​
Walking through a small grove
of bamboo, the breeze evokes
a creaking until you need to look
to insure the tall spindles
are not about to collapse on you.

A small child seeing you knows
what you are thinking, smiles
and says “they are just saying
hello, so you should say hello back.”

Her parents appear flustered, whether
because she is talking to strangers
or for fear that she is bothering you,
but of course it is neither, for the girl
is a Buddha dragging you into
this fragile moment, so you say hello
and both the bamboo and girl giggle.


Louis Faber is a poet living in Florida. His work has appeared widely in the U.S., Europe and Asia, including in the Whisky Blot, Glimpse, South Carolina Review, Rattle, Pearl, Dreich (Scotland), Alchemy Stone (U.K.), and Flora Fiction, Defenestration, Constellations, Jimson Weed and Atlanta Review, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.  

So long as I’m
in the river,
it doesn’t matter
where I flow.


Zhihua Wang’s poems have appeared in Aji, Last Leaves, Across the Margin, Eunoia Review, and elsewhere. She received her MFA in Poetry from the University of Central Arkansas and will be a doctoral student in creative writing at the University of Rhode Island this fall. 

​I spent a pleasant morning walking
quietly around the grounds, searching
for them diligently, but as on most days

they again remained hidden from sight.
I did see several cattle egrets staring
deeply into the foliage, knowing

that breakfast lay hidden deep within,
and a flock of ibis pecking life
from the still wet, just watered lawns.

Today I even saw a Great Blue Heron
admiring herself in the still surface
of the pond across the road, and

a snowy egret and a little green heron
engaged in a silent conversation
to which I would never be privy,

but in the glare of the morning sun,
despite my careful search, not
a single poem showed itself,  leaving

me to hope that tomorrow would
bring better luck, or as least a cinquain
or a ballade, not my pantoum of failure.


Louis Faber is a poet living in Florida. His work has appeared widely in the U.S., Europe and Asia, including in the Whisky Blot, Glimpse, South Carolina Review, Rattle, Pearl, Dreich (Scotland), Alchemy Stone (U.K.), and Flora Fiction, Defenestration, Constellations, Jimson Weed and Atlanta Review, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.