Viento

Elizabeth N. Flores

June 7, 2026

It was a mystery why Mr. Santos 

sat smiling calmly in his wheelchair, 

waving the nurses away,

when heavy winds knocked 

over plants and chairs

in the Memory Care courtyard. 

Mr. Santos was a sweet gentleman, 

easy going when it came to his meals, 

medicines, and baths, 

but voiceless since his last stroke. 

The nursing director asked his family if they 

could shed light on his actions. 

“He likes the wind, the stronger the better, 

and we don’t know why,” she told them. 

“That’s easy,” the oldest son said. 

“Pop is remembering when 

he finished building the patio for Papa Grande.”

“The story goes our grandfather

was hesitant to place the last shingles 

on the roof of the patio that terribly windy Sunday morning,

but sad as he had promised our grandmother 

the job would be done that day.”

“Pop was only ten, 

but he strapped on the tool belt, 

climbed the ladder to the patio roof,

and hammered the shingles harder 

than even he imagined he could,

completing the job in the midst 

of cries by everyone to 

‘Get down, you’ll fall!’”

“Pop liked to say, ‘That day I helped my father, 

I was a man.’” 

The nurses, doing all they could to ease the lives of the residents,

now agreed to take turns sitting near Mr. Santos 

when the wind took command of the courtyard,

making sure he was the last to come inside.

Elizabeth N. Flores, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, taught for over 40 years at Del Mar College and was the college’s first Mexican American Studies Program Coordinator. Her poems can be found in Corpus Christi Writers 2022 and Corpus Christi Writers 2023, both edited by William Mays, TPA Quarterly, the Windward Review, the Texas Poetry Assignment, The Senior Class: 100 Poets on Aging, edited by Laurence Musgrove, and ¡Somos Tejanas!: Chicana Identity and Culture in Texas, edited by Jody A. Marín and Norma E. Cantú. 

On Drying Day

Vincent Hostak

June 7, 2026

We stretch our days across tenterhooks

to keep the year from shrinking.

Behind a linen screen,

blue spruce roots sing: “Let old age come.”

Easy for you to say, my slow growing friend.

As taut as skin on a tambourine,

the sheets are tapped by westerlies.

Still, there are folds ducking the sun,

filled with secrets of grit, tiny canyons

trapping raucous yellow jackets.

Neither of us are certain our clothespins

will hold and the whole thing

won’t fly off in the next gust.

Long creases just flash their smiles.

Peppered up by a breeze, the bedsheets buzz.

Vincent Hostak is a writer and media producer from Texas now living with his family and faithful canine, Lola, near the Front Range of Colorado. His recently published poems are found in the journals The Dewdrop (Vanessa Able, Editor-In-Chief), Sonder Midwest, The Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas, and the Texas Poetry Assignment.  His contributions also appear in the anthologies The 30th Annual Poetry Ink Anthology (Moonstone Arts, Philadelphia, 2025), Lone Star Poetry, and The Senior Class-100 Poets on Aging (Lamar University Press, Laurence Musgrove, Editor). His podcast on classic and contemporary poetry, and the novel ways it reaches audiences, relaunches in 2026.

portraits: texas windscapes

Sister Lou Ella Hickman

June 7, 2026

i

child 

blow out the dandelions 

candles small votives on your cake

breath under your sailing kite

ii

first peoples’ pictographs

stories told on the wind of memory

and wild horse desert

so many   their hooves were wind and thunder

iii

amarillo  lubbock, corpus christi 

witchita falls  abilene 

a windy cities list

tornado alley

iv

west texas tumble weeds

north texas blizzards

east texas windsinging pines

south texas hurricanes

iv

wind  and  big bend

unlike the clock big ben

time slows here

where the water flows

carves history into rock

with wind’s ancient answers

Sister Lou Ella Hickman, OVISS writings have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. Press 53 published her first book of poetry in 2015 entitled she: robed and wordless and her second, Writing the Stars on October 4, 2024. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017 and 2020. 

What the Wind Looks Like

Kathryn Jones

June 7, 2026

I did not know what the wind looked like

until it waltzed through Bigtooth Maples, 

making red and orange leaves twirl.

I did not know what the wind sounded like

until it whooshed through mountain cedar,  

its rosin stroking evergreen boughs.

I did not know what the wind smelled like

until it raked its fingers through wild plum trees,

scattering pink petals on limestone hills. 

Flags flap, grass ripples, dust devils spin, 

but trees are the wind’s soulmates, giving

the invisible proof of its existence.

Kathryn Jones is a poet, journalist, and essayist whose work has been published in The New York Times, Texas Monthly, Texas Highways, and the Texas Observer. Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including TexasPoetryAssignment.com, Unknotting the Line: The Poetry in Prose (Dos Gatos Press, 2023), Lone Star Poetry (Kallisto Gaia Press, 2023), The Senior Class: 100 Poets on Aging  (Lamar University Literary Press, 2024); and in her chapbook, An Orchid’s Guide to Life (Finishing Line Press, 2024), and the collection The Solace of Wild Places (Lamar University Literary Press, 2025). She was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2016 and lives on a ranch near Glen Rose, Texas.

What the Wind Says

Chip Dameron

June 7, 2026

The wind speaks through oak and elm leaves

that clatter in the afternoon breeze,

telling stories of where it has been

in a language derived from nature

and not from human fabrication.

And the wind also tells us today

about the core story, one we ought

to tell, about this ordinary day

when it arrives in bursts and opens

our senses to what the birds also sing:

each moment is key to our own tale.

Chip Dameron's latest collection of poems, As the River Tumbles On, is forthcoming from Lamar University Literary Press.

A Respite Most Welcome

Betsy Joseph

June 7, 2026

On the eve before my son was to wed

his chosen love on a beach in Kauai,

the weather had a different plan:

a tantrum building slowly,

powerfully in the North Pacific.

Between the mountains and the coast

the wind built, too, petulant and bold,

waves picking up the different beat,

pulsing more urgently than before.

A light mist settled in, clouds darkened.

The pale sun had no recourse but to withdraw

until the tantrum subsided.

Long-held plans for a beach wedding

wavered only slightly,

so certain the determination between

the two betrothed, so certain that even

a bullying wind could not deter the will

of two who had long envisioned the moment,

no matter a wind’s churlish behavior.

Yet the morning of, the sun rose softly,

tree leaves sparkled, and we sighed gratefully.

Last night’s wind became a breeze

sweetly lifting the lofty palms as we

assembled near the water’s edge.

Vows were exchanged, then kisses

followed by family hugs.

We all smiled with pleasure, then relief 

that the wind behind two days of showers

had ebbed, a gift to the newlyweds.

Betsy Joseph lives in Dallas and has poems which have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies. She is the author of two poetry books published by Lamar University Literary Press: Only So Many Autumns (2019) and Relatively Speaking (2022), a collaborative collection with her brother, poet Chip Dameron.

Windwise

Sumera Saleem

June 7, 2026

The wind presides over its own kingdom

of protest, cracking through locked doors

and silent dreams mistaken for peace.

It laughs over fences and borders, pretences and orders.

No regard for zones and enclosures,

No allegiance to land and its anthems,

It sings in its own unruly grammar of rebellion.

It’s always its time 

to slash the curtains of the big theatre,

A question that rattles the teeth of a fake order,

An electrified storm wild-roving along its frenzy vortex,

All to dare to our faces with what is disobediently impure. 

We must be slow and careful

when the wind mournfully shrieks and shouts,

stabbing the awful icy time, 

dismantling all straight lines.

Sumera Saleem is a PhD student in Blue Humanities at the Australian Catholic University (Melbourne campus), lecturer in the department of English language and literature, Sargodha University, Sargodha, and gold medalist in English literature from the University of the Punjab for the session 2013-15. Her poems have appeared in Tejascovido, Langdon Review published by Tarleton State University, USA, Blue Minaret, Lit Sphere, Surrey Library UK, The Text Journal, The Ghazal Page, Pakistani Literature published by Pakistan Academy of Letters, and Word Magazine. A few more are forthcoming in international and national anthologies.

Beethoven Rides into Mustang Ridge

Mary Fogel

May 3, 2026

Driving down highway 21

In the fury of a Texas storm

Wind slamming the side 

Of the car

Sending us skittering

Across pools of water

Rain slamming down like 

Plates of silver

Wrapped around my eyes

It’s what happens 

When you drive 

Along with the storm

Not through it

Jaw tightening moments

Spent this Maundy Thursday

Our last supper could have been

At the Dairy Queen

In Bryan

But we couldn’t stop

My sweetheart carefully coaches

You’re doing great

Eyes on the white line

You’ve got this

It’s that kind of trip when you can’t

Listen to music

Or talk about topics

Other than survival related

Chucks 

Under

The chin

The ferocity of the moments take hold

And you hunker down to greet them

Just outside of Bastrop

It lifted

We dared to play the music

Of Beethoven’s 9th

There on highway 21

Now visible countryside

A reprieve

From blinding rain

“Ode to Joy” rising up

In Mustang Ridge

Broken down trucks and goat pens

Scattered beside  

The local Poco Loco Super Mercados 

Filled with German voices 

Bringing the promise of life

Bringing the promise of rain

To the dry and brittle fields

Mary Fogel is a poet and late-blooming adventurer.  She retired from the counseling field and child advocacy in 2018.  In 2023, she faced the loss of her husband of 18 years and of her best friend.  Although she had been writing poetry for 20 years, her focus on writing became central to her recovery.  Mary has been fortunate to fall in love again, find a writing group,  and begin a new life in 2025 that involves a great deal of joy and gratitude.

Indivisible, Irreducible, Invisible

Chris Ellery

May 3, 2026

for Barbara Parker

I would like to go about this world

loving it like the wind, 

like a gentle wind,

kite lifting, seed bearing wind.

Being everywhere all at once, 

unwearied, intimate 

with the form of every form, 

always in the open,

cooling every overheated heart, 

touching everything and everyone

the same, 

so that no one and no thing

ever feels 

unwanted.

If I kiss the face of a lake,

the clouds are not jealous.

If I spend some quality time

with the mountain peaks,

the evergreens are fulfilled.

If I fill the sails

of some sleek schooner,

happy waves will carry the news.

What worm would wish

(as many lovers do)

to spin some silky Aeolian bag

to hold me inside

all for itself forever?

Vulture and crane might claim 

this buoyancy as theirs alone,

but no matter how far and how high

those soar and glide, 

still every bee and sparrow

has the freedom to sing

of the wonderful things

we do every day

together. 

Chris Ellery is author of six poetry collections, most recently One Like Silence and Canticles of the Body. He has received the X.J. Kennedy Award for Creative Nonfiction, the Dora and Alexander Raynes Prize for Poetry, the Betsy Colquitt Award, and the Texas Poetry Prize. He is a member of the Fulbright Alumni Association, the Texas Institute of Letters, and the Texas Association of Creative Writers. 

As Evening Nears in Cherokee County

Suzanne Morris

May 3, 2026

Oh my 

what a beautiful sight

the breeze so strong

the treetops are listing

how I ache for you

to see this

Are you there?

Are you stirring

from your nap?

Before becoming a poet, Suzanne Morris was a novelist, with eight published works between 1976 and 2016.  Many of her early poems were featured in her fiction, to advance the underlying themes.  Since 2020, she has contributed poems to several anthologies, and has been published at a variety of online poetry journals, including The Texas Poetry Assignment.  A native Houstonian, Ms. Morris has resided in Cherokee County for 17 years.

Meteorology

Dario Beniquez

May 3, 2026

A prophet once said, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.” Science, though, says the sun is behind it all. So, who’s right? It’s hard to say.

And what about meteorologists with their mathematical models? Do they really know? They say, “Tomorrow, afternoon light showers.” But who can be sure? Sometimes their forecasts fade away, just like modern predictions about the end of the world.

We must combat the drought, the Water Company insists. As a good citizen, I turn off the sprinkler system. The next day, the ground cracks and crumbles, as if auditioning for the Mojave Desert. Perhaps the weather model had a glitch, a software bug, or the algorithm simply rebelled. Who can say?

Later, somewhere up north, a big city like Motor Town is expected to be hit by a blizzard. Instead, a gentle snow covers the ground, and at the same time, a flood of words—political and trivial—fills the air; it’s the same Kool-Aid, but purple.

Maybe early astrologers or numerologists were better at predicting events in the sky than we are today. How could the stars ever be wrong? Numbers don't lie, or do they? Sometimes things just don’t add up. Is it their fault, or was it a mistake by the person or the machine?

Who knows? Maybe a strong wind or a flare from a distant sun caused the problem. Maybe it’s just the butterfly effect. So, the curtain remains down, but the show goes on. Still, we’re here, watching the greatest show on Earth. Whatever you believe, it is written in the heavens.

Dario Beniquez grew up in Queens, NY. He graduated from Pratt Institute with a BEIE. He also holds an M.F.A. from Pacific University, OR. Dario runs two poetry venues: one at the Maverick Library and the other at the Walker Ranch Senior Center in San Antonio, Texas. He is the author of the poetry collection “Zone of Silence.”

wind haiku

Jim LaVilla-Havelin

May 3, 2026

a flock of feather

clouds

in a March blue sky

which

mesquite crowns comb

clean

Jim LaVilla-Havelin is an educator, editor, community arts activist, and the author of eight poetry books, including 2025's A Thoreau Book and Mesquites Teach Us to Bend. He co-edited the University of Houston Press volume on Rosemary Catacalos, serving as her literary executor.

A creative writing teacher for 50 years, LaVilla-Havelin has taught diverse populations, from juvenile correctional centers to senior programs and high schools. He served as Poetry Editor for the San Antonio Express-News for over a decade and has coordinated San Antonio’s National Poetry Month for 18 years. He received the 2019 San Antonio Distinction in the Arts.