welcome to hedgerow everyone. what a joy it is to bring you an issue including both short & longer poems, as well as a story! the art will return by next week. you are very welcome to send in your work. thank you for making this a beautiful place…

with love & kindness.

caroline skanne

founding editor

(for new book releases & more–)

https://wildflowerpoetrypress.wordpress.com

(for news & announcements–)

https://www.facebook.com/hedgerowpoems/

the slow descent
into noisy silence
on New Year’s Eve
a spasm of depression
grabs me by the throat

.

a wedge of geese
held by Lake Ontario …
living alone
in this promised land, I wonder
if I ever left home

Chen-ou Liu is currently the editor and translator of NeverEnding Story, http://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.ca/, and the author of five books, including Following the Moon to the Maple Land (First Prize, 2011 Haiku Pix Chapbook Contest) and A Life in Transition and Translation (Honorable Mention, 2014 Turtle Light Press Biennial Haiku Chapbook Competition)

a cross
sears the moonless night
my southern childhood

.

sheep in the road…
where were you last night
when I needed you?

.

glass slippers
displayed in the pawn shop –
hard times

Pris Campbell enjoys writing and publishing haiku, tanka, haiga and free verse. She has published seven collections of free verse in the small press. A former clinical psychologist, she was sidelined by ME/CFS in 1990. She and her husband live in SE Florida.

winter grey
all my haiku beginning
to look the same

Julie Warther (@JulieWarther) serves as Midwest Regional Coordinator for the Haiku Society of America. (http://www.hsa-haiku.org) Her most recent venture involves the installation of 30 haiku stones as part of the Holmes County Open Air Art Museum in Millersburg, Ohio. (http://www.innathoneyrun.com/successful-grand-opening-ceremony/)

On Fitting

The struggle
of a fitted sheet
on the bed:
Pulled tight one end,
comes loose the other.
Endless smoothing,
smoothing.
Then after washing,
drying, the sheet
so difficult
to fold,
to force,
into a neat
perfect square
to fit
inside the cupboard;
another struggle.
Only when that
sheet is flying
on the clothesline
in the sun,
in the wind,
sailing out
full and wide,
does it truly fit.
Why?
                    No struggle.

Tricia Marcella Cimera is an obsessed reader and lover of words. She volunteers locally, believes there’s no place like her own backyard, and has traveled the world. Tricia lives with her husband and family of animals in Illinois/in a town called St. Charles/by a river named Fox.

all afternoon
the purr of the cat
and rain

.

freezing rain
the tartness of raspberries
on her tongue

Ben Moeller-Gaa is the author of two haiku chapbooks, the Pushcart nominated Wasp Shadows (Folded Word Press 2014) and Blowing on a Hot Soup Spoon (poor metaphor design 2014). His work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Learn more about Ben at www.benmoellergaa.com.

definitely not
in the Now
what’s for dinner

Margaret Jones resides in Wisconsin, USA. She enjoys walking in the woods, binoculars in one hand and haiku notebook in the other.

If You Can’t Change a Light Bulb

We always lived in apartments when I was growing up, but my father had big dreams.

“One day, kids, we’ll move to the suburbs. We’ll have a little garden. Maybe even some chickens.”

When my mother heard this she made that sound of hers. I can’t spell it. There aren’t the right letters in our alphabet to spell it. If I had to try, it would start with a ha sound. But it wasn’t ha. It was more disappointed than ha. It was ha with a sigh thrown in. And some exasperation, too.

My father didn’t like that sound.

“What?” he asked, ”what makes you say it won’t happen?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You said plenty.”

Dad was right, that ha of hers did say plenty. It said we were never going to live in the suburbs. We’d never put our hands in the dirt of a garden. There would be no tomatoes or peas or lettuce to pick for dinner. There would definitely not be chickens to do whatever a person did with chickens.

And here’s why:

My father couldn’t change a light bulb.

If you can’t change a light bulb, you can’t live in a house in the suburbs with a garden and chickens.

If you can’t change a light bulb it means you have to live your whole life in an apartment building where there is a super and a super’s assistant — men you call up when the light bulb blows and they arrive within the hour, with a ladder and a flashlight and a new bulb. They carry toolboxes and they not only know the name of each tool but they know how to use them. They have wrenches and screwdrivers and they carry nails in their pockets and hammers hang from special loops on their belts.

My father didn’t know from hammers. He was entirely dependent on the super and his assistant. And not only for the light bulb situation but also for leaky faucets and running toilets and — God forbid — what if water comes in through the window when it rains? What if the thermostat breaks? What if a ceiling tile falls down? What if the refrigerator gets too cold, or too hot, or stops working completely?

Unexpected disasters lurk around every corner. Not everyone can handle them on their own. That is why my family was doomed to a life of apartment dwelling.

That’s what my mother meant by that ha of hers, that was so much more than a ha. Dad couldn’t change a light bulb. There would be no fresh-from-the-earth food for us; no eggs from a chicken; no milk from a cow.

Wait a minute, wait minute, who said anything about a cow?

Well, a girl can have dreams too, can’t she?

I learned that from my father.

Zee Zahava lives in Ithaca, New York