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Crossing of the Lines

by Guy Lerner

In this time of contrast and conflict, where experiences that repulse and rejoice live side by side, the lines that keep right and wrong apart are dangerously entangled. Never has this been clearer than in the days and weeks following the senseless acts of violence by man on man in New York last September.

This may read to you like rehashed sentiment, but I’m not talking about the evils of terrorism or the heroism of the millions who revolted, united, against it. What I saw was hardly sensational; it didn’t make any headlines, wasn’t cited as a crime against humanity, barely fuelled a protest. But it was real all the same.

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30 September

by Joseph Baldwin

On the last day of the month, October
came in six hours early,
bringing a sweet wind out of the north
running before rain.
Spreading out over the plains was a
blue-gray sea for sky,
with surprising white flecks of foam
before it.
Smoke-puff clouds scraped their bellies
on the hills to the west,
which, a child out of the mountains, I once
scorned as lying too low,
now my own and loved.

Unleashed winds blew eagerly about
our valley
with the wayward motion that was to
be the carrier of leaves.

Autumn spirits announced the end of
sultriness
with a delight akin to that of the
rebirth in Spring;
soon afterward, trees and people began
clothing themselves in red and brown.