Celebrating the writers, storytellers, poets, and books that enrich the Upper East Side of Texas.

Literary

Poetry

The Season of Light

I welcome the feel of the sun on my face as the warm wind refreshes me in this season of light.

I am in awe of the beauty of the sun’s rays as they filter through the clouds with such precision.

The morning dew glistens on freshly cut grass, and the harmony of birds fill the crisp clean air.

The colors of nature suddenly become more vivid and alive in their passage to this transition.

It opens our awareness of how quickly the seasons change our paths, our lives, and our dreams.

I breathe in with each sunrise and breathe out with each sunset as each is an artistry of its own.

Warm rains become a welcomed sight with the sound of their rhythmic drops hitting the tin roof.

The air cools me as the music of the wind carries through the treetops bending and swaying.

Flowers drink from this fountain of life that sustains them when dry periods test their survival.

Vapors of steam rise from the roads that have held the sun’s heat and become a magical show.

I thirst for fresh water to replenish me and soothe my parched lips as the heat of the sun returns.

It is a reminder to me of how precious these comforts are to me and how each day is a blessing.

Morning walks bring peace and an awareness of how purposeful our lives are in His perfect plan.

Evening skies cause us to look up at the moon and the stars that shine intensely in the darkness.

This is a time to build lasting memories that strengthen our connections with family and friends.

This is the season of all seasons, the Season of Light.

By Toni Stratton

Lindale

A Tanglewood View 

Peaches lie all over the ground, tossed down yellow,

too early, by this morning’s storm. 

Bahia grass shushes the singing birds,

heads held high despite the damp. 

The neighbor’s cedar fence

honey-bright and newly planed,

jars against the weathered slate,

ivy springing eternally around everything in sight.

More peaches fall

soft gold against the gray rot 

of a once towering

loblolly pine —

only one of the original five still guards the threshold

separating their wet grass from mine.

The others went down one by one—
lightning, beetles, rot,
the slow arithmetic of years.

He remains, resin-scented and watchful,
holding weather in his bark,
holding the memory of vanished shadows
where his brothers once stood.

Gray squirrels still pendulum through his branches.
Finches stitch their small songs
into the seams of his rough trunk.
Yet, every year the sky grows wider,

and the wind moves easier. 

Every year his roots drink alone. 

Tuesday’s leaf-blowers

herd noise and leaves from yard to yard,

drowning traffic’s distant growl

on its way to the college down the road.

The harsh machine noise echoes through the trees

and sends our wildlife scurrying.

I miss the old gardeners who cared

for the yards themselves, sweating

in the sunlight while joking about my use

of yellow fabric shears while I knelt weeding at the curb.

Their azaleas that smelled so heavenly

the day we moved in, now lost too early.

Newcomers replaced them with easy gravel,

which smells of guano from the bats.

Someday those too will vanish, 

and the creekside mosquitos will rise

from the creek at dusk

searching the air with hunger.

I lean out the window,

smell damp earth and the light, sweet smell of the peaches.

A sociable squirrel we’ve named Randy

chitters at me from the old pine through the screen,

daring me to keep him from his fruity treasure. 

A cardinal stops to argue with him

and he runs elsewhere like always,

leaving the pine swaying over the empty places.

By Lisa Holcomb

Tyler

TYR

I have loved bent land

Curling and twisting thru the expanse like fog

Reaching and dipping

Like curves

Moist and wet

Insatiable

Where people drink tea

And coffee black

Invoke richness in their talk

Of accounting and philosophy.

I thought I was a wet water woman

Born with one lung full of water

But now I am here

In this harsh, dry cement city

Soil cracked, split open

Like my mouth

Yawing in the heat

Determined to make my way

Or die trying.

And I discover I fit here too

Like this sun

Brilliant and burning

Like this sky

Vast and unpredictable

Like this people:

Unrelenting.

By Isabella Margot

Tyler