Butterfly Flurries (continued)

loves to be hugged and petted. He spends his time grazing, rolling in the dirt, and playing with his friend Don Key Ote, another young jack.

For a little fun, I've thrown in a poem (Booty Biting Burro) in memory of an experience I had on a friend's (Jane-Jack) ranch, where a burro decided to put me in my place in the barnyard.

On page 9 is a poem (Siqoqtaq) by Kay Vibbert. Kay is a retired mother of three living in Indianapolis, IN. She writes mainly nature poetry and some narrative, and has had her work published in The Electric Acorn, Facets, The Dallas Morning News, Lily, and The Criterion Newspaper.

My good friend, Sandy McGavin, is the subject of the article Squirrelly that begins on page 9. Well, actually, she and her three squirrel babies are the "focuses" of attention. Through the Texas Wildlife Rehabilitation Coalition (TWRC), Sandy receives and takes care of abandoned or injured baby squirrels brought in by the public. Along with her story is some direction regarding what to do if you find an abandoned or injured animal (pg. 13). A woman with a big and nurturing heart, Sandy shows how mothering goes far beyond the boundaries of our own families.

In our local poetry critique group here on the Gulf Coast, The Galveston Poets Roundtable, I put out a call for hurricane poetry and they faithfully responded. Each year the group sponsors a hurricane reading to stave off hurricanes. (Supposedly, this did not happen this year, and thus came Rita!)

I particularly appreciate the tension in the poems published in this issue…an honest look at the various feelings surrounding hurricanes. The three poets featured on page 11 include Michael Jansen (Exodus), Luis Vázquez (Dark Moment), and Adriana Babiak-Vázquez (On A Moonless Night).

Poet and writer Michael Jansen, author of the unpublished technothriller The ASP, is developing a second novel, The Borelli Brushfire. Michael, a member of Sol Magazine, was a Featured Poet of the 2004 and 2005 Houston Poetry Fest Out-of-Bounds Series, and of the Coffee Oasis Poetry Reading Series. By day he is an aerospace engineer with NASA; evenings he often reads his work at local poetry open mic events, such as those hosted by Barnes and Noble. Michael is married and has two children.

Luis Vázquez was born in New York City and raised in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. He is a systems engineer at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, but he has also been trying his hand at poetry and prose writing lately. His work has most recently been published in the Texas anthologies Marrow and Tales From the Asylum, and is forthcoming on Tidelines III: An Anthology of Galveston Writers. He lives in the Clear Lake area of Houston with his wife Adriana, who also likes to try her hand at writing on occasion.

I'm happy to say that Adrianna's work is also spotlighted in this issue (On A Moonless Night). A Texas native, writer Adriana Babiak-Vázquez is a member of the Monday Night Poets and with the group has been a featured poet at Barnes and Noble in Webster and the Houston Poetry Fest 2005.

Adriana has authored a series of poems, essays and short stories, winning a Best Narrative Essay award in Marrow, the University of Houston-Clear Lake's literary journal. She is currently working on a mystery novella set in Texas, while completing her Master of Arts degree in Humanities. Adriana is an MC of the Seabrook Coffee Oasis Reading Series, as well as an epidemiologist. She works for M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and lives in Clearlake with her husband, Luis.

Emily Kruse hails from Wilmington, NC and recently received her MFA in creative writing. Since then, she's been teaching creative writing courses at the University of North Carolina and general music for grades kindergarten through eighth at the Friends School of Wilmington. Her poetry has been published in Third Coast and the Exquisite Corpse, and she has poems forthcoming in Fire.

Emily's prose poem, Schoolchildren's Blizzard of 1814, echoes the ambivalence we feel about weather. As well, the lighter side of rain is reflected in her poem (pg. 14) Rainbows are Everywhere.

I'm grateful for the submissions for this issue, which contribute to the depth of the subject of our relationship with the earth, and the color of the nuances surrounding it.