Belinda Scott: Ekphrastic Writing Responses, Curated by Kate Copeland

Glass Sculpture, by Belinda Scott (England) 2021

Dear Ekphrastic Writers,

A huge thanks to all of you for your magical, moving, masterly writings to Belinda Scott's sculpture. Below you will find a fair selection, but it goes without saying that everyone who submitted their work is part of this ekphrasis celebration! 

And as such, please, do read Belinda Scott's appreciative words here:

Thank you so much for sending me these overwhelmingly beautiful,
thoughtful, provoking writings. There have been tears. Of appreciation
and wonder.

If there is a way to thank your contributors for their insightful and
interesting work then please pass on my appreciation for their art, it
has made me think about my work in different ways and I couldn’t be more
happy.

Thank you all, and congratulations! Looking forward to your future writings!

Kate Copeland

**

Blue Gems and Beauty
 
Calm beach, blue water,
an unidentified stone,
blue gems and beauty.
 
Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher
 
Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher has been writing since 2010 and has had many micro-flash fiction stories published. In 2018 her book Shorts for the Short Story Enthusiasts, was published,The Importance of Being Short, in 2019 and In A Flash in 2022. She currently resides on Long Island, New York with her husband Richard and two dogs.
 
**

Blue
 
I thought I knew blue
          when I looked into your eyes
 
the real blue, true blue
          sapphire blue with a view of the sea
 
but honest blue stands
          on a pebbled beach, a crinkled strand
 
a monolith of many eyes
          the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen
 
like a crooked splintered tree
          a sentinel, lonely by the sea
 
Caroline Misner
 
Caroline Misner: “My poetry, fiction and non-fiction have appeared in several journals throughout the USA, Canada, India and the UK, too numerous to mention here. I have also had work published in several anthologies and webzines. I am the author of four novels The Daughters of Eldox: Book I: The Alicorn, The Daughters of Eldox, Book II: The Other, The Spoon Asylum and most recently, SEEDs of the Inside Straight, published in April 2024 by Austin Macauley.”
 
**

Reincarnation

Here’s colour, light, yet certified,
responsible, ekphrastic search,
in freedom found accountable,
responsible, community,
corroded strut with history.

Where pebbledash in tidal reach,
of marine, even navy hue,
on shingle beach, unmoved Canute -
though should be sand upon the strand
awaiting fired grains to reflect.

This lunar, periodic scape,
glass pillar ’gainst both neap and spring,
old order giving way to new -
brined timber standing, despite mare,
night terrors giving way to hope.

No bobbing bottle, current scene,
kids’ spadework, castles in the air,
but message for those in despair -
memorial from wooden wreck,
a wavy staining post recall.

Transformed, as write off, now viewed art,
though thus combined, poetic craft;
do not dismiss all worn down past
which may be rescued, second berth,
safe harbour for re-righting earth.
 
Stephen Kingsnorth
 
Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales, UK, from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces curated and published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic Review. He has, like so many, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com
 
**

The Line of Blue
 
The muddled lapis with sea green
The waves of admiral mixed with clear glass, almost salty from the air
Azure and teal rippled with bumps
Peacock still as the wood around it
A slice of cobalt slicing through like a gull seeking prey
Maroon stick out like a bruised thumb
Sky portrayed against sky
A little pebble of slate, maybe a mistake maybe not
Sapphire so thick it blocks the sky
Driftwood acts as binder
Every colour, together
 
Hewitt Meier 

**

After the Storm
 
sturdy faith reclaimed
holds frail hope memory-stained
upward toward the light
 
Lara Dolphin
 
A descendant of immigrants, Lara Dolphin lives with her family among the Allegheny Mountains of Central Pennsylvania on the ancestral land of the Susquehannock/Iroquois people. She has written three chapbooks: In Search Of The Wondrous Whole, Chronicle Of Lost Moments, and At Last a Valley. She, like countless others, hopes for a world filled with greater peace.
 
**
 
 
My Glass Soul
  
The depth of aloneness and grief that is with me always in the fibre of my solid being.
is nullified by the nakedness and purity of your love.
You stand in a tribute to love.
Tall and slim and permanent.
The color wheel of transcendence is the wisdom that holds and bonds us together.
never to be parted.
Your are the beauty that inspires my darkness by seeing through a glass darkly.
There is never a step I take that you are not with me.
You are the kindness in the blacksmiths hand.
The water that nourishes the waiting earth.
The third voice in a prayer.
The unseen power within me.
 
Sandy Rochelle
 
Sandy is a notable poet, actress, filmmaker and voice-over artist, Grammy and Emmy nominated.Publications include: Impspired, One Art, Dissident Voice, Verse Virtual, Amethyst Review, Wild Word, Haiku Universe, Cultural Daily, Poetry Super Highway, and others.
 
**

I Live in Three States of Grace
 
You will find me
at the horizons where 
land, sea, and sky converge.
 
The material world - 
I sift beach pebbles and sand
through my fingers gathering
 
objects to me such as sea shells;
creating tiny homes for abandoned
poems so they won’t feel rejected.
 
The emotional world -
where words inked on blank 
paper are spoken aloud, 
 
grow bold, leave home;
take up permanent residence
in someone’s consciousness.
 
The spiritual world -
The grey area between 
sleep and wakefulness
 
where souls of the dead 
whisper their secrets to me
and I fuse them onto the pillar
 
with its blue-glass eyes
that stands as sentinel 
guarding the doorways
 
of the ocean as soul
and me as its vessel.
 
Laura Peña 
 
Laura Peña is an award-winning poet born and raised in Houston, TX. She holds a BA in English Literature and an MA in Education. Laura has written many ekphrastic poems which can be viewed on The Ekphrastic Review. She has been published in Equinox, Boundless, Synkroniciti, Point Clear Press, and Voices. 
 
**
 
Sea Glasses
 
I went to the eye doctor the other day
She said that at my age she'd like to check my vision
As it's been a few years since we updated my prescription
 
She said, “Now listen to me, stand right here and read
the smallest line that you can see
while covering your left eye; try not to cheat.”
 
I stepped up to the line, and all I saw
Was a fuzzy mess of mixed-up letters on the wall
And if I’m honest, a couple of times I guessed
 
“X, H, and E, then maybe the capital letter G.
Yeah, that one's an F. No wait,” I said. “Now it’s a P!”
She then told me to switch eyes and tell her what I could read
 
I did like she said but nothing changed
“Doc! All these letters are starting to look the same.”
She responded, “This is normal,” then went on to explain
 
She spouted out a stream of optometry terms
Bigger words than I’ve ever heard before
Like oculus dexter, astigmatism, presbyopia, and diopters
 
Then she scribbled down something in her notes
And handed over to me what she wrote
In big block letters it read, SEA GLASSES
 
She smiled and said, “Your prescription is just fine.
But the sort of correction you need is of another kind,
and the view finder you should look through waits at the beach.”
 
She continued, “You should plant yourself in a low folding seat.
Get some sand on your feet, and stare out at the sea
through this special type of light refracting spectacles.
 
This type is made with worn and weathered frames.
Reclaimed borders and lead-line shapes.
Inside it contains prism tinted lenses all custom made.”
 
Lowering her voice, “While these glasses won’t make clear the K from the B,
they will surely calm your soul, and set your eyes free,
and reduce the blurry distance you mentioned.”
 
She shook my hand and wished me goodbye
Told me to send her some pictures of the sky as it passes
And to enjoy fresh perspectives through my new sea glasses
 
Brendan Dawson 
 
Brendan Dawson is an American born writer based in Italy. He writes from his observations and experiences while living, working, and traveling abroad. Currently, he is compiling a collection of poetry and short stories from his time in the military and journey as an expat.
 
**
 
through the seaside glass
a haiku triptych
 
I
glass beads capture layers
low beach through calm sea to sky
picked up by driftwood
 
II
multi-pastel blues
see through kaleidoscope eyes
waveless sea cloud sky
 
III
many lines of light
sharp horizon crossed by wood
a totem to view
 
Peter R Longden
 
Peter R Longden grew up in Rotherham, South Yorkshire before moving to Coventry in 1981 for a long career working with young people. Now retired, poetry is a significant part of his life, both writing and reading. He is still looking to publish a first chapbook, having had individual poems published by 9th O’Bheal Five Words Competition (2022) and three ekphrastic poems in the Wee Sparrow Poetry Press Newsletters in 2024 and 2025. Other poems have been published in local anthologies. Writing poetry began over 25 years ago, recording how to see the world and what makes it the way it is. Peter is married to Sally with two grown-up boys (and a two-year-old granddaughter).
 
**

The Sculpture on the Beach
 
Near the end of my walk I come upon a hollowed railroad tie set firmly in the sand. It frames blue swirls of stained glass—aquamarine, cyan, cobalt, azure and indigo—complementing the colours of the ocean’s different depths. Pieces of palest blue blend with the cloud-streaming sky. Toward sundown, its translucence changes into opacity and that’s when I notice a small triangle of black set among the blue, like the speck of a ship barely visible on the horizon.
 
Brighton Beach
Father holds my hand
as I wade deeper
 
Ruth Holzer
 
Ruth Holzer is the author of ten chapbooks, most recently, On the Way to Man in Moon Passage (dancing girl press) and Float (Kelsay Books). Her poems have appeared in Blue Unicorn, California Quarterly, Freshwater, POEM, Slant and elsewhere. A multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, she has won the Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Prize, the Tanka Splendor Award and the Ito En Art of Haiku Contest Grand Prize.
 
**
 
Or Not 
 
I wedge it where the tide gets in,
wood soft, denting, clutching. 
 
Glass slips, too thin
or bites. I force it. It catches, then sets wrong in the wood. 
 
The sea hauls through the stones again,
a rasping drag, worrying it loose underneath. 
 
Light locks in the glass--
cold blue stormlight
held a second longer than it should. 
 
I force the root to hold sky.
It lists. I set it back. 
 
My hands split along old cuts, salt working in. 
 
I stay, longer than I should,
until the wind comes off the water hard,
laughing in it, or tearing--
through it and me. 
 
Tomorrow I come back to it 
and set it again, or not. 
 
Awen Fenwick
 
Awen Fenwick is a poet based in Ohio. Her work explores ritual, lineage, queerness, and survivorship through myth, material, and embodied memory. She writes to hold what resists naming and to listen for what endures.
 
**

Sea Glass and Driftwood
 
I see them everywhere
on the beach,
sea glass
and driftwood.
Pieces of Art now
strewn like a shipwreck
drowned and sculpted by the sea.
 
I see the sea in every piece
of glass.
In it, 
not through it.
I can’t see through it,
though I know once it was clear.
 
I remember the film ‘Sea Wife’
as I gather up the shiny sea glass
and arrange it with the driftwood.
The driftwood will be my ‘Biscuit’
trying desperately to see through,
searching for her face
washed up
broken 
and stained 
in glass.
Searching in vain
beyond that beach,
her face
well hidden 
as a nun in her habit.
 
I view my collection,
see exotic creations
made by the sea
and long to make
one of my own
to pay homage 
to the beach,
the sea
and
an old movie.
 
Lynn White
 
Lynn White lives in North Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She has been nominated for Pushcarts, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Consequence Magazine, Firewords, Vagabond Press, Gyroscope Review and So It Goes Journal. Find Lynn at: lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com andwww.facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/.
 
**
 
To Belinda Scott Regarding Glass Sculpture I Will Recall Often As Bulwark Still Unfailing
 
You craft the ocean seen as soul
from glass to gleam as bounding roll
so long withstood to hallow grace
of rigor that became embrace
 
in hollowed stalwart timber's past
as weathered pier work standing fast
against the swirl of gritty swell
so pitting its resistant shell
 
now testament to roughened hands
of humbleness that understands
the ebb and flow of light in time
the sun and moon of sea sublime,
 
your bulwark slows to sculpt the sense
of rugged love as self-defense.
 
Portly Bard
 
Portly Bard: Prefers to craft with sole intent...
of verse becoming complement...
...and by such homage being lent...
ideally also compliment.
 
Ekphrastic joy comes not from praise
for words but from returning gaze
far more aware of fortune art
becomes to eyes that fathom heart.
 
**
 
Glass Sculpture
 
Glass sculpture's hues of azure, cobalt blue,
Light sky blue, lapis lazuli, teal, bice
And other shades of blue entice you to
Sail over placid seas to paradise,
Serenely undisturbed by hints of squalls
Seen faintly in far clouds. A shipwrecked mast
Cocoons the glass in umber, but recalls
Unfinished journeys from a stormy past.
Low tide reveals their flotsam: shades of brown--
Pecan, bone, russet, tan--are in array
To caution you that sailors sometimes drown ...
Until time ends, to sail away or stay
Remains a tug-of-war between two sides
Eternally opposing, like the tides.
 
Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
 
Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His poems have appeared in Current Conservation, The Ekphrastic Review, Light, Lighten Up Online, the New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, WestWard Quarterly and other journals. In 2025 he won the Children's Unpublished category of the Eyelands Book Awards with Flora’s Flock and Other Stories to Read Aloud.
 
**
 
The Northern Oregon Coast
 
Memory is the lens. Twenty-five years living on the northern Oregon coast. On one MLK holiday, the south wind blew so hard the waves came in perpendicular to the sand and headland. In May a dead horse bobbed legs-up in lime-green surf. I put my index finger in a glass-clear tidepool to urge the anemone’s squirt. When Mt. St. Helens erupted, blowing ash scoured my eyebrows as I ran my five miles. After attaching little limpets onto my fingernails, a mermaid’s hand reached from the fervent sea. Deep blues, glassy greens, silver fogs, and winter grays, I know them all. Playing with driftwood dragons. I walked away, shaking sand from my shoes for the last time. Sand that runs in the overturned hourglass, a scrying that reminds me what home can be.   
 
Tricia Knoll
 
Tricia Knoll is a Vermont poet who spent twenty-five years roaming the beach at Manzanita, Oregon. Her poetry book Ocean's Laughter records environmental and social change in that small town over time. Wild Apples tells of downsizing to leave Oregon and travel 3,000 miles to live in Vermont. Knoll now is writing prose poetry. Website: triciaknoll.com 
 
**
 
Alone
 
Standing alone on a beach
Many years have been piled up inside me
Each year is as fragile as a piece of glass
The horizon is now my target
What will I discover beyond it
Hopelessness or Hope
I hope for Hope
 
Jean Bourque
 
Jean lives in Montreal. He is 75 years old, three-quarters of a century. Grandfather.
 
**

Untitled

Staring at this piece of artwork on the scenic beach shore, coarse sand beneath my feet, I am reminded that life imitates art. It is a beautiful, jagged, imperfect culmination of its surroundings, much like each of us.
 
Brandon Obin
 
Brandon Obin is a resident of Warwick, Rhode Island. He is a father, United States Army veteran, and avid powerlifter.
 
**

The Tempered Looking Glass
 
The tempered looking glass, supported by the growth of erosion, from which I view the world. The enduring ability to take, but even a short pause to enjoy a moment of peace amongst the chaos of creation. The very same chaos that has crafts all things surrounded by calming tranquility. Embracing that which allows me to appreciate the sounds of serenity. The unstable sand, the crashing waves, the raging storm creating, shaping, and developing me into the refined state in which I find myself. Growth forged not in the calm, but amid the frequent disarray of continuance, where fortitude is test and true harmony is born through resilience. 
                                                                 
Craig Chmielewski 
 
Craig Chmielewski was born and raised in Attleboro, Massachusetts. After high school he moved all around the states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has spent years of his life in foreign places such as Mexico, Thailand, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kuwait. He enjoys spending his free time exercising, traveling around the United States, and with his family. 
 
**
 
What Do We Need to Do to Preserve Your Blue?
 
The sky is happy. The sea is still happy.
Shining waves follow, happy.  
 
The sands, shifting, sigh contentedly.
The mangroves release green, breathing.
The grasses murmur praise. 
One patch of grass, scorched.  
 
There are infinite happies,
light broken into color.
 
Stained glass, held in weathered wood,
remembering,
in conversation with the sea:
 
What do we need to preserve: 
your blue, your green? 
clean astonishment?
your hard-won, thinning purity?
perfection? or beauty?  
even your darkest nights,
less dark now?  
 
StevieB.
 
StevieB. (Stephen McDonnell) writes lyric poems shaped by mystical and erotic experience, where queer eros opens onto the divine. A late-blooming poet, he began in his sixties, apprenticing himself to Rumi, Whitman, O’Hara, Ginsberg, and Anne Carson. He lives as an erotic mystic anchorite among the farmlands of eastern Long Island, NY, watching what reveals itself.
 
**
 
Shades of Blue 
 
Strolling through peacock beach
feeling the blues
hopeful the waves
will wash them away
The ocean--
bearer of sorrows
a blend of shades
each taken from different hollows
Cerulean from the recently divorced
Cobalt from the misunderstood teenager
Sapphire from the unemployed
Indigo from losing a mother
Peacock air
knotting my hair
releasing my despair
my midnight blue
turned powder blue
Not all the blue will drift away
some chooses quietly to stay
the sea keeps secrets I release--
and trades my heaviness for peace
 
Isabella Arenas
 
Isabella Arenas is a native of Guatemala, residing in Providence, Rhode Island where she pursues her interests in live entertainment. Her other hobbies include reading historical fiction novels, playing board games with her siblings, spending time fostering friendships, and traveling to new places.
 
**
 
Untitled

I walked down the beach alone this time. Rough sand under my feet, salty air filled my nose, seagulls and calm waves were the only things that reached my ears. My legs began to grow tired while walking, in search of the sculpture we once created together. We made the sea glass sculpture different shades of blue to match the sea. For three years, every time we needed peace or an escape, we looked for our landmark buried beneath the sand. As I walked further down the shore, I saw a tall piece of wood, the shades of blue, and the memories came flooding. I no longer felt that same peace. This time, I was overcome with loneliness and the reminder of why we stopped visiting the landmark. As I looked closer, the shades of blue that were once bright are now dull, the sand was uncomfortable under my feet, and the seagulls were far too loud. This will be my last time visiting our landmark.
 
Madisen Berard
 
Madisen Berard resides in Connecticut where she enjoys finding new books, spending the day at the beach, and travelling to new places. She loves listening to good music, napping with her cat, and spending quality time with her family and friends. Madisen discovered her passion for writing at a young age when she was gifted her first diary. She continues to write in her free time in hopes to be published.
 
**

Sea Glass Moods
 
It is unexpected.
They pause to ponder the structure’s jut
perpendicular to shingle beach.
 
A wooden frame,
shards of coloured glass like eyes
observing North Sea haze.
 
The father hones in
on slate-waves, feels the drag
of greyness on cold skin.
 
The mother blinks
in sapphire swell, pebble-thoughts
riding horizon.
 
The first child
dives in, swims through azure, emerges
with dolphins soft-surfing.
 
A toddler paddles,
toes touching teal, on the cusp
of colour, tide turning.
 
Kate Young
 
Kate Young lives in England and enjoys writing poetry, painting and playing the guitar, ukulele and mandolin. Her poems have appeared in various webzines, magazines, and chapbooks. Her work has also featured in the anthologies Places of Poetry and Write Out Loud. Her pamphlets A Spark in the Darkness and Beyond the School Gate have been published by Hedgehog Press. Find her on Twitter@Kateyoung12poet or on her website kateyoungpoet.co.uk
 
**

Untitled

The blue structure stood alone at the edge of the beach, its faded paint worn down by years of sun and salt. The colour had softened into uneven shades that almost blended into the horizon, like a quiet but persistent memory. Its wooden boards creaked and shifted whenever the wind pushed through, creating a low, hollow sound that mixed with the steady hush of waves rolling onto the shore. Seagulls called somewhere overhead, their sharp squawks cutting through the softer background noise. The breeze carried the strong, briny smell of the ocean, mixed with the earthy scent of seaweed and the damp sweetness of old wood. Shadows stretched across the floor where sand had drifted into small piles. With every gust of wind, the structure seemed to breathe and hum, as if it were holding onto echoes from another time, waiting, listening, and quietly enduring while the sea continued its endless rhythm beside it.
 
Isabelle Rizza
 
Isabelle Rizza was born and raised in Jamesburg, NJ. She has traveled to many places including the Dominican Republic, California, Colorado, Mexico, different parts of Florida, the Carolinas, many states on the East Coast, and Aruba. She enjoys the beach, walking her dog, and traveling to new places.
 
**

The Ocean Trapped Inside
 
Someone trapped the ocean in glass, but I think I know all too well how it got there.
 
My day starts at 2 am before the sky remembers its colour, before the world decides to wake up. By 3, I’m already moving, pouring coffee, forcing my body to keep up with hours that stretch longer than they should. The day doesn’t really end until 8, sometimes 10 pm, and by then, I’m already counting down to doing it all over again.
 
From the outside, I probably look like that wood-steady, worn, holding it together.
 
But inside, it’s different
 
Inside, there’s an ocean
 
Not calm, not quite-restless. Waves of exhaustion and determination crash into each other with nowhere to go. I carry it through every early shift, every heavy step, every moment I choose to keep going instead of stopping.
 
That sculpture makes it look beautiful-like something worth keeping.
 
But I know what it feels like to hold an ocean inside you
 
It’s heavy.
 
And still, I don’t let it spill.
 
Rhiana Thomas
 
Rhiana Thomas is passionate about creativity, community and making a positive impact. She has worked on projects that mix art, fashion and education, including teaching and hosting events focused on sustainable practices. Rhiana values compassion, determination, kindness and leaving a positive mark wherever she goes, always striving to uplift those around her.
 
**

Untitled

I have traveled all around the world. Everything serves some sort of purpose in its life, maybe even multiple things. There was once a time I was a part of the earth, a huge tree towering over everything around me. But, there eventually came a time where I was cut down, where people had other plans for me. Along with other trees, we were turned into planks, and were pieced together to create a foundation for a boat. For years I traveled across the sea, transporting people from one place to another. After a tragic collision one night, our ship sank, and I was separated from the boat. Ever since then, I have been floating around the ocean, waiting for what life has planned for me next. For a while, I thought this was it, and the rest of my time was going to be spent traveling in the sea. That was until I was washed up on the shore. I didn’t think much of it at first. This had happened many times before, and it wouldn’t take long for me to get swept up again. But this time, I was collected by an individual. They introduced these beautiful pieces of glass. Now, I hang on a wall, in a lit room, admired by people who walk by. I lay here, and for once, I don’t mind settling down.
 
Emilie Barter 
 
Emilie Barter grew up in the Kennebunks, living her whole life in Southern Maine. Growing up in a creative household, Emilie was drawn to many different forms of the arts, such as playing the flute, creating works of art, and overall becoming a creative individual.
 
**
 
Stele
 
You are pillar
of bark and blue, planted
in sand. You bark at me when I get 
too close to your sand ocean,
afraid I’ll crawl inside your bark
and nestle in your blue shade. But
there’s an ocean between 
your inside blue and your outer bark,
between my inner bark and outer blue
and so I sing the blues, because
my ocean waves crash against 
that bark pillar, eroding nothing.
 
Barbara Krasner 
 
Barbara Krasner appreciates the challenge of writing in response to contemporary art. She is the author of ten poetry collections, including the ekphrastic The Night Watch (Kelsay Books, 2025), Poems of the Winter Palace (Bottlecap Press, 2025), Insomnia: Poems after Lee Krasner  (dancing girl press, 2026), and the forthcoming The Wanderers (Shanti Arts, 2026). She lives and teaches in New Jersey. Visit her at www.barbarakrasner.com.
 
**

Time Tides
 
The clock face stands rigid, stuck in the trap of waves
as the tide fleshes out the evening, sending sparks of light
into an otherwise inglorious fading of life; she sits
 
and carefully plots her next move, while the sea
speaks to her in rushes, as if impatient for observations
and she gapes with wonder, at the lines, the hues,
 
the way the sky is able to dye itself into a fresco;
she asks if nature can do the impossible, and responds
in the only way she knows, with a cry of joyful illusion
 
Zachary Thraves 
 
Zachary Thraves is a writer and performer. His poems have been published by Broken Sleep Books, Juste Millieu, Nitrogen House and at Poetry Worth Hearing, as well as contributing to The Ekphrastic Review. His plays have been performed internationally; in 2023 he created a one-man fringe show exploring his experience with bi-polar, and in the same year won best actor for portraying Charles Dickens. Zac also co-hosts a podcast. A student of Surrealism and Chaos, he lives with his partner in East Sussex. Find him on Bluesky @28hary.
 
**
 
The Circle of Change
 
It once reached upward
Embracing the sunlight and sky
Alive with the winds and the leaves
Silently rooted in the earth's quiet soil
 
A tree now fallen was met with the ocean
Broken into hundreds of pieces
Pulled into new directions, its surface now smoothed
 
What was once whole and alive
Is now forever changed
 
It now stands again
Living as something new
It holds beautiful shards of blue
From memories of the sea
 
It now reaches upward
Once again embracing the sunlight and sky
Light trickles through softly
Silently rooted in earth's quiet memory
 
Where life once grew ever so vividly
Looks different now
But the beauty remains
 
Kasey Allin
 
Kasey Allin is a lifelong resident of Clinton, Connecticut, a small shoreline town on the east coast. Always inspired by music and nature, Kasey enjoys showcasing her love through all things creative. She is passionate about singing, writing, and creating art. When not writing, Kasey can often be found spending time at the beach, travelling, or at a local record shop.
 
**

since you are the ocean
 
bring it in with you
when the creeping tide arrives
drag it uphill through the sand
because the ocean is you
though you contain less freedoms
you are the ocean
hair of seaweed
skull of shells
soldered veins brimming with foam
encased in skin of driftwood
remember the ocean has inherited your temper
but lacks your liver to remove shared poisons
look beyond your narrow horizon
peer into the communal depths
reflected in the stained-glass
discover murky mysteries
salty truths
bodies of alive things surviving in the coral
like your own vulnerable shades
finding refuge in your soft wrinkles
stand tall with one another
enjoy floating on the surface
dazed by the clouded sun
cradled into the churning expanse
 
Samantha Gorman

Samantha Gorman, a lifelong lover of books, lives in Western Pennsylvania. After taking several creative writing classes, she found her voice and had begun the adventure of becoming a writer. She writes poetry, short fiction, and is working on her first novel.
 
**


Through the Looking Glass
 
If it’s blue for me, is it blue for you?
When you put on your glasses, is it as pretty as you thought to be true?
The rose was simple, non monumental
Made it easy to sit in the middle
When you look through the glass
What do you see?
The same toned ocean as me?
Or a warm hue
Where it doesn’t need to matter to you?
 
Live in your pink
Don’t see the ocean, just see the beach
Find your reflection in the shells underneath
No need to worry
The sand will make do
What I say from the other side
In your rose-colored glasses,
Go and stay true-blue. 
 
Paige Gouin 
 
Paige Gouin is a poet and fiction writer based in Rhode Island. Her experience starts with writing fan-fiction as a preteen, to more melancholic and nostalgic work today. Paige’s literary motivations come from nature, personal experiences, and media she often views. Many of her works contain prose about the ocean, the sky, and time. When writing short fiction, Paige is more inclined to sci-fi. She’s influenced by the world around her, drawing inspiration from what she objectively sees, to write how she subjectively feels. 
 
**

Ocean Shades
 
Early Tuesday morning
when I arrived
on Scarborough Beach,
the tide had receded
leaving varied shapes
of driftwood
and numerous
empty shells
nestled in a clump
of seaweed shaped
like the flowing hair
of a mermaid.  
Even gray herring gulls
were asleep as I savored
these sacred moments
on cold sand
mesmerized
by a tranquil sea
and a sculpture
grasping jagged pieces
of blue sea glass
staring breathless
toward Paris Hill Island,
when she and I
patiently anticipated
what the morning
tide brings to shore.
 
Jim Brosnan 
 
A Pushcart nominee, Dr. Jim Brosnan is the author of Long Distance Driving (2024) and Nameless Roads (2019). His poems have appeared in The Aurorean (US) Crossways Literary Magazine (Ireland), Eunoia Review (Singapore), Naugatuck River Review (US), Nine Muses (Wales), Scarlet Leaf Review (Canada), Strand (India), The Madrigal (Ireland), The Wild Word (West Germany), and Voices of the Poppies (UK). He is a professor at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, RI.
 
**
 
traces
 
the sea knows my name,
how to call me, surrender
me to windswept breath--
skipping me like a stone across
the waves, to be recovered
 
by tides, my edges
smooth and complete—to be tossed,
strewn over the sand
with seaweed, shells, and magic--
not stranded but full, suffused
 
with ocean songs, clear
night sky-cast stars—completely
open, inside out--
quietly, I do nothing--
over and over again
 
Kerfe Roig
 
The ocean has always felt like home to me.
 
**

Seeing
 
It had been years since we walked this beach,
years since I received my diagnosis -
Macular degeneration, two words that
would pull me down, heavy like an anchor.
 
Now you hold my hand as we 
walk the shore, rounded pebbles
press into the arches of my feet,
sea smelling of faraway ships.
 
A small gasp from your breath,
your hand tightens in mine. You stop.
A structure like no other you whisper,
guide my hand as you describe:
 
a tall weathered log, once full of life,
with an eye that holds segments of glass
that curve like a woman's hip, 
greens and blues that only the ocean knows.
 
I feel the strength of the once tree,
feel the gentle waves as my fingers rock,
back and forth on textured glass.
Feel the pieces being put back together.
 
Christina Siemering
 
**

Anticipation 
 
To be gifted new life--
one so pure and simple
as a blue glass sculpture
on a beach somewhere--
would be a perfect
ending to my bittersweet
existence. Such triumph
I’d feel to be so smooth,
non-confrontational,
perhaps even admirable. 
Maybe I’d glimmer,
aquamarine
to cerulean
to turquoise,
in shifting sunlight.
I could meditate
on the waters before me,
no longer fear the violent
ocean. Maybe my blues
would darken with night,
become teal and sapphire. 
Maybe this beach will flood
someday, and those waters
will reach us, capture
my blue sisters and me. 
 
Taylor Scott
 
Taylor Scott is originally from California, but currently resides in Providence, Rhode Island with her partner and fifty houseplants. She writes as a coping mechanism, inspired by her experiences with and criticisms of human nature.
 
**

totem
 
to the wild seas
within us
swirling turbulence 
from which we emerged
our roiling ups
our sinking downs
the constant flux
of land sea sky
smoothing the edges
painting each stone
each piece of glass
each one of us.
 
dan smith 
 
dan smith is a poet and erstwhile painter who has been widely published in such diverse journals as The Rhysling Anthology, Deep Cleveland Junk Mail Oracle, Gas Station Famous, Jerry Jazz Musician, Scifaikuest, and Dwarf Stars. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Touchstone Award and the Red Moon Anthology in 2025, his most recent poems have been at Five Fleas Itchy Poetry, dadakuku and The Ekphrastic Review. 
 
**

Beachcombers 
  
“Hal, come back here.” My voice dripping with the promise of discovery. Well, maybe more drooling at my age, but I heard dripping.  
  
He gave me a grunt as he passed and continued his old man jog up the beach. I’m sure he could walk faster, but he claimed jogging kept him alive.  
  
On his return, I tried a sexy leg pose peeking from the slit of my long skirt. The skirt I bought to hide my pasty gams.  
  
He stopped from lack of air, but I got an appreciative wink for the legwork anyway. 
  
“What’s up, Buttercup?” he gasped as he leaned on his knees, catching his breath. I instinctively touched his sweaty shoulder before turning back to my discovery.  
  
“Hal, look, it’s our sex life.” I declared, staring at the artful obelisk in the sand before us. 
  
“Our what?” he said as he pulled himself upright. 
  
“Look, it’s all there. The night in Paris when you claimed to have missed. It’s that little brown spot near the top.” I pointed it out. "And there’s no mistaking that shade of blue two-thirds of the way down. Even my boobectomy is there, near the bottom.” 
  
“You’re losing it, woman,” he said as he inched closer for a better look. “So what’s the big dark thing at the bottom, then?” 
  
“I’m guessing we’re there now, Hal.” 
  
“Where’s that, Buttercup?” 
  
“I don't think we're meant to know.” 
 
IJ Harlow 
 
**
 
woman
 
determining value
woman
ignored
harassed
hurt
woman
yell
push
fight
woman
value determined
 
Robin White
 
Poet, painter, mixed media artist residing in a small middle Georgia town. 
 
**
 
The Cairn
 
Perhaps, it's the nature
of a place like this to condemn.
A village swallowed by the isolation 
 
of mountains and The Black sea. Everyone
wants to cry the news
of someone else's sin.
 
Both young and older wives
have laid their words upon me
like stones upon stones,
 
A cairn that stands on the shoreline
as testament to my shame
while the stained glass hues of sky
loom overhead, reflecting lost
shades of  loyalty:
          
the blue gown of Hester, the gray fur
of Anna or white apron of Emma
as she dug enough space for herbs,
the burial of her sins — and maybe
all their affairs.
 
So like them I wish
I were a mere shadow,
featureless woman
falling on a flat world
 
or seamstress of the sun
who shortens or lengthens
the slant of time.
 
Even the birds sing
a foul song –- forcing thistle
and thicket leaves to shake.
 
The evergreen’s scent --
a pungent rasp.
 
Or is it my mind that hears
the sparrow’s scorn, the shrub’s bane
when their utterance
is truly thirst?
 
A cry for cleansing, the slow
glistening mercy of rain.
 
Wendy Howe
 
Author's Note: The three character allusions in this poem reference Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter, Anna Karenina from Tolstoy's novel of the same name and Emma Bovary from Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary. All three heroines address the theme and complexity of adultery.

Wendy Howe is an English teacher who lives in California. Her poetry reflects her interest in myth, women in conflict and history. Landscapes that influence her writing include the seacoast and high desert where she has formed a poetic kinship with the Joshua trees, hills and wildlife spanning ravens, lizards and coyotes. She has been published in the following  journals: The Poetry Salzburg Review, The Interpreter's House, Corvid Queen, Strange Horizons, The Acropolis Journal and many others. Her most recent work will be featured in the upcoming issue of The Otherworld Magazine (on Substack), coming out in May.
 
**
 
To Scott’s Pillar of Blue
 
likely
you might break
but you are not
fragile—like me you
await what may arrive
in dead of night and though you
 
regard the sea as protector
your ocean-wide eye can see
the novelty of life
the hurry of tides
the swoosh, the rush--
all pass by
in thrall
 
Carole Mertz
 
Carole Mertz has forthcoming poems at Friends Journal and Feed the Holy. She is the author of Color and Line (Kelsay Books, 2021) and Toward a Peeping Sunrise at Prolific Press.
 
**
 
Oceanic Blues
 
When my father died, my world felt dark.
I sat with emptiness in my studio,
too broken to turn on the lights.
 
I remembered his sailboat,
drifted on memories, memories.
 
A few weeks later, the sun
entered my studio --
a shifting tide.
 
Light hit the blue glass
and I knew what I needed:
a fitting memorial.
 
I drove to the ocean,
walked the beach,
told my father how much I loved him.
 
Wind. The sound of the tide.
A whoosh in my ears.
For the first time since I lost him,
I could breathe.
 
I walked the beach,
listened to the conversation,
wondered if I heard my father’s voice.
 
All day, walking, listening,
grieving, thinking.
 
Then I found a piece of driftwood,
irregular, smoothed by years in the water.
As it turned in my hands — I knew.
 
Back in my studio,
the split wood waited,
open, ready to receive.
 
I chose cobalt, copper,
the blue-green of the sea itself --
color fired in until it cannot be removed.
 
I did not let it fully melt --
kept the temperature low enough
that the waves held their shape inside the glass.
 
Controlled shattering held inside smoothness.
That’s grief, exactly.
 
I planted the totem on the beach.
 
Now others bring me their grief.
I know what to do with it.
 
Lynne Kemen
 
Lynne Kemen lives in Upstate New York. Her full-length book of poetry,  Shoes for Lucy, was published by the SCE Press in 2023. Her chapbook,  More Than a Handful, was published in 2020. Her work is anthologized in Seeing Things (2020) and What We See on Our Journeys (2021), The Memory Palace: an Ekphrastic Anthology (2024), and Seeing Things 2  (2024).  Lynne is the President of the Board of Bright Hill Press. She is also an editor for the Blue Mountain Review and a lifetime member of The Southern Collective Experience; she is a board member of The Southern Collective Community Outreach and of The Franklin Free Library.
 
**

The Memory of Water
 
When the sun shines, the stained glass in the front door casts blue and green shadows across the tiles on the hall floor. As the day progresses the colours light the walls and the stairs, all the time reflecting the ebbing and flowing of identical hues on the tide that comes and goes twice a day, bubbling over the pebble beach on the other side of the coast road that runs in front of the cottage. 
 
The cold water’s ancient molecules coalesce into waves, bringing with them memories of long-dead whales, the plankton they consumed, sea horses from the South Seas and just a whisper of mermaids. They speak of biblical storms and wrecks splintered by wind and rocks, of long-forgotten men dragged to their deaths in the depths by the pull of Neptune. 
 
Twice a day this history visits and leaves this shore, sometimes as quiet fingers licking the edge of this fishing village, sometimes as breakers crashing and spitting spume up the beach, spilling over the concrete walls erected to hold them back. 
 
This community loves the water for its bountiful gifts that have brought food to their tables and fed their children for generations and loathes it for the price it has extracted from them over the years, every lost soul commemorated on the memorial on the headland above the harbour.
 
The beautiful blues and greens carry all of that love and life and grief across the hall on sunny days and the fisherman’s wife remembers, with smiles and tears, as she takes her bag from the coat hooks and crosses the road in her dry robe and flip flops for her daily swim.    
 
Caroline Mohan 
 
Caroline Mohan is based in Ireland. She writes short stories mainly and occasionally flirts with poetry. She explores themes of belonging, fractured memory and secrets, sometimes with humour and sometimes with danger. She is currently trying out a variety of genres for fun. She enjoys writing with and learning from others in workshops.
 
**
 
The Collection
 
I wanted to build a collection of something that would interest me. After a lot of thought, I decided to collect the colour blue.
 
Before I could begin, I had to have a means of storage for my collection. A friend who taught art helped me out.
 
“To collect a colour,” she said, “you should place it within an object that has no colour. In this regard, I suggest you use glass.”
 
This idea struck me as sensible, so I purchased small pieces of glass.
 
I will put the colour between these pieces, I thought.
 
Another friend, a meteorologist, said: “Your idea for a collection is bizarre. Why a colour? And why blue? After all, the sky is a vast continent of blue. You can view it at any time.”
 
“No, I can’t,” I replied. “You can only see a blue sky on a cloudless day. Where I live is always cloudy.”
 
“Go above the clouds.”
 
“Okay, I will.”
 
Later that day, I bought walking boots and a backpack. I put two pieces of glass in the latter and ascended a mountain. At the top, above the clouds, the colour blue surrounded me. I held a piece of glass in each hand and slowly brought one against the other. Then I sealed the edges with a strip of lead. I had collected my first blue.
 
After this, I resolved to collect as many shades of blue as I could from the sky. I climbed mountains in numerous countries during different seasons at all times of the day. Occasionally, I collected a shade that I already had. This didn’t worry me. I put the glass aside with the intention of swapping it with another blue collector, if I ever came across such a person.
 
One day, though, my partner lost patience with me.
 
“You have filled our home with your collection,” she said. “Blue is everywhere. We cannot move from one room to another without squeezing past piles of blue. It’s a lovely colour but we cannot continue to live like this.”
 
My partner had a point. I stared out of a window at the coarse green grass in front of our home and at the brown shingle beyond. As usual, grey clouds obscured the blue sky that I knew spread out above them.
 
I’ve made a mistake, I thought. I have gathered my collection of blue from nature. It should be among nature.
 
Over the next weeks, I took my collection out onto the shingle. Here, I used each piece of blue to create a sculpture in the form of a finger that pointed to the sky.
 
The sculpture still stands. I clean it regularly. It is a monument of multiple hues of blue. More importantly from my partner’s viewpoint, we can move around our home more easily.
 
Furthermore, please note that I keep, in a garden shed, the blues that I would like to swap. Do not hesitate to contact me if you wish to exchange any of yours.   
 
K. J. Watson 
 
K. J. Watson’s stories and poems have appeared on the radio; in comics, magazines and anthologies; and online.
 
**
 
Glass Haiku
 
True labor of love –
gave my all for heaven’s eyes –
got back all the blues…
 
Ekaterina Dukas
 
Ekaterina Dukas, MA Philology and Philosophy, writes poetry as a pilgrimage to the meaning. Her poems have often been honored by The Ekphrastic Review and its Challenges. Her collection Ekphrasticon is published by Europe Edizioni, 2021.  
 
**

Immured
 
in a blue jar
in a blue checkered
hospital gown-
laid to rest
in blue coffin in quest.
By the ocean
if I could open
even if it was for a glimpse,
even if it was for once.
A world that was,
a world to be.
 
Dust laden evenings
dying upon freshly watered lawns-
sending earth upcurving.
This is when my mother would open
the gold rimmed blue cut glass
secretly escaping the fragrance
as all sat in semicircle.
Hid on a mantel piece
for so long
in my dreams,
what beheld her within
of that exuberance.
 
Abha Das Sarma
 
Abha Das Sarma lives in Bangalore, India. An engineer and management consultant by profession, writing is what makes her happy and fulfilled. Her poems have appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse, Sparks of Calliope, Trouvaille Review, Blue Heron Review, Poetry X Hunger, here and elsewhere. 
 
**
 
marvellous circle
 
blue light through rain
rain falls from sky
sky salts green seas
sea foams to cliffs
 
cliff bakes to stone
 
stone melts to sand
sand burns to liquid glass
glass looks on light
blue light--
 
Lizzie Ballagher
 
A winner in Ireland’s 2024 Fingal Poetry Festival Competition and in 2022’s Poetry on the Lake, Ballagher focuses on landscapes, currently creating a collection of poems about Exmoor. Having studied in England, Ireland, and America, she worked in education and publishing. Her poems have appeared in print and online throughout the English-speaking world. Find her blog at https://lizzieballagherpoetry.wordpress.com/.
 
**
 
Salvage
 
Virgin scales plucked—ground--
tamed smooth—thrown to shore—found—framed
in alien wood.
 
Brennan Thomas
 
Brennan Thomas is a Professor of English at Saint Francis University in Loretto, Pennsylvania, where she teaches creative writing and media studies. She has published short fiction and poetry in various online magazines, including engine(idling, Rue Scribe, and Right Hand Pointing.
 
**
 
You Won't Get a Clear Answer
 
If you tip over stained glass and driftwood, you’ll only need to wait a handful of years before the shards go soft and frosted. Or maybe it’s a few decades; it depends on forces outside of your understanding. Ask the ocean how it works. Ask Lake Michigan. They’ll know best. They’re the only ones who can work out how long until you can walk on the glass barefoot, sort through handfuls of grit for nuggets of blue. How long until you can bring your grandmother to find it with you.
 
You keep telling your grandmother you’ll bring her to your favourite glasshounding spot in Chicago. But every time you think about the public transit and her bad knees and her unwillingness to tell you when she’s had enough, you fail to plan the trip. And of course she doesn’t plan it. She doesn’t want to bother you. So you bring her handfuls of pocked and polished lakeglass when you come home from up north. No one else wants to look at it with you. Your pockets overflow with greens and browns and cloudy white, the occasional morsel of blue.
 
You do bring her to Oregon, at least. She buys you a bagel in the airport that drips butter into the cracks of your palms, you carry her suitcase and tell her not to worry about leaving home, and it turns out there’s no seaglass on Nedonna Beach. Just sand hoppers and driftwood. The hoppers throw themselves pointlessly against the trap of your hands. You call them fleas even though they don’t bite. You walk the shore alone, or you walk with your family. Your group circles itself, spinning around and around and only resting when the tide goes out. You show off your agates in the firelight.
 
You bring her to Arkansas, that same summer, to a land of healing waters and haunted hotels. You take long walks to sunken springs, sip at a beer while a tornado warning roars, the plink-plink-plink of leaky ceiling behind the parent and child singing karaoke. You cry in the car on the way home when your grandmother says she wishes she’d protected her children better. The rolling green hills and the mist pouring by, the music turned down low. You cry because it’s taken too many decades in the surf to tumble your family smooth. But it all happens in its time. Ask the ocean.
 
C.L. Barbieri 
 
C.L. Barbieri (they/them) is a student currently finishing a BFA in creative writing at a public university in the Midwest. When they're not drinking tea or gnawing on a new book, they can usually be found wandering outdoors, perhaps petting a nice patch of moss. Their previously published work can be found in Prime Number Magazine and Pensive.
 
**
 
Remember When We Wore Speedos to the Beach?
 
Steve, I first saw you and your brother in the admin office at Mt. Tabor High School. You had green hair and a cheap fork bent around your wrist as a bracelet. Months later we skipped school and skateboarded inside the abandoned supermarket on Robinhood Rd. You taught me how to power slide down an empty grocery aisle. My wheels kept getting caught on the cracks of the linoleum. We had multiple escape routes in case the cops came. But no one ever did.
 
Somehow, we graduated. I went to the local college and you got a job at a stained glass shop. You taught me how to mark the glass, roll a diamond wheel cutter along the line, squeeze rubber coated pliers and break the glass (hopefully) where we scored it. We wrapped the smaller pieces in foil and soldered them together. The larger pieces, the Jesus windows, were held together with lead.
 
I collected Steve stories. Driving all night to the beach and sleeping under a pier. Shooting South Carolina fireworks in a homemade PVC launcher. Zapping one another with Donald’s stun gun. Hitching rides to punk shows. Pool hopping in the rich neighbourhoods. Nothing made us laugh more than trouble.
 
I moved to California and your stories continued without me. You broke your neck in Florida diving off a fishing boat. It was the middle of the night and you didn’t know you were in shallow water. You walked to the hospital in the morning. Your spine barely hanging on to itself. You showed me the surgical scar when you came to visit me in LA. I was drinking a lot then, crashing on our friend Diana’s couch. One night, we caught a ride to some party and caused a stir. We hitchhiked back to my truck and drove to Diana’s place clinking a Miller High Life on the 101 as a cop passed us.
 
Years went by without seeing each other. I calmed down around 30. We talked on the phone sometimes. You were making abstract windows for rich tobacco lawyers and painting large murals with paint filled fire extinguishers. You were living with a new girlfriend in Ardmore. I had quit my job at the bar and was selling classified ads to sex workers in the back of a free weekly newspaper. It didn’t pay much. You said I could come home, that I could work for you.
 
You and your brother were the only ones from North Carolina that came to my wedding. I picked you up from Union Station. You were missing two teeth and your small duffle was half filled with a few cartons of Dorals. Don’t worry, you said, Diana has a suit for me to borrow. Then someone hit my car from behind and drove off.
 
You took monthly blood tests when you worked for the stained glass company. They wanted to make sure you didn’t have too much lead in your system. You found ways to cheat it. Borrowing blood from girlfriends, your brother, and me when I still lived there.  
 
You brought your own whiskey to the wedding and were slurring your words before the sun went down. You told my wife that if she needed anybody killed, you’d do it. No questions asked. You said worse stuff than that to her bridesmaids. I apologized for you a lot. He’s changed, I whispered. So sorry.  
 
We talked on a bench outside, while the wedding danced to Whitney Houston. You smoked a Doral and I had a lozenge. We reminisced about when we wore speedos to the beach. We threw a frisbee and caught odd looks from the beachgoers. Our thighs, that had never seen the sun, were badly burnt for two weeks after.
 
You pulled a long drag of your Doral and said you were proud of me. That my wife seemed like good people and I had done a pretty good job convincing her I wasn’t a scumbag. I told you I loved you and begged you not to talk to any of my wife’s friends. You said sure. I think you meant it.
 
I thought the next time I’d see you, you’d be dead. But you died two years ago and I didn’t know til now.
 
Brian Sutherin
 
**
 
Untitled

The water leans into the shore,
a quiet whisper on grains of gold,
then slips away
not gone, just waiting.

The sand stays,
holding the memory of every touch,
every soft goodbye
That feels like a promise.

They are never truly apart
one returns, one remains,
and between them lives a rhythm
that only love can understand.
 
Rob Casilla
 
Rob Casilla, a Dominican citizen residing in Rhode Island, is a passionate artist who, through dance, drawing, painting, and singing, finds in waves of creativity the medium for self-expression.
 
**
 
Untitled

I journey down to the beach and expect familiarity:
the salty smell, sandy shoes, sunlit skies.
Instead, I find woeful weather, weary waves, and weathered wood.
Curiosity stirs, and I find myself wondering:
Why would someone put this structure here?
I look around in disappointment at the weather.
Despite the melancholy, the structure glistens in my sight.
It stands beautifully against the bleak, buffeted background.
I see now.
The glistening glass structure shines a light in the dark, dreary weather.
But it is not the structure itself that provides light;
It is finding something unexpected when the expected does not meet expectations.

Natalie Medina 
 
Natalie Medina is an admirer of the language arts, often spending her days reading and writing. She enjoys living life to the fullest surrounded by friends and family.
 
**
 
Shingle Eye
 
Half-way between not-sea and sea,
How would my driftwood drift?
Through this wood knot, would you not see
How sea's soft vistas sift?
 
Where the wind blew my eye went blue, 
Green where the sand blew grain
As falling dew was falling due,
I waned as white as rain.
 
My seer eyes resize the air;
I see what my sea saw;
A rainy rune, I sheerly share
My see-cells on the shore.
 
Ruth S Baker
 
Ruth S Baker has published in a few poetry journals. She has a special love for animals and visual art.
 
**
 

Tracy Royce

This is an erasure of artist Belinda Scott’s “About Me” page found on her website, where you can see more of her lovely stained glass and reclaimed wood sculptures. As usual, my interpretation of this visual prompt says something “About Me”: https://theartglassstudio.co.uk/about/ 
Tracy Royce is a poet and writer with work appearing or forthcoming in Heavy Feather Review, The Mackinaw, MacQueen’s Quinterly, ONE ART, and Best Microfiction (2026). Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and a Touchstone Award. She lives in Southern California, but you can find her on Bluesky.
 ​