A Mourning Symphony   A quiet thunder muffled in the drums of cheap, thrift store speakers for years the volume knob was lost on a number line, stuck at a low grumble, generic static so pervasive I confused its cancer for consonance.   I forgot I was a string quartet ...

Trust   Yesterday I found a faith stone on Barry Beach. Sand and rain and sea testing its word in relentless ways. I took the pebble to a rock pool and found a dismembered crab. The sky peppered gulls and all their noise. I plopped the weight from my hand into salted water, like an alien from another universe.     Thimble   The sea breeze cuffs a skirmish of salt across the buckthorn; choughs clown above our path that clings to cliffs; sky, scarfed with cloud, ribbons through the four walls...

By Ron Nelson   I wake to my tent etched with a cross stitching of frost, and my half-empty water jug frozen through. Though it’s early November, I wasn’t expecting temperatures to get so low. It’s the kind of cold where every noise breaks sharply across the open ground, with halting finch calls interrupted only by the sound of my tent zipper and gear latches. I’m slow to leave my sleeping bag and I quickly come to regret that I didn’t pack a second jacket. Fortunately, the sky begins to...