabs slinking
airborne gulls crying      loud and terse

This promising hour before coffee
prospectors laden with rakes and buckets
proceed over rocks and beach
ready to stake claim      a bit of sandbar as their own

Clammers are an endangered species
exteriors of calcified armor
too soft in the middle      just like
the clams they cherish and gather

Gashing at sand with tines of hard metal
eager for each clank of promise
fooled by broken shells      robbed of their innards
by one who came before

Buckets are filled inch by inch
heavy and ripe, lifted and lugged      the retreat begins
Briny ripples trickle in, cover and flood
this stretch of toiled, torn sand
chasing the diggers back to town      this wedge of land we call home
to study and share and shuck
bivalve bounty from an ocean garden

Melissa Resch (BostonArtist)

MINDFULNESS

Mindfulness takes my breath away
Down the gentle path
Repeating notes of compassion
Written on the moment’s parchment

What this time can offer
Is blocked by pattern repetition
Undoing that stranglehold reveals
A pocket of pain
Below the shoulder blade
Exploding with past and future trouble
Leaving me lusciously stranded
In the here and now

Each slow footstep
Across the intentional walkway
Crisp brown branch remains
Indenting underfoot softly marking
Pressure from heel to toe
As a wind ripple crosses the foot’s arch
And a glancing shaft of amber light
Identifies the afternoon in play

One small bird cry
The konk of the raven
Always hiding, taunting, gliding
My step still in motion
A new indentation
Heel to toe, crunching twig
A swell of warmth within my belly
An opening of unarticulated joy
Quickly flying off like the raven.

Brian K. Lynch (BebopPoet)