Beneath The Snow

Winter arrived early. Sheep were herded off the pasture. Leaves gathered by Pa stood statuesque in domed heaps.

Grandpa didn’t look at them; reminded him of Quonset huts, the friends he lost in war. Our border collies stared and growled, sensing something amiss. I discovered why.

Furry heads with pink pointed snouts erupted like volcanoes from new, smaller mounds across the hushed terrain, spewing dirt from within.

Pa noticed? Doubt it. Rosie pulled him into town often.

With spring in a few months, planting season will bring him back to the fields.

He’ll learn all there’s to know about moles.

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Anechoic, Deprived

I once thought I heard my father listening to Santana on our back patio. He never listened to music. The only soundtrack to his workaday life was the eight cylinders rumbling at his foot’s command. A kick drum reverberating in his chest that echoed his life. A violent explosion shrouded by modernity, reduced to a drone. I eased through the sliding glass door and found him staring at the beyond the lower pasture in silence. “Be still,” he said. His words hung thick in the mid-summer air. I still don’t know if I wanted the music for him or myself.

From Guest Contributor J. Andrew Goss