a list for the moon

Raine has recently reached motherhood, alongside the growing baby and her belly, her writing has become more refined. ‘a list for the moon’ is in my top three poems sweet Cheyenne has written.

This poem really pulls at my senses; it gives me comfort. It takes me out of my mind and connecting with the moon–connecting with the night sky.

---

a list for the moon

by Cheyenne Raine

• • •

a list of times i have fallen in love with the moon:

- before the sun climbs into the sky, and a sliver
of lavender lays against the horizon,
the moon still grey as ever.

- when the harvest comes
and yellow tints the moon,
autumn brushing through the leaves.

- driving through my neighborhood
at three in the morning, peeking up
at the almost full moon,
wondering why the night couldn’t last
just a little longer.

- watching a storm off in the distance
the moon unfazed
the city receiving lightning
the sea calm and untouched.

- the moon’s reflection in the water,
milky crests finding their way
back into dark shades of blue.

- scribbling words under porch lights
and talking to the moon
when i couldn’t find the words.

- snapping a photo for a friend,
because their sky was cloudy
but mine was clear,
and the moon is always
such a lovely sight.

---

Cheyenne Raine is a contributing author to Introspective Collective; illustration by Regan Smith.

End Still

I wrote this poem late last year, during a time where the hurt from family health issues weighed heavy on my heart. It was birthed out of the need to process, pen to paper, the hurt but recognizing that beauty still survives and thrives around us. That sometimes the best healing is staying in stillness. The photo that Farrah paired together brought me to tears. It reminded me of this once again - that everything is temporary, but the bird’s song still sings.

---

End Still

By Regan Smith

• • •

The fall birds congregate in the trees,
greatly outnumbering the barely-shaken leaves.

Their rainstick roar
reminds me that everything is temporary,
nothing is fixed—
and that observing holds a special freedom.

The air is so beautiful here.

Stay still, saturate,
and hear their song.

---

Photography by Farrah Emami.

Northern Lights Over Yellowknife

Adrian Slonaker uses imagery and diction in a way that evokes an intimate experience with nature, particularly the Aurora Borealis. Reading this poem has me eager to plan a high-latitude excursion to catch this poetry play out in person. Let’s welcome Adrian and this beautiful piece to the Introspective Collective community + collection.

---

Northern Lights Over Yellowknife

by Adrian Slonaker

• • •

Dazzling, zigzagging zests
of pearly-soft seafoam green, gracing
the homecoming of starlit blue-blackness
after its estival escape,
vibrating through shivery September air
over the delicious undulating dances of
the Great Slave Lake flirting with
defiantly rough noses, teeth and fingers of rock,
the pride of the Canadian Shield,
and more poplars and birches and willows than could be counted
in a score of tortoise's lifetimes.

---

Zigzagging back and forth across the Canadian/US border, Adrian Slonaker works as a copywriter and copy editor and enjoys folk music, elderflower soda, spicy food challenges, wrestling and vintage suspense films. Adrian's work has been nominated for Best of the Net and has appeared in Pangolin Review, Aerodrome, and others.

Retreat

I’m currently in Colorado Springs, on the last day of my solo writer’s retreat. I’m been learning new techniques, vocabulary, art history; I’ve been experimenting with different writing styles to expand and stretch my creativity.

I thought that I would try my hand at some stream-of-consciousness writing–where the words are written without any structure or punctuation. It’s a pure way of writing. The words just simply are.

• • •

Retreat

The mountain town welcomes me with snow capped peaks and a cafe serving decaf coffee with a french couple chattering beside me my high school mind picks up on a few words they speak and how they spill onto this paper and are carried past the botanical and butterfly posters out the wide open door on the bright blue tempered day and though my reason for this visit is to retreat and write it really was predestined so I could reconnect and reopen my mind to the spontaneity and surprise that plays sweetly through song and through the cherry blossom blooms against the heavens and all the while I look back out towards the horizon and see the snow capped peaks

A Hero in Flames

This is the second post of Jane's on this site, with her first being White Stag. This next poem, A Hero in Flames, took my breath away and poured inspiration into my empty cup. A while after writing this poem, Jane found that she is officially cancer free–a miraculous work of God that deserves ceaseless celebration.

---

a hero in flames

by jane claudio

If I was to die
It would be with the reflection of the mountains in my eyes
I would die with sun-pink cheeks
And a mouth full of blackberries

I want to die while my heart is still a greenhouse for hope
All my wild dreams as seedlings in egg cartons
Reaching toward the window

I cannot die yellow and hungry
I will not die in sterile air

But I would like to die
While the fireflies are still glowing
Morse coding their poetry for a cynical earth

I would like to die like Joan of Arc
With dignity and urgency and stubbornness
As a watercolor portrait in the night
A sight to behold, a hero in flames

---

Photo by Keeli Faith

Jane Claudio is a cancer survivor in Nashville, Tennessee. She uses writing as a cure for loneliness and a magnifying glass for the beauty we experience every day. She is also shares her words through songwriting, with her work being accessible at www.nightbirde.com. 

Vulnerable

a p r i l   28

My mouth lays mute due to my marinating mind. I make myself a muggy glass of Yellow Pau d’Arco tea with a dollop of Tupelo honey. I flip through my journal as my lavender and basil plant begin to soak in the morning’s maturation, and translate the past month’s journal entries to the digital screen. 

They illustrate the transition and unsteadiness that has taken grasp. Transition through a new job title, though a promotion, has been stretching me in aspects of time and mental capacity. Unsteadiness through members of my family being scattered across the states, and the fear of loss of connection that rises within me. With Ricky’s family, we’ve been trying to alternate months to see his mother, who recently fell ill at the start of this year, and visit to support his father—who is now her primary caretaker. 

I know that I’m not alone. Every soul is facing some degree of adversary at this point, at every point. But I like to admit mine after I’ve pulled the gold from the circumstance, once the tough feelings are eased by a calmer current standing. Writing the heaviness off my chest fills me with a certain type of discomfort—staring filled pages, full of words depicting the frustration and turbulence that has carried into my home, my heart. 

But I’m learning that it’s necessary. 

This endeavor allows a written timeline of growth; for miracles are only miracles when the outcome is contrasted with what was once current. I’m finding that there’s a special vulnerability that’s held in the broken sentences, the words that don’t link up quite right. So below holds my current standing through the month’s journal entries: raw, brittle, honest. 

• • •

a p r i l   14

I picked up an old book today, 
and saw pen scratches in the margins. 

I recognized them;
that sloppy script was mine. 
They were poems penned by the book’s inspiration. 

Upon reading the interjections, 
I became jealous. 

I was so reckless with my writing,
writing for an audience of one—
and recently I’ve encountered some turbulence, 
causing an emptied-ink pen.

Write with vulnerability,
whispers the husband with the pure-gold heart, 
what if I can’t,
I say softly with tear stained cheeks.
 

• • •

a p r i l  22

Purple Pansies

Outside, 
across the incandescent sky, 
the boreal chickadee bird dips and ascends, 
a fluttering pattern with acute acceleration. 

Inside, 
a heartbroken husband, 
speaks softly to his wife; 
combing her hair behind her ear, 
gently kissing the top of her head, 
as the natural light shines, 
gently comforts, 
warming her skin. 

The mother who can see but not speak, 
feel but not move; 
but oh, 
how her son sings for her—
strumming until blisters burst. 

And her sister, 
places purple pansies in eyeshot, 
and plants a shephard’s hook outside the window—
dangling a glass cylinder;  
it’s filled with seeds for the round-bellied robins, 
the yellow-breasted chat, 
and the cuckoo with it’s black-bill. 

And though her head lays heavy, 
I hope her heart is heaping full—
for beauty is unfolding everywhere, 
even when things feel broken.

• • •

a p r i l   27

I’m not too sure of what I’m afraid of—
letting ink flow through flooding frustration. 

Maybe, I’m afraid that the words won’t come. 
Maybe, I’m afraid that the words will come but that they won’t hold weight. 
Maybe, I’m afraid that the weighty words will come, 
but that they become a burden rather than an encourager.