EDITOR’S CHOICE AWARD: Bringing some of my favorite previously-published poetry back to the front page.
Poetry by Tricia Gates Brown
Each summer woods threaten
to take this place. Salmonberry, elder,
the Sasquatch mittens of devils claw,
encroach on the patch around our house
then swallow it whole. We have never had
the wild and cloying cucumber, but there
he is, showing out of nowhere, like sea scum,
algae blooms, crops of a warmer earth.
On this misty day, the flora don patinas of brilliant
resilience, like they dare us try
and stop them, same as we did in our twenties,
when fluids coursed through and we toiled
and reached, and our dreams were a bow that shot
us every moment, every day, to the final power.
About the Poet
Tricia Gates Brown’s poems and essays have appeared in various publications including: Portland Review, GEEZ Magazine, Rain Magazine, Oregon Humanities and Portland Magazine, among others. She lives in a woodland cottage on the north Oregon Coast where she writes and edits, designs gardens, and dotes on two very lucky cats. She is author of the novel Wren.
For the first time in nearly five years, Vita Brevis is closed for submission. Read the full story here.
Vita Brevis Press. 
Beautiful.
The potential of every living thing changes with each external–and internal–force that comes. And with each cloudy day, with each fire, with each scythe, even–the living things come back harder, fiercer.
With each cloudy day, each devastating fire, or torrent that douses, with each cutting word or barrier, what lives inside of us–that yearning, the “reaching”–it comes. Harder, fiercer and indeed, with more and more resiliency. A wonderful way to begin the week.
Peace–
J.A.
Thank you, Tricia, for this beautiful, woodsy, cycle-of-life gem.