The Valley Between Mountains

I used to cover my hands
In the mud of the mountains,
Snatch the setting June sun
And watch it glow in my fist.

I remember the sounds:
Lighting bug wings tapping,
The sealed jar lid,
Flopping on their backs,
Sliding down the transparent glass.
The howl of a distant whistle,
The echo of laughter,
Illusions of liberty.

In this valley between mountains,
We’re taught to extinguish freedom.
We learn what was wild is wonderful
Only if it can be bottled,
Burned, mined, or mounted.

When the neighborhood sleeps,
The lightening bugs scatter,
To somewhere past the tracks,
Seeking taller grass.
Or high into the cloudless constellations,
The heavenly arboretum.

Come sunrise.
The abandoned jars
Collect dew on the front porch.
The mountain trees weep,
With mourning light.

We’re promised,
Scholarships and homecomings,
Welcome signs and wilderness.

But we do not learn to fly.
We do not know
We too are winged creatures.
We do not know
The laughter echoes at us.


Scholars, pressure us into diamonds.
Wash our hands of the dust.

I cannot recall when last I saw,
Trees filled with blinking lights,
Fairies suspended in the Potomac fog.
Or when last I reached,
Palms down, into the Appalachian dirt.

I learn
To spit upon the ground.
And hate the land that raised me,
To speak snobbish words,
To release bitter anger.

We learn resentment.
We are taught to laugh.
And for a moment,
When we find our noses in dictionaries,
Teaching our tongues not to trip,
We choose to forget.

The wise mountain asks,
Who do you think you are?
And the aching of my heart,
Teaches me that I have been unkind.

All I stand to lose is dirt,
River rocks and storm-blown branches,
Wind chimes and tumbling leaves.
If I leave,
All I stand to lose
Is everything.

The free fireflies fall from the skies,
The grass hugs my ankles in apology.
The stars align a new way.
Another train departs,
And I stay.

For there will always be fireflies
In the valley between mountains.
I lean against the sweet Maple
And forgive.
I open the jar lid,
And let go.

Contributor’s Note:
Alex Hay is an English major at Frostburg State University and plans to pursue her Master’s degree in Secondary Education. Raised in Mineral County, West Virginia, she attributes her respect of nature to the greater Western Maryland region’s landscape and to her family who always made sure she had the opportunity to explore the outdoors

Bad Decision Brew
Sydney Barmoy

I am a tea bag of poor decisions
and the only thing worse
than shitty tea,
is shitty cold tea.
Loose leaf sanity seeping
out of the holes burned in my skull,
the resulting caustic concoction left
unattended for too long.
More harmful to drink
without sympathetic sugar cubes.

The Hills Have Their Secrets
Rachel Schlosser

The grass tickled
Her palms and ankles.

She and the boy sat close,
But not touching.

Young and curious.
Why do adults kiss? Was it magic?

What did he think?

They agreed it would need to last
a couple of seconds to see if
the magic worked.

She watched his freckles blur.
They were cute, like stars.


They pulled apart. It was nothing
special. It was just skin against skin.
There is no taste
of danger; the adults had
not seeing them.
​

It was muddy under her palms.
It rained the night before.