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.