Turtles?

No -crabs

Red and leathery
Hot water bottles
scuttling across the sand
to sea and back,

diligently stealing
the clown's tools
as she sleeps
in the sun
Eyes twitching
she dreams
her colorful globes
spinning circles
through the air.

Hoarding the stolen colors,
the crabs juggle the tides
learning to ride
the dips and swells.

The clown wakes
and whoosh -

crabs vanish
beneath the waves

color and all.

by Kate Taylor
Arlington, Massachusetts

____________________

The Juggler

The three-ring circus
has a double-breasted
leggy proud high-heeled
woman juggler doing
what we all do from when
the alarm cracks dawn's
ice Forcing us from dreams
slow motion depths She
tosses rings & roses
children crackling
flames husbands
lovers and salad's
blend of live
ingredients Held up
an example Helped up
a lady Hung up A case
Made up Make up
Make love
& beds dinner &
dishes curve smoothly
over gaping mouths Smooth
curves under rough hands To Do Well
done Hard-done-by Done up Hard-on Undone Her
Sequined shoulders shoot sparklers toward false stars
and apples bitten and biting applause
stinging singing stinging palms
We spill from ourselves into her
hands Offered a future of
flight, that is, flight
fleeing, being
flown or
flying

by Lake Sagaris
Santiago, Chile

Benjamin Linder...Presente

That crisp cinnamon smell
when the crust bubbles,
crinkly sounds, like Ben's laughter
in the apple tree
Through twilight orchards
games of "Starlight, Moonlight"
Lights blink on
outlining Mother in the doorway
calling to this apple pie tradition

Lights blink on
for the first time,
in a remote village in Nicaragua
A young man watches all night
from a nearby hillside,
his first hydroelectric plant
complete. At dawn
he juggles for village children
in celebration

Days later, by the stream he measured
he falls
A bullet through his head
How dare he bring light
other than red tracers of war!
In dusty Nicaragua
or on green campus lawns of Kent State
tradition continues
When we target our children
our bullets do not miss

At the night march
in memoriam
jugglers toss burning torches 
high against the dark

by Shirley Powers
Palo Alto, California