No Obligation to Enjoy the Weather by Robert Stewart

Been stranded out in snow before—
stepped lightly on the bare places, hoping
for frozen ground, avoiding slush, wind, 
 
a fir-tree limb speared into the yard.  Today,
a friend calls the office and says look up 
the weather—yellow-ball sun, cartoon-cloud free, 
 
wind 5 mph, and to the left of the flat screen 
a window so blue even the grime clears enough 
it must be, and is, 57 late February, rain 0%.
 
My plans Sunday to read the “Wondrous Love”
essay by Marilynne Robinson stalled by word
of clemency.  Ice returns at sunset, 
 
say forecasters in present tense, so Midwest
conditions reveal a seasonal mix of time present
and snow any moment, as if our technology-mediated 
 
life on this planet, says Robinson, has deprived us 
of the brilliance of a bright sky and more—
think about the smell and companionship
 
of mules and horses, she says; and so I am
thinking my chickens are out scratching
among dry grasses, their feathery butts 
 
raised pointedly, as Robinson and time 
agree, The Bible is terse, the gospels brief . . . 
every moment and detail merits pondering.  
 
I read the day’s instructions: Love 
thy chickens, as they have been given 
a breeze that lifts their down, and I the book.

Robert Stewart’s latest book of poems is Working Class (2018, Stephen F. Austin State Univ.); his latest collection of essays is The Narrow Gate: Writing, Art & Values (2014, Serving House).  For many years, he edited New Letters quarterly, at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Guest Editor James Benger is the author of two fiction ebooks, and three chapbooks, two full-lengths, and coauthor of four split books of poetry. He is on the Board of Directors of The Writers Place and the Riverfront Readings Committee, and is the founder of the 365 Poems In 365 Days online workshop, and is Editor In Chief of the subsequent anthology series. He lives in Kansas City with his wife and children.

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The Nature of Work by Robert Stewart

Out of four hens, we get one
egg a day
so far, 
varied once by a double yolk, 
 
otherwise the division of labor 
suggests a union coop, 
as on Sunday,
Silver lays; Monday, Mary— 
 
the barred rocks—then the buff 
Orpingtons Tuesday, Wednesday, 
almost the rotation 
deserves a factory whistle  
 
for production of brown shells 
in pine shavings this January,
clocked in
for a seven-day work week;
 
so one hen could rotate out 
a week each month—one 
in the hole
as on my old street crew, one
 
unseen by passers by,
who honk to say 
everyone knows 
the union divides up work: 
 
one to dig, one to throw 
dirt into the truck bed, 
one with a clipboard
and leaning on a longhandle.
 
No matter what deals get made
in coop or clutch, work
gets done 
by one alone in the dark.

Robert Stewart’s latest book of poems is Working Class (2018, Stephen F. Austin State Univ.); his latest collection of essays is The Narrow Gate: Writing, Art & Values (2014, Serving House).  For many years, he edited New Letters quarterly, at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Guest Editor Katelyn Roth graduated from Pittsburg State University with her Master’s in poetry. Her work has previously appeared online at Silver Birch Press and at Heartland: Poems of Love, Resistance, and Solidarity. Currently, she lives, works, and writes in Kansas City.

The Handwashing Clinic by Robert Stewart

     If a snake had hands, he’d swear
            his hands were clean.
                —Wislawa Szymborska
 
 
To wash our hands is now the saving
of the race, and don’t forget the thumbs,
says Dr. Gupta on the news,
no trace of Pilate’s thumbs
 
down to the silent king, disciples 
pleading to wash their own hands 
of the problem, until they’re bleeding.
He’s Herod’s race.
 
Put your fingers through the Lava 
lather of fingers on the other hand,
back and front, so yes, check both
            sides of a thing
 
if you can bear it 20 seconds
in the measure of a day, which is
to say maybe the unwashed could 
use a hand
 
not sanitizers, and who has a right 
to Softsoap, now, from the big refill 
bottles would be all of us apostles, 
brothers, unseen sisters, 
 
as in my sewer-worker days we’d 
forgo the elbow-high rubber gloves 
and dip hands into the open
ditch’s flow of feces
 
bumping against our rubber boots 
with rubbers, spittle, corn, all things
a sewer worker could straddle 
in a ditch to open
 
sanitary lines.  We’d unglove it
among the close-up pieces of our own
humanity.  We’d wash hands in it 
but not of it. 

Robert Stewart’s latest book of poems is Working Class (2018, Stephen F. Austin State Univ.); his latest collection of essays is The Narrow Gate: Writing, Art & Values (2014, Serving House).  For many years, he edited New Letters quarterly, at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Guest editor, Denise Low, Kansas Poet Laureate 2007-09, is winner of a Red Mountain Press’s Editor’s Choice Award for Shadow Light. A new book of poetry from Red Mountain is Wing. Other recent books are The Turtle’s Beating Heart: One Family’s Story of Lenape Survival (a memoir, U. of Nebraska Press); A Casino Bestiary (Spartan Press); and Jackalope, fiction (Red Mountain). She founded the Creative Writing Program at Haskell Indian Nations University, where she taught and was an administrator. Low is past board president of the Associated Writers and Writing Programs. She has won 3 Kansas Notable Book Awards and recognition from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Sequoyah National Research Center, Poetry Society of America, The Circle -Best Native American Books, Roberts Foundation, Lichtor Awards, and the Kansas Arts Commission. Low has an MFA from Wichita St. U. and Ph.D. from Kansas U. Her website is http://www.deniselow.net, and her literary blog is http://deniselow.blogspot.com .