Ayumi Besharo, MaryAnne Bernardo, Andrea Ferrari Kristeller

BROADCAST OF SILENCE

MaryAnne Bernardo

Look at you

Tall and deeply rooted

in your majesty

On my knees

I implore you

"How do you endure?"

The sweetness of your limbs

exalt the earth

The ruggedness of your skin

facing me

I see

maps

eyes

faces

tracks

Your one severed bough

haunts the midnight sky

And I wonder

whether your forest sisters cried

I am intoxicated and fall dizzy

beneath the grandeur of your assent

Zephyros sings

your paper thin psalm

An elastic melody

swirling and embroidered

in the pinholes of time

I ask once more

"How do you endure ?"

Your answer

distilled in stillness

and the unspeakable

broadcast of silence

THE MAZE

Andrea Ferrari Kristeller

yearn the forest way of climbers curved,

butterflying ghosts, ferns in rain water,

moss, the scarab’s metal,

a leave that swirls with no wind

what lies at the centre?

outside it sizzles green dense damp

lichen mapped

summoning with root and snake signals

to the place of dream, masked

to become soil, stone, spore

brim-full and open like a flower of secrets

like the gaze of the animal in the cave

see its glimmer now as it darts away

marking the soul

and the path that follows the light to

the heart of the maze

where you are finally lost

ART TREE ROOTS by AYUMI BESHARO

Ayumi Bessho was born in Japan. When she was a child, she lived in Barcelona but currently living in Japan. At university, she studied psychology and art therapy. Ayumi has participated in group exhibitions in London, New York and Beijing and held two solo exhibitions in Japan. She creates works using colors found in nature. And as a daily routine, Ayumi draws a picture diary.

MaryAnne Bernardo is an emerging writer native to Toronto, Canada. A hobbyist photographer, MaryAnne is inspired by the beauty of the natural world around her as well as the complexity and resilience of the human spirit. Her works have been published in the Scissortail Quarterly, the Cast Iron poetry series anthology When Fold And Twine, and The Winged Moon Magazine. Instagram @mar3plus3

Andrea Ferrari Kristeller is an Argentinean teacher, writer and naturalist. She loves her teaching practice and the rainforest. Some of her poems have been published by The Avocet, Poetry Undressed, Braided Way, Poppy Road Review, The Heimat Review, SweetSmell, LastStanza and Seaside Gothic. Her nouvelle The Land without You was given an Honourable mention at the Writers of the Future contest (2018) and was chosen to represent Misiones at the Buenos Aires Book Fair in April 2024. The Land Without You and Other Stories was published on Amazon in June 2023, and its Spanish version La Tierra sin Ustedes, in September 2023.