STIRRING
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
ELLEN LAGER
Today, in Minnesota, the meteorologist
predicts freezing rain;
tomorrow slush will trash hiking trails.
Out my window, a weak sun masks
the last view of Mercury and Mars.
It’s the spring letdown.
Mug of dark brew in hand, multigrain
brown-sugared to the max, I’ll crank up
the space heater in my office,
boost the mood lamp, close the door
against last night’s headlines.
The cat will pad over the keyboard,
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I’ll aspire for more words than yesterday,
fill up voids on the calendar
with a bouncy birthday bash
for a granddaughter turning five in April,
and call for a yearly physical, overdue haircut,
as I muse on a Costa Rican rain forest
and the elusive yellow-throated toucan.
Replacing water, I’ll spill kibble,
reflect on a feline’s appetite never satisfied.
Nor is mine.
Out the window, a train horn,
metallic and close,
resounds over bulrushes rimed with frost.
Today, buoyed by the spring-hearted cardinal
awaiting seed at the feeder,
I’ll reset my vibe,
sweep the spider from the bathroom ceiling,
wrap it in Kleenex, scuttle it in mulch outdoors
beneath bare lilac branches.
Silly, perhaps, but I’ll root for its survival.
Ellen Lager's work has been published in The MacGuffin, Neologism, Sheila-Na-Gig, Litbreak, Haunted Waters Press, Halfway Down the Stairs, Sanskrit, and Vita Brevis Nature Anthology III, as well as others. She is a Pushcart nominee and currently at work on her first full-length poetry collection. She has a Bachelor of Science and Master of Education degree from the University of Minnesota, and lives in a suburb of Minneapolis spending much of the year at a lake cabin with her husband, two rambunctious dogs and two unruffled cats.
