See the trees lean to the wind’s way of learning. See the dirt of the hills shape to the water’s way of learning. See the lift of it go the way the biggest wind and the strongest water want it.
Gold buttons in the garden today— Among the brown-eyed susans the golden spiders are gambling. The blue sisters of the white asters speak to each other.
Cabbages catch at the moon. It is late summer, no rain, the pack of the soil cracks open, it is a hard summer. In the night the cabbages catch at the moon, the leaves drip silver, the rows of cabbages are series of little silver waterfalls...
The silver point of an evening star dropping toward the hammock of new moon over Lake Okoboji, over prairie waters in Iowa— it was framed in the lights just after twilight.
Creep up, moon, on the south Sky. Mark the moon path of this evening. The day must be counted. The new moon is a law. The little say-so of the moon must be listened to.
Lysley Tenorio, Laura van den Berg, and Caitlin Horrocks are a few of the standouts in the latest Best New American Voices and PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories anthologies.
