Apples of the Earth

Darby Riley

October 5, 2025

Four red potatoes in a straw basket

in kitchen corner, getting old and soft,

sprouting many eyes.  They weren’t good to eat

so I planted them in the garden, five

inches deep, twelve inches apart.  Nothing 

for a few weeks and then boom!  Dark green leaves

sprouting where potatoes had been buried.

A few weeks later, four dark green bushes.

When harvest?  Someone said, when they flower.

Another said, when their leaves turn yellow.

One bush turned yellow, so I dug it up.

Underneath, five perfect red potatoes

(several little red balls clinging to roots).

We washed them, cut them, and baked them, lightly

dressed with olive oil and parmesan cheese,

and we ate them, gratefully, joyfully.

Darby Riley, a native San Antonian, has been married to Chris Riley since 1971. They have three grown children and a 10-year-old granddaughter.  He has hosted a monthly poetry writing workshop for over 30 years.  He practices law with his son Charles and is active in the local Sierra Club.

A Harvest with a Fox-Brown Thrush

Vincent Hostak

October 5, 2025

I saw him draped in hues of scarcity

a fox-brown thrush pecking

out from a cluster of heat-stressed leaves

its perfect vision fixed upon a brighter fact

there in the thick black center of a shrub:

a fat, red berry.

It has a thousand songs but none for me today. It’s busy

and we only share a thirst for colder months right now.

I stay hidden at the ancient watch

while its tiny eyes are first to chart a course.

Then, the clumsy beak: 

misses, trips, turns, misses again,

finally pinching firmly at

each plump sphere.

It’s then I know we are more alike:

I’m searching for words that burn 

with hints of meaning in the dark.

We are both balanced at the top of a wheel

paving the days behind us and

disarmed by the joy of brighter things

before we swallow them whole.

Vincent Hostak is a writer and media producer from Texas now living near the Front Range of Colorado south of Denver. His recently published poems are found in the journals Sonder Midwest and the Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas, and as a contributor to the TPA. He writes and produces the podcast: Crossings: the Refugee Experience in America.

Fruit In Memoriam

Chris Ellery

September 7, 2025

When Johnny died, his obit didn’t mention 

he disliked the first black president,

believed the birther lie and the Big Lie,

and three times voted for that felon.

Instead it says he grew up on the family farm,

married his high school sweetheart,

taught math for fifty years, 

coached Little League,

enjoyed the Great Outdoors,

adored his kids and grandkids.

Now his headstone in Lawnhaven 

doesn’t shout to any passer-by 

that almost every day he argued 

ideology and policy with me, at times 

with fury ripe to come to blows.

Although we volleyed enthymemes

like war-divided sons, I love the man,

beyond dispute, that every thought,

both his and mine, be purified

as love is pure.

And this one fact (not fake) I wish to state 

by way of eulogy: every year for years 

near Eastertide

Johnny gave me inchling tomato plants

he grew himself from seeds—

Sweet Cherry, Queen Bee, Black Plum, 

Ananas Noire, Golden Sunburst.

In a corner of my yard, 

they rooted, grew, blossomed, ripened 

under the wings of libertarian birds

through sunny midsummer

to the first glittering frost.

Abundance of fruit, plenty to share.

The best politics, it seems to me, 

is giving and receiving, neighbor to neighbor, 

friend to friend, harvesting blessing.

In memory of Johnny, neighbor and friend, 

I pledge to sow and nurture, 

reap and savor this.

Chris Ellery is the author of six poetry collections, most recently Canticles of the Body and One Like Silence. He is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters and the Fulbright Alumni Association. 

Two Weeks Off

Milton Jordan

September 7, 2025

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Milton Jordan lives with Anne in Georgetown, Texas. He co-edited the first Texas Poetry Assignment anthology, Lone Star Poetry, Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022.

an after-harvest during the 1950’s

Sister Lou Ella Hickman

August 3, 2025

it was the after-harvest time of fallen fruit

the fuzzy golden orbs of peach country in north texas

for a dollar a car we could enter a stranger’s orchard

and pick up as much as we wanted

or as much as our bags and boxes could carry

to another harvest 

a kitchen  cloves and mason jars

then shelved among the bottled pickled okra  asparagus 

and pearl onions 

until

the first north texas cold 

retrieved the final harvest of golden fruit

for a midnight feast

Sister Lou Ella Hickman, OVISS is a former teacher and librarian whose writings have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. Press 53 published her first book of poetry in 2015 entitled she: robed and wordless. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017 and in 2020.