Haiku
          by Ibe Ware Desu, LC

Looking carefully,
one finds shepherd’s purse on a
Vancouver sidewalk.

 

Haiku
          by Ibe Ware Desu, LC

In the late spring rain,
the dying rhododendron
has the largest blooms.

 

Haiku
          by Ibe Ware Desu, LC

Mount Saint Helens was,
in my youth, as perfect as
Mount Fuji is now.

 

Tanka
          by Ibe Ware Desu, LC

Inexplicably,
she awakened that May day
to a yellow haze
in Aberdeen Washington:
Mount Saint Helems exploded.

Ibe Ware Desu, LC, is a poet of Japanese forms. The first poem refers to Vancouver, Washinton, a city of approximately 180,000. Mount St. Helens, an active stratovolcano, exploded on May 218, 1980. Its elevation went from 9,677 feet to 8,363 feet.

~~~

The Passing of Joseph Bohlig, February 2010
          by Ubs Reec Idwal

It stands gigantic, grand upon the horizon,
Mount Saint Helens, white and blue, like the sky above
and around. That snow-covered volcano rising
up over the plain, so peaceful, calm and massive,
as if a vast, impressive modern Vulcan can
exact revenge on man even when its massif
doesn’t boil over. A decade back a mountain
climber named Bohlig fell in the crater’s big hole
and died at its snowy lip. Oh, so small is man,
yet it is in his nature to chase the large goal.
Even when it’s hopeless and he is woebegone
he hies on, seeking an ideal. It’s in his soul.

Ubs Reece Idwal is a poet of the Pacific Northwest. This week was the 40yj anniversary of the eruption of Mount Saint Helens.

~~~

Amphan
          by Udweec Berisal
          “It seemed like the end of the world.”
              —Azgar Ali, Satkhira District, Bangladesh

The super cyclone Amphan whipped up storms and surging sea
in eastern India and Bangladesh—sheer urgency—
destroying houses and embankments all along the coast.
Evacuation was more than 2,000,000 sheltered folks.
It was the strongest storm recorded in the Bengal Bay.
It didn’t help that the coronavirus was in play.
The word Amphan means sky in Thai, this storm that has come from
the ocean basin where it formed. Amphan ‘s pronounced “um-pun”.
The great winds crashed, the waters splashed, the palms swayed all about.
Of nature’s power in South Asia, there was little doubt.

 

Bangladesh
          by Udweec Berisal

It sits upon the Bengal delta, largest in the World,
where Brahmaputra and the Ganges are together hurled.
Like as a man with mighty span, the country, flat and rich,
with fertile farmland, stretches out, a vast, fantastic ditch.
Rangpur up in the north, its head, Rajshahi its left arm,
connected to its right Silhet by Mymensingh’s great charm.
The beating pulse, its heart is Dhaka, in the central hub,
its right leg Chittagong kicked out, its left leg Khulna up.
And last, at bottom, Bangladesh, the Venice of Bengal;
the paddy, river and canal, three things make Barisal,

Udweec Berisal is a poet of Bangladesh. With 160,000,000 people, Bangladesh is the 8th most populous nation in the World. At least 80 people have died due to the cyclone. The Satkhira district is in the southwesternmost part of Bangladesh; it has a population of about 2,000,000.

~~~

Mount Ararat
          by Darius Belewec

Mount Ararat, the Hebrew form for Urartu,
Assyria’s name for that kingdom of the 8th
century BC arising beyond the Araks,
a special place for Armenians, and their faith,
where Noah’s ark finally came after the flood,
in Turkey, now watched over by a wrathful wraith,
a constant white and blue reminder, in cold blood.
So hard and heavenly it stands above the plain:
volcanic rocks, air, oxygen, and all are good,
both great and little mountains up against the grain,
below the homes of confiscating Kurd and Turk,
the mounds of 1915, some have called a gain.

Darius Belewec is a poet of Armenia. Mount Ararat is 16,854 feet (5137 meters) in height.The word “genocide” was coined in describing the murder of well over a million Armenians by the Turks. As of this writing there are about 61 deaths from covid-19 in Armenia.

~~~

Stonehenge
          by Rawcee Buildes

PreCeltic, on the chalk downs north of Salisbury
in southern England, th’ ending circle of an avenue
that runs from Avon River leads to a quarry
of holes that antiquarian John Aubrey knew.
There are in total fifty-six beyond Heelstone
and Slaughter Rock. They’d not fill th’ Albert Hall it’s true.
Inside those holes lies Sarsen Circle of sandstone—
thirty pillars and lintels once, bluestone uprights,
and then the horseshoe of the massive trilithons,
within which is a horseshoe of bluestone low-heights,
and finally an altar stone. All is buried
by time, and yet remains one of Earth’s greatest sites.

Rawcee Buildes is a poet of rock building. In his neighbourhood every yard has rocks of all different sizes for landscaping There are also rock walls in the local catchments, holding earth and water in the raging downpours and concomitant floods. John Aubrey (1626-1697) was a noted biographer as well, and his unpublished “Brief Lives” was a treasure trove of information. Stonehenge was constructed in between 3000 BC and 2000 BC.

~~~

Two California Doctors
          by Dr. Weslie Ubeca

Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi, two doctors who
reported covid-19 prevalence was like the flu.
The California doctors tested some 5,000 for
coronavirus in their county, those and hundreds more.
They said that people sheltering in place would limit their
microbial exposure, weakening immunity.
The truth of what they found is being limited by some,
WHO do not like diversity within officaldom,
and try to bully others to their flat-earth point of view.
Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi are only two.

Dr. Weslie Ubeca is a poet of medical science, not a medical doctor.

~~~

At Work
          by Des Wercebauli

So what am I to do with one more paradox?
It doesn’t feed the ducks. How does it improve life?
I want beautiful moments now—not some thought-fox,
fiery-red, running through interminable strife.
I am at work, here at the marble quarry’s mine.
You can’t cut this metamorphic rock with a knife,
nor a pickaxe. To get this calcite crystalline,
drills, cables, fabricators, chisels, cutting heads
and who knows what else more are needed. One divine
slab doesn’t happen like that; it must be blasted
apart and polished. It isn’t a cardboard box
I want; I want beautifully cast monuments
that last.

Des Wercebauli is a poet of work. The poem could be described as a broken bilding. In the United States of America alone 38,000,000 are unemployed. In Hong Kong, where the economy has taken a gigantic hit due to covid-19 lockdown, there have been only 4 deaths due to it.