AUTHOR NOTES

GLASS RAIN—the poetry by Margaret Roxby

The poem “END OF SELF-PITY,” is included as May is Mental Health Awareness Month. The poet wrote this when suffering from depression at age sixteen. A student of Latin, and great reader of both Greek and Roman classics, she refers to the lemures in Roman religion, wicked and fearsome spectres of the dead. Appearing in grotesque and terrifying forms, they were said to haunt their living relatives and cause them injury. To propitiate these ghosts and keep them from the household, ritual observances called Lemuria were held yearly on May 9, 11, and 13.

REFRACTIONS—a poem by Robert Roxby

“AWAKE, IT’S SPRING” is included this week for May 14, United Nations World Migratory Birds Day. The author recorded in his poetry notebook that this is a “Memory of a Spring day in hills of WV of 1929.” The poem was included in his anthology, Reflections of a Lifetime.

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS—the poetry of Kathleen Roxby

“COUSIN CARL” is included this week for May 16, United Nations International Day Of Living Together In Peace. The author is describing her impressions of her mother’s paternal uncle as she remembered him when she was still a child and he still young, perhaps a teenager yet. He did later grow out of many of his earlier questionable traits, perhaps all—the author did not know at the time of writing this piece.