The summer 2025 edition of The Orchards Poetry Journal (click to view) is live today, available on their website as a pdf or through Kelsay Books or Amazon. I ordered a few copies for myself. I noticed many nature-based poems in this edition. Writing about nature is almost always a win. I especially liked that there is a poem titled Turtle Life. I have been caring for reptiles, mostly Eastern Box Turtles, in wildlife rehab for years now, so I see the other side of what this poem expresses: at least some turtles that survive. It is often a *very slow* process, but turtles can recover from many injuries.
My own poem in this edition was inspired by the many wild crabapples in my very overgrown yard. We probably have 25 of them over the property, and in the spring, sometimes their blossoms are really dense. At the end of the bloom time, their petals fall off the trees at the slightest breeze, mimicking the snow and making the ground white. I only submitted this poem once even though I wrote bits of it in the Fall of 2024 and revised it early this Spring.
My author bio at the time Might was accepted (I cannot share a copy of the poem here). I also have several poems in local anthologies, including the first poem I had published in June 2024 (which I shared here previously). I have a few more forthcoming in Soul Poetry, Prose & Arts, Summer edition. And the short story about my dad.
