Nominations to Pushcart Prize for Best of the Small Presses were submitted for the following poems and short prose published by Moonrise Press:
- Cindy Rinne: “No Shortness of Breath” from Today in the Forest, 2021
- Maja Trochimczyk: “A Song for a Key”, “Soap Bubbles,” and “The 23rd of July” from The Rainy Bread: More Poems from Exile, expanded edition, 2021.
CONGRATULATIONS!
No Shortness of Breath
I.
Sierra mule deer looks deep into brother’s chestnut eyes. Young, but he sees gentleness and a respect for nature. Deer, gatekeeper to the high places, allows brother and sister to pass.
II.
Brother fears owl and feels less afraid with deer. Ready to climb, his pudgy foot slips a couple times on smooth, granite boulders. The wind threatens to take his hat. Be careful, says sister from below. Brother pictures the grace of deer as he scrapes his short fingers. The air is thin, but easy for him to breathe. The incense cedars and white pines arch in biting winds. Brother inhales their spicy smell and takes another step.
Cindy Rinne
San Bernardino, California
ISBN 978-1-945938-47-4 Paperback with color photos, 124 pp. $40.00 plus shipping
ISBN 978-1-945938-01-6 EBook, expanded version $8.00
≡ A SONG FOR A KEY ≡
~ for Jan Jakub Kolski and his Mother
This is a key.
This is an iron key.
This is a large, iron key.
This is an old, large, iron key.
A key my mother carried in her purse.
This is an old, large, wrought-iron key my mother
carried in her purse every single day.
This is a field.
This is a flat field.
This is a flat, empty field.
This is a flat, empty field in the Ukraine
that used to be Poland. A flat, empty field
where my mother’s house once stood, surrounded
by a tall wooden fence with a tall wooden gate,
and a solid, large, wrought-iron lock.
They told her: pack!
They told her: go!
They told her: out!
You do not belong.
This is our land.
There is not house.
There is no fence.
There is no gate.
This is the key.
≡ SOAP BUBBLES ≡
The sky is the color of soap bubbles
that Grandpa makes on the porch of old wooden house
in the village, the house with a peaked roof
and three-panel shutters on each window,
closed only for winter storms and departures, almost never –
The straws are tricky to make – of golden rye,
cut between joints, with the tip quartered
and bent into a miniature cross of Malta.
We hold our straws gingerly, in a solemn ritual
of dipping them in a dish of lukewarm water
with a piece of brown soap, then lifting the tips up
and exhaling air slowly, carefully – until
the bubble, like the soul of a plum or an apple,
detaches, becomes spherical, and floats away.
Iridescent, translucent – oscillating from pink,
to blue, to gold, to periwinkle. Yes, the sky before
sunset is the color of soap bubbles. I make
a shiny sphere and watch its upward progress,
on a meandering path through warm summer sky, until
it bursts in a sudden gust of wind. The pang
of disappointment is real – it melts away
only when another bubble is ready
to ascend on its random, weightless pathway.
We count them, one by one, keeping the score.
In times of trouble, make soap bubbles
and watch them float on air currents. Away.
Into the unknown. The size of a plum or an apple,
iridescent, translucent – oscillating
from pink, to blue, to gold, to periwinkle.
They float away – specks of joy up in the sky –
here just for a moment, until they disappear
in ever more distant, misty evening sky.
≡ THE 23RD OF JULY ≡
is the day of clearing karma
untying knots on the thread of fate,
breaking enchantments, reversing curses.
Look at the moon, blood-red and broken
above the hilltop, huge like ancient pain
passed on through generations.
It follows you, as you drive home
after resting in the silver mist of the ocean,
its waves — turquoise and jade —
always moving, yet always the same —
Look, the moon hides behind the black ridge
of despair, only a soft spot remains,
shimmering on alien indigo sky. The road turns,
you fly along 80 miles per hour, singing a Chopin's Nocturne -
its lustrous cascade of notes split apart
by a sudden apparition — a majestic,
white platinum orb, suspended in darkness.
You remember that rust-red, once-in-the-lifetime
moon of prophecy, the fox moon that foretold disaster
as it led you back from Paso Robles, Solvang, Santa Rosa,
on the way into disillusionment and regret.
It was hard to understand. Harder to believe in
the existence of such twisted, demonic selfishness
masquerading as affection. Pitiful.
Yet the healing was real. The lesson’s learned.
The karma’s cleared. It is done.
The moon now floats high above the valley
in its bright halo, distant and indifferent.
You've discovered the virtue of detachment.
You've seen how desires of the heart
led you astray. Your life - an illumination.
Like a moonbeam, glowing on cobalt waters
of the Pacific, your path ahead is straight —
clear — dazzling — brilliant —
A Starchild, born to shine, you are blessed
by the moon's radiance on this magical
summer evening of July 23rd.
You found your home. The New Age has begun.
