<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mirror Lake<\/strong><\/p>\n Ten years ago, Yosemite, in Spring, We ambled back another way, along a river It\u2019s Autumn now, and I retrace I find the bridge \u2013 it leads nowhere, poised like a painting, I stand within its circle, The ground reflects our footprints: Mirror Lake consumes us in its folds, <\/p>\n <\/p>\n David Van-Cauter<\/strong> is a personal tutor and editor from Hitchin, Herts.In 2017 he was runner-up in the Bradford on Avon festival competition and highly commended in the Bare Fiction competition. He was shortlisted for a previous IS&T Cafe Writers Commission.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Airport Relativity<\/strong><\/p>\n First person and present tense record your emergence from at least not regarding your none of that matters, had or has don\u2019t see your distinctive stride, breakthrough just now and all those <\/p>\n D. R. James<\/strong> has taught college writing, literature, and peace-making for 33 years and lives outside Saugatuck, Michigan. Poems and prose appear in various journals and anthologies, and his most recent of seven poetry collections is If god were gentle.<\/i> www.amazon.com\/author\/drjamesauthorpage<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Note:\u00a0first published in <\/i>IthacaLit (Fall 2018)<\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Healer<\/b><\/p>\n for Joseph Brandis<\/i><\/p>\n Brandis, shoemaker, on Queen Victoria Street, Brandis strokes the Roman stones Brandis brings the Walthamstow soil, <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Clarissa Aykroyd<\/strong> grew up in Victoria, Canada and now lives in London, England. Her work has appeared in publications including\u00a0The Island Review<\/i>,\u00a0Lighthouse<\/i>,\u00a0The Missing Slate<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Strange Horizons<\/i>, among others. She has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and is the author of a blog about poetry and poets,\u00a0The Stone and the Star\u00a0thestoneandthestar.blogspot.co.uk<\/a>. Twitter: @stoneandthestar<\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n With thanks to the London Parks & Gardens Trust, Cleary Garden and The Poetry School<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mirror Lake Ten years ago, Yosemite, in Spring, we took the \u201ceasy\u201d route to Mirror Lake, you still fit enough to clamber over rocky paths for miles until our lack of water finally defeated us at the tiny bridge. We ambled back another way, along a river piled high with boulders […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17508"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17556,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17508\/revisions\/17556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nwe took the \u201ceasy\u201d route to Mirror Lake,
\nyou still fit enough to clamber over rocky paths for miles
\nuntil our lack of water finally defeated us
\nat the tiny bridge.<\/p>\n
\npiled high with boulders as big as trucks.<\/p>\n
\nas midges swarm around my face.
\nAt every turn, I think I see you up ahead:
\nthe path is winding differently.
\nAny moment now…<\/p>\n
\nand the sign for Mirror Lake points only to a dry plateau,
\nits water seasonal.<\/p>\n
\nbreathe the panorama, such dry air.
\nYou\u2019ve gone, and now I can\u2019t recall
\nif we ever came here at all.<\/p>\n
\nI try to follow, but I\u2019m blocked by rocks \u2013
\ndead-end memories I\u2019ve closed.
\nWere we here, or were we only passing through?<\/p>\n
\nas if I\u2019m the one who died and you\u2019re alive,
\nwalking backwards to seek out this place
\nten years from now, remembering how
\nlife suddenly dried up, absorbing us.<\/p>\n
\nmust strike you as odd\u2014
\nhow I could both greet and<\/p>\n
\nthis crowd of funneled souls,
\nrecount details that never occurred,<\/p>\n
\narriving at 4:10, then 5:25,
\nand here I am, still, at 8:30, but<\/p>\n
\nto happen, since I write whether
\ntrue or not as I wait, first see then<\/p>\n
\nyour hazel gaze in seventeen other
\nrushing women before your<\/p>\n
\nother times with your amazed smile
\nand into my open lines.<\/p>\n
\nbrushing bomb-site bushes with his fingertips.
\nPurple\u00a0buddleia<\/i>. Burning bush.
\nYears ago, the Sunday when flames flowered
\nand the City burned all night. Darkness and fire
\nand St Paul\u2019s pulsing with every strike.<\/p>\n
\nat Huggin Hill. He eyes the wounded ground,
\nthe cellars, the city\u2019s broken guts.
\nAnd at the touch of his gentle hands,
\nBrandis feels something, something stirring.<\/p>\n
\ngathers rich, bloody, complex mud
\nfrom the Thames. His river-garden grows.
\nHe sees roses and climbing vines
\nbinding up the wounds. Flowers that burn nothing.
\nOnly flames of colour, in the light.<\/p>\n