The river of my youth flowed gently through,
Taking time to visit all the small coves
While leaving behind sandbars and shallows.
It almost never ran in a straight line.
In its water, as clear as the winter wind,
All small pebbles seemed in reach.
Each spring it rushed by in full flood.
It often formed small whirlpools near shore.
We had our joys, our griefs, our quiet times—
Laughing with our joys, crying in our griefs.
Now, when the river flows through my dreams,
I enjoy the best, regret the worst.
Then, like that river, I continue on with life
Taking time to visit sandbars, shallows and coves,
Savoring each touch with the river of dreams.
BEYOND THE REACH OF THE SUN
Time ran out so the story goes
for the legended land that lay
beyond the Pillars of Heracles
and that island empire
with its bronzed battlements
fruited gardens and steep
fire-flame mountain
fell (so Plato tells us)
“in one dreadful day
and one dreadful night”
disappearing down and ever down
into ocean buried dark mystery
Dream-drowned the mystery waits
in cold deep sleep
waits for those first faint soundings
that might lift it upward and ever up
to the sun’s light and reality
But what then? As the stones rise
from fathomed deep
one by one to the pitiless glare
of the long-lost sun
will we perhaps wonder
Did we dream the drowned world?
Did we just dream Atlantis?
RIVER OF DREAMS
The river of my youth flowed gently through,
Taking time to visit all the small coves
While leaving behind sandbars and shallows.
It almost never ran in a straight line.
In its water, as clear as the winter wind,
All small pebbles seemed in reach.
Each spring it rushed by in full flood.
It often formed small whirlpools near shore.
We had our joys, our griefs, our quiet times—
Laughing with our joys, crying in our griefs.
Now, when the river flows through my dreams,
I enjoy the best, regret the worst.
Then, like that river, I continue on with life
Taking time to visit sandbars, shallows and coves,
Savoring each touch with the river of dreams.
AUTHOR NOTES
GLASS RAIN—the poetry by Margaret Roxby
“BEYOND THE REACH OF THE SUN” is included this week for Everything You Think Is Wrong Day, March 15. The author was fascinated by the old tales of the city of Atlantis and eagerly welcomed reports of others who chose to search for the remains of this storied place.
REFRACTIONS—a poem by Robert Roxby
“RIVER OF DREAMS” is included this week for World International Day of Action for Rivers, March 14. The poem first appeared in the author’s collection Reflections on a Lifetime. The river he describes may have been the Monongahela, Allegheny or Ohio all of which, interesting enough relevant to March 14, have problems with pollution dues to industry. Once lauded in poetry and song as the beautiful blue Ohio, turned the river into a churning brown carrying wastes and poisons downstream.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS—the poetry of Kathleen Roxby
“A PHOENIX IN THE GARDEN” is included this week for March 12, National Plant a Wildflower day. The author transplanted a wildflower plucked from a trail beside the creek near her home to plant in her garden. This poem describes how it fared.
#nationalplantawildflowerday
#everythingyouthinkiswrongday
#worldinternationaldayofactionforriversday
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Readers who write in response to one of the prompts listed each month in Splintered Glass, may see their work presented here on the last week of that month. Though poems are preferred, short prose work will also be considered for publication.
Guidelines for submission:
SPLINTERS FOR MARCH 2024
THE CHANGE
I know this pain, she wrote in her journal. Some pains are just like songs. You hear the song, or feel the pain and you are transported back to a time you knew long ago when the song or the pain was woven inextricably into your life.
She had been feeling not quite right for days but thought it might be a touch of flu that was going around. The pain occurred almost always after using her new exercise equipment, or if she rushed up stairs or walked very fast. This fact was not clear to her until she checked the chart she kept at her doctor’s request.
I don’t think it’s fair, she wrote, that perimenopause can make you relive the pain of your youth. It ought to be different somehow. Why should a woman of 50 plus have to feel again the pain she felt at 12 or 22?
What happened in her youth should stay there, in the past, not revisit the present when there are fewer days left to bury the memories.
Not fair she wrote. Not fair. Though I know fairness is not a promise life can offer, I’ve never quite been able to give up hoping. Well, here’s another lesson I guess. Don’t expect fair play from genes.
So, she reasoned, convincing herself of a kind of fairness. A vision which finally bestowed unearned grace upon what could not be changed overlaying what she in her youth labeled “The Thing,” making its ending seem a bit of poetry.
NEW COLLECTIVE NOUNS
A chattering of sparrows
A pool of shadows
A cradle of baby lizards
A counting of clerks
A sibilance of whispers
[or] a hissing of whispers
[or] a sighing of whispers
A sweep of clouds
A rain of tree leaves
A thunder of electronics
A palpitation of raindrops
A cluster of young girls
A symphony of horns
A roaring of cars
A prancing of horses
STRANGE COOKIES
Before she first heard
The Oreo® cookie’s name spat
Like an insult
Before she even understood
How or why it could
Fill the air with acid crumbs
That burned and stung,
The name was just a cookie
And not a favorite.
She preferred Hydrox®
Which were less bitter,
Their center more moist.
This vanilla wafer girl
Who spoke out in innocence
To claim equal humanity
For a race not her own,
Before she knew there might be
A penalty for her innocence,
After, shunned
But not banished,
A vanilla slightly scorched
To a hurt of butterscotch,
She survived quietly
Though always watched
In the light of fires
That flashed through the sixties.
Much later in poems of recollection
In the voice of two races
She spoke aloud once more
But she was stunned
When a friend of the other race
Suddenly smiled and said,
“I can explain you now.
You’re chocolate inside.”
It was an honor
The vanilla girl never expected
Or even thought she’d earned –
To be the opposite of an Oreo.
AUTHOR NOTES
GLASS RAIN—poetry by Margaret Roxby
“NEW COLLECTIVE NOUNS” is included this week for National Proofreading Day, March 8. This selection was likely an exercise suggested at a meeting of the poet’s local chapter of Chapparal Poets. It is obvious the author took this challenge on with a zeal, and a bit of humor.
REFRACTIONS—an essay by Kathleen Roxby
“THE CHANGE,” is included this week for March 9, National Get Over It Day and also because March is National Women’s History Month.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS—the poetry of Kathleen Roxby
“STRANGE COOKIES” is included this week for March 6, National Oreo Cookie day. During the author’s lifetime, this cookie was used as an insult for certain members of the Black race. The incident related in the poem actually happened at a poetry group meeting during the month of February when race was in everyone’s mind. The leader of the group, a Black woman and friend, made this pronouncement as a way to explain Kathleen to the leader’s Black friends in attendance following Kathleen’s reading of her poem “Panic in the Black Quarter” (see poem this site).
#nationalproofreadingday
#nationaloreocookieday
#nationalwomen’shistorymonth
#nationalgetoveritday
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Readers who write in response to one of the prompts listed each month in Splintered Glass, may see their work presented here on the last week of that month. Though poems are preferred, short prose work will also be considered for publication.
Guidelines for submission: