van Gogh
This morning
I hang wheat fields
across the kitchen sky -
paper bright as stars.
In the afternoon
paint
slips through
my fingers
like gold.
Under a whisper of sun
contrasting images
become large
as flowers in a vase –
citrine faces adorned.
Tonight the moon cascades
across a starlight sky
filled with boats beneath
the dark hue
lamp lit
to the naked eye.
First published by Poppy Road Review
2026 Jan Darrow
I’m recommending two poems by Dane Karnick - Great Salt Lake, and Neighbors - which you can find on Poppy Road Review. Just click the link below. They’re awesome!
https://poppyroadreview.blogspot.com/2026/04/great-salt-lake-neighbors-by-dane.html
Manitoulin Island
A Keeper of Spirits
One weekend in August many years ago
when we were very young
we rented a red Cadillac and drove to Manitoulin Island.
Native people call it Manidoowaaling,"Cave of the Spirit."
And it has been sacred to the indigenous people of north America
for more than 10,000 years.
We drove up along Lake Huron on the Canadian side
and disembarked from the ferry the next morning.
We found the island windblown. Maybe haunted -
except for a couple of tourist shops
that were curious sparkling gems of the past.
Inside one we found scraps of Danny Dodge.
A famous man widely covered in the press.
His death - possibly reckless.
Yellow newspapers rolled into plastic wrappers
telling a story not belonging to ten thousand years of sacred history.
As we drove on, the gray clouds let loose and soaked the goldenrod
growing alongside the silent roads spinning circles
out to the parameter of people that decades earlier had tried plowing
and planting. Then unable to grow anything of significance
that far up, got up and left their houses behind -
abandoned, empty, and ragged in that raw wet wind.
2026 Jan Darrow / Photo: Paul James Meinke
